Animation culture is infiltrating into the lives of Shanghai teenagers in a big way, if a new exhibition is any indication.

At the opening of an animation exhibition that began yesterday at Super Brand Shopping Mall in Pudong, hundreds of local youngsters queued up to get the signatures of guest cartoonists.

The show features about 2,000 animation works from China, South Korea and Japan.

The six-day exhibit comes less than a week after a similar event was held at the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The show attracted more than 200,000 visitors during its 16-day run.

"The popularity of manga is phenomenal," said Guo Feng, general manager of the exhibition company that organized the show. "Shanghai kids are picking up the trends from their counterparts in Japan and South Korea very quickly."

Manga is the Japanese word of comics.

For some fans, the exhibition provides not only a place to see, but to be seen. In a practice known as "costume play" or "cosplay," they get fully dressed up to impersonate cartoon characters to immerse themselves completely into the cartoon world.

(Shanghai Daily August 23, 2003)