Japan Habba

Japan Habba is a non-profit Japanese cultural festival in Bengaluru that has been built by the community for more than two decades. It brings traditional and contemporary Japan together in one place: music, performance, food, language, crafts, anime, manga, gaming, artists, Japanese companies, cultural organisations, and the many communities that have grown around them.

The festival is designed to be participated in rather than simply watched. People come as visitors, volunteers, artists, performers, exhibitors, communities, sponsors, and organisers. The 2025 edition had around 15,000 attendees. The next edition is being built as a larger two-day event for more than 25,000 people, with a concert, gaming events, international guests, and a much larger range of organisations participating.

The part I value most is that it remains a community project rather than a convention built because somebody identified a market. People have kept it alive because they care about it. Someone can arrive because they like anime, Japanese food, language, gaming, traditional crafts, or something completely unrelated, and leave having met people they would never otherwise have met.

That is also why I work on it. Experiences like Minna Shuugou changed how I think about community and what a meaningful life looks like outside work. Japan Habba gives me a way to help other people build that same kind of space at a much larger scale. My role is mainly around sponsorships, exhibitors, brands, and partnerships, because that is where my professional experience is most useful. The page should ultimately end with the 2025 aftermovie, because seeing the event explains it better than another paragraph can.