Amin Abbas
DUBAI: Sumi is a professional Middle Eastern artist who has achieved over 10 million views across various platforms on social media and has been able to attract a global audience with her covers of anime songs as well as her expertise in cosplay.
The artist sings in four languages: Arabic, Japanese, English, and German. She has performed in various countries, such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Japan, uniting people through music and cosplay.
“I’ve been a gamer and a fan of anime since I was young and I’ve known about the culture since then,” she told Arab News Japan, adding that her favorite anime series are ‘Attack on Titan,’ ‘Solo Leveling,’ ‘Sailor Moon,’ ‘Kakegurui,’ and ‘Hell Girl.’
Sumi started cosplaying in 2013. “I wanted to do cosplays for fairy tale characters that I see in games and anime. I (then) got the project with Bandai Namco for ‘Tales of Arise’ game cosplay and other major companies. Time was always an issue to me. there is no enough time to finish everything.”
About the challenges that she faced as a cosplayer in the Middle East, Sumi said, “Some people still think of cosplay as a kid (thing) and not (as) an art. Cosplayers need to be more friendly to each other, as they should be acting as one family, as our numbers are few.”
Sumi has visited Japan multiple times, and she is looking to visit it again this year. She previously visited Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya.
Regarding her upcoming projects, the artist said she is currently more focused on singing. “I have my first Japanese original coming this month under the name ‘Kouro,’” she told Arab News Japan. “I will include cosplay in some of my shows and make my own (original) character for Sumi.”