The eighth annual Nipponbashi Street Festa stamped Osaka March 20, 2012 (Nipponbashi is Osaka’s geek district – much like Akihabara is for Tokyo). Cosplayers turned up in colourful outfits, dressing as characters from their favourite manga, anime, and video games. The street was closed to cars, and otaku flooded the streets, snapping pics, cosplaying, and hanging out.

Couples participate in the “Running of the Brides” race in a park in Bangkok November 29, 2014. Seventy-five husbands and wives-to-be wore their wedding dresses and running shoes and competed in an event for a combined prize worth 1 million Thai baht ($30,460). (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Men dressed as Vikings lead the torchlight procession as it makes its way along Princess Street for the start of the New Year celebrations December 30, 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Thousands of people joined in the torchlight procession, which is followed by the burning of a Viking long ship, to mark the start of Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

Parade goers during Brighton Pride Parade on August 03, 2019 in Brighton, England. Tens of thousands of revellers dressed in rainbow colours and elaborate costumes and descended on the seaside city to ask for equality for all. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images)

In this November 11, 2017 photo, children dressed in traditional outfits play during the Azorean Culture Festival which celebrates the culture of the Azores, the Portuguese island chain in the mid-Atlantic, in Enseada de Brito, in Brazil's Santa Catarina southern state. “We have to make sure that our culture always stays alive, not let it die”, said Andre Cordeiro, who leads one of the singing and dancing groups that performed this year. “We are able to pass it on from generation to generation”. (Photo by Eraldo Peres/AP Photo)

A masked participant carries a burning matress during the ancient carnival of Zubieta, in the northern Spanish Navarra province on January 30, 2018. The yearly three day festivities, revolving mainly around agriculture and principally sheep hearding, run on the last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of January where Navarra Valley locals from two villages dress up and participate in a variety of activites as they perform a pilgrimage through each village. (Photo by Ander Gillenea/AFP Photo)

Participant Andreea Teodorescu, 17, races on a snowboard during the Bikini Race contest held at Arena Platos Paltinis winter resort, near Sibiu city, 275 km north from Bucharest, Romania, 04 March 2018. The Bikini Race is a timed show on the slopes, at the sixth edition, for women dressed only in swimmsuits and some winter accessories. (Photo by Mircea Rosca/EPA/EFE)

Carnival participants dressed in costume and wearing body paint pose for a group picture during the annual Zambo carnival held in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli on March 14, 2021, marking the last period of excess on the eve of the Christian Greek Orthodox lent. The inspiration of the annual Zambo celebration is unclear, despite it being a tradition that stretches back over a century to when an emigrant to Brazil returned to his native Tripoli bringing the carnival with him. (Photo by Ibrahim Chalhoub/AFP Photo)