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.

In this February 4, 2016 picture a masked participant of the traditional carnival parade poses in the streets of the village of Kippel in the Loetschental valley, southwestern part of Switzerland. During this sinister carnival, participants wearing wooden masks and animal furs, crowd the streets of the villages to scare the people. (Photo by Dominic Steinmann/Keystone via AP Photo)

A view of popular train street in the old quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam on July 30, 2022. Hanoi Train Street is one of the most well-known and exciting tourist destinations in the city and trains pass the street twice a day close to buildings on either side of the tracks. (Photo by Chris Humphrey/Anadolu Agency via AFP Photo)

A Muslim boy takes part in Friday prayers on a street outside a mosque in Mumbai, India, June 24, 2016. (Photo by Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)

Children ride in the trunk of a car on a flooded street in Sanaa, Yemen August 1, 2016. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

People hold umbrellas as they walk past a flooded street in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China, July 19, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A knight parades in the street during the traditional carnival parade in Cologne, western Germany, Monday, February 16, 2015. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)

People are reflected in a shop window as they walk along a street in a shopping district in Tokyo, Japan June 25, 2015. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)