Animefest in Brno is the biggest Czech festival of Asian culture. It grew from an anime fan con to a huge festival about anime and Japan culture, and in 2025 it even widened its program with Korean artists and events. From the beginning of the festival long queue of people far away from the bus stop to the festival gates attracted the eyes of the people in the city.

This year the festival theme was Retro, featuring videos from the festival history. Traditionally it held place in Brno Exhibition grounds and lasted for 3 whole days from 23.05. to 25.05. The program included lectures about Asian culture, cosplay shows, concerts, dance and martial arts performances, anime screenings, and plenty of places to buy anime or Asian themed merchandise and food.

It’s a tradition that the ambassador of Japan in Czech Republic himself joins the opening of the festival, but this year was first to welcome even the Korean embassy representatives. The opening show included a performance with dancers and drums. After followed a concert from MION, an award-winning Japanese singer-songwriter. She performed both her own songs and anime opening songs, and taught the audience to act like a true Japanese fans.

More Japanese and Korean bands followed in the evening, attracting major audience.

A lot of attendees were wearing costumes and participating in cosplay gatherings and games.

For the curious minds there were over 60 lectures and workshops over different topics related to Asian culture, anime, movies, video games, cosplay, and other. Even if a visitor wasn’t interested in lectures, workshops, shows and screenings, they could easily spend a whole day (or more!) in other activities, offered on a festival. One option was definitely browsing different merchandise, such as plushies, bags, t-shirts, jewellery, action figures and games, both from the big selling companies and small independent artists. The other option was to play games in board games section, arcade machines, VR, LAN or other. And for the lovers of good food there were plenty of options to try, from Asian fast food to dried crickets.

For more information visit Animefest.