Yes, I love Japan's traditional culture. Geiko and Maiko are amazing. Kabuki -- it's great! Samurai are pretty cool too. But you know. What really got me into discovering Japan was its popular culture!
Which is why I went to a festival today! The nerdiest festival in existence perhaps? Maybe if it was in America. But in Japan, this event felt very very natural.
Denden Matsuri is a big festival held in Nippombashi, more specifically in Denden Town. They close off the whole street for about five hours or so and let the anime fanatics of Japan take it over. The big draw at the event seemed to be mainly the cosplay (short for costume play -- in short, people dress up as anime characters and have fun acting as the character). There were so many people cosplaying! The remainder of people that weren't cosplaying were taking pictures of the people cosplaying, so that's my only guess. It seems that this is also a way for the businesses and stores (especially maid cafes) to get their names out there and promote their establishments. There were a lot of sales, but I was so busy looking at all of the cosplay and taking pictures that I didn't even step into one store -- which is surprising for me! XD
Here's a glimpse of about how many people were there. I apologize for the bad camera skills. Unfortunately, it's hard to control a camera when you're on your tip toes holding the thing as high in the air as you can.
The event started off with a parade with a marching band and everything. Personally, I thought the marching band was very talented! Here's a video of them playing (weirdly enough), National Emblem, which has a very American flavor. Random trivia - I played this march in an honors band! ^-^ After the band was a parade of officials of the event. And then after that you can pause it because we weren't sure if there was more stuff coming immediately after that or not.
Next was a parade of shops and stuff. The samurai people at the beginning were cool. I really don't know what they were from, but they were in charge of the clean up parade at the end of the event, which I do have a video for. It was super windy so one of the guy's banners totally broke, which is why you hear a bit of a collective gasp. After that, there is a model of a robotic Osaka tower, followed by various other merchants with signs about sales and things.
While we were waiting for the Cosplay parade to start, these random people were up at a window waving at everyone:
Cosplay parade! It wasn't much, and there were tons of other awesome cosplayers that didn't participate in the parade, but it was still nice to see! Vocaloids are super popular right now in Japan, so that was what the big deal with the similar looking characters at the beginning was all about. The bouncing rabbit guy was pretty sweet too! He wore these stilts that had some kind of bouncing mechanism on them, so he was bouncing around the street everywhere. Also -- Tuxedo Mask of Sailor Moon fame was there at the end. Kaylie died! XD
After the cosplay parade was the maid parade. Yes. The maid parade. There are cafes across Japan in niche anime-marketed areas that mix a cute, almost fetish-esque fascination with lolita-style maids with the deliciousness of food and service! The maids themselves, at least the ones in Tokyo, are almost like celebrities, and they have figurines made of their likenesses that are sold in figurine shops. Personally, working in a maid cafe would be one of the best jobs I could think of -- you get to dress in cute clothes all day and have everyone think you're the best thing since velcro! Anyway, here are the Denden town maids in all of their glory, being cute. The part when the wind gusts is hilarious because they all started squealing in such a coquettish way... I'm sure the males who frequent these places enjoyed that bit, as well as the threat of their skirts blowing up... :x
And that was the end of the parade. It was a pretty unceremonious ending for something that got built up so much. After that, people immediately started going around searching for cosplayers to take pictures of! Weirdly enough, we glimpsed a Japanese photographer taking pictures of us. I mean...I did look really cute today, so maybe he thought so too? Or maybe he just likes to take pictures of everyone! Who knows...
The environment was so fun. Everyone got really excited when they would see someone doing a very popular character, or a rare character that everyone loves. It was so nice that the event seemed cool or trendy, as opposed to having a nerdy connotation like anime conventions have in America. Also, the detail that goes into the construction of these costumes is just mind-blowing. I missed pictures of some really nice cosplays, but they'll definitely stick in my mind. I'm inspired to cosplay now ^-^!
Anyway, here's all the pictures I took at the event. There's a lot of them, so hold on to your hats! I didn't know the names of a lot of the series that I took pictures of characters from...
Here we go!
The girl in the front was super cold :x
Ciel Phantomhive and potentially the version of him when he had to cross-dress(?) from Kuroshitsuji!
Can you spy Spider-Man? I would've taken it from the front, but...well...he looked at me and it was creepy.
There's a guy up there -- we joked around that he was a sniper!
A famous Japanese icon of some sort. We definitely saw him on a sign on the train on the way back home!
A friend tells me this is from the Nico Nico Douga website, a site similar to YouTube only saturated with mainly anime and video game content.
Yu-Gi-Oh Cosplay! Seto Kaiba and Yugi Moto. All I have to say is that Kaiba is quite attractive. And so are his pants! XD
Another group of Yu-Gi-Oh! cosplayers. The Yugi has AMAZING hair. Even though it looks plastic, I guarantee you that it was all hair of some sort, whether it be natural or from a wig. The sculpting that went into it was amazing. I never thought it was actually possible to do his hair right, and yet...someone did!
Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that this is full of awesome.
I missed the nice Hatsune Miku (girl with the teal hair) , but I got a cute maid instead! XD
Tsukasa from Lucky Star. Kagami is next to her, but you can't see her well in the first one. Thankfully I saw them again! My friend and I, who I call my twin, use these two characters as symbols for our twin-ness, so I was excited ^-^!
Sakura and Tomoyo (Madison for those of you who only know the English character names) from Cardcaptor Sakura, one of my favorite anime! The girl who did Tomoyo is so pretty *-*
Epic pose.
Not exactly cosplay...but it's awesome fashion sense! At least in my opinion. The tutus are from Bodyline :P
Vocaloid!
Not sure where they're from -- excellent costumes though ^-^
Some very giggly maids from a maid cafe get interviewed about the event by a TV station.
Kaylie said these are people from Gundam. So here you are -- some people from Gundam.
A hilarious sign -- it says "Welcome" in two different ways with an old lady maid bowing you in. XD
This man was attractive. :3
One of those inflatable bouncing things that kids play in at big events -- Japan is no exception.
Nightmarish kigurumi (literally means wearable stuffed animals) -- p...pika?
These girls gathered quite the crowd -- three guesses why? Apparently they're from Gantz.
Friends of the Gantz girls.
Wall of photographers! Including this really adorable Luffy cosplayer! Go One Piece!
Robot box head girl. Yay? XD
SOLID SNAKE!!! from the Metal Gear series. Oh -- and Bayonetta in the BG.
Final Fantasy XII! The guy as Snow in the middle looks disturbingly exactly like the original character. I find him to be quite attractive... -^-^-;
This is a horrible picture...BUT! This frilly dress is from my favorite Lolita clothing designer, Angelic Pretty. I was so excited to be able to see it in person!
One Piece group! Enemy people in the back! From left to right, Barthomew Kuma, Crocodile, Don Quixote Doflamingo, Blackbeard, Hawkeyes Mihawk. In the front! Hancock and Luffy!
Kuma couldn't hold up his costume anymore...so here's a modified group picture ^^.
Daw... :3
Kuma disillusioning eveyrone by removing his costume. People were telling him "お疲れ様！" (otsukare sama), a ritualistic phrase for praising someone for their hard work.
Sad Kuma is sad.
An amazing Ergo Proxy cosplay! Lil's there too.
This guy was playing some kind of music on this mouth organ. He was pretty good at it. Why the mouth organ...I don't know :x
Yes yes yes yes yes!!! Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece! This guy made me so darn happy, along with a whole slew of other people. Everytime someone would notice him, they would get so excited! I'm glad I found him. I'd like to say that kiss in the last one was aimed toward me...but..well...I doubt this is true.
Nyaha. Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist! Why the giant boots though...?
She strikes fear in the hearts of all. She is -- Darth Loli.
Maid taking a short break from advertising her workplace outside of an arcade to pose for a picture!
Maids advertising their cafe!
The crowd to get this One Piece group's pictures was so intensely large that I had to resort to the ol' "put the camera up in the air, aim, and hope you got a good one" technique. Therefore, none of these are very good, so I put all of them. Bon Clay made it in again to the joy of everyone around! Law (the guy (as in the girl dressed as a guy) in the yellow) was excellently done!
Don't know the series...sweet costumes!
I think it's a pokemon....
They looked cool :3
Jewelry Bonney from One Piece!
Go! Go! Power Rangers~♪
PONY! PONY PONY!
I'm not even going to attempt to explain this one. Ahahaha...
The version of Ciel Phantomhive when he is forced to cross-dress. Poor Ciel...so many people get enjoyment out of cosplaying his misfortune.
Not sure...:x
It was refreshing to only see two Narutos in a Japanese setting. Thank goodness!
Yep. This is what I'm talking about. A very attractive (at least to me) Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII/Crisis Core!
These girls were awesome. They cosplayed as gaijin! They were reeeeally good!
It was so cool!
Anyway, at the end of event, there was a "Clean-Up Parade." The police made everyone get to the side of the road so that the samurai people from earlier could go through and clean up the street. It was such a Japanese thing to do! Here's a video:
Bonus:
"Hanagawa forever!"
If you get the joke, you get +10 awesome points.
Which is why I went to a festival today! The nerdiest festival in existence perhaps? Maybe if it was in America. But in Japan, this event felt very very natural.
Denden Matsuri is a big festival held in Nippombashi, more specifically in Denden Town. They close off the whole street for about five hours or so and let the anime fanatics of Japan take it over. The big draw at the event seemed to be mainly the cosplay (short for costume play -- in short, people dress up as anime characters and have fun acting as the character). There were so many people cosplaying! The remainder of people that weren't cosplaying were taking pictures of the people cosplaying, so that's my only guess. It seems that this is also a way for the businesses and stores (especially maid cafes) to get their names out there and promote their establishments. There were a lot of sales, but I was so busy looking at all of the cosplay and taking pictures that I didn't even step into one store -- which is surprising for me! XD
Here's a glimpse of about how many people were there. I apologize for the bad camera skills. Unfortunately, it's hard to control a camera when you're on your tip toes holding the thing as high in the air as you can.
The event started off with a parade with a marching band and everything. Personally, I thought the marching band was very talented! Here's a video of them playing (weirdly enough), National Emblem, which has a very American flavor. Random trivia - I played this march in an honors band! ^-^ After the band was a parade of officials of the event. And then after that you can pause it because we weren't sure if there was more stuff coming immediately after that or not.
Next was a parade of shops and stuff. The samurai people at the beginning were cool. I really don't know what they were from, but they were in charge of the clean up parade at the end of the event, which I do have a video for. It was super windy so one of the guy's banners totally broke, which is why you hear a bit of a collective gasp. After that, there is a model of a robotic Osaka tower, followed by various other merchants with signs about sales and things.
While we were waiting for the Cosplay parade to start, these random people were up at a window waving at everyone:
Cosplay parade! It wasn't much, and there were tons of other awesome cosplayers that didn't participate in the parade, but it was still nice to see! Vocaloids are super popular right now in Japan, so that was what the big deal with the similar looking characters at the beginning was all about. The bouncing rabbit guy was pretty sweet too! He wore these stilts that had some kind of bouncing mechanism on them, so he was bouncing around the street everywhere. Also -- Tuxedo Mask of Sailor Moon fame was there at the end. Kaylie died! XD
After the cosplay parade was the maid parade. Yes. The maid parade. There are cafes across Japan in niche anime-marketed areas that mix a cute, almost fetish-esque fascination with lolita-style maids with the deliciousness of food and service! The maids themselves, at least the ones in Tokyo, are almost like celebrities, and they have figurines made of their likenesses that are sold in figurine shops. Personally, working in a maid cafe would be one of the best jobs I could think of -- you get to dress in cute clothes all day and have everyone think you're the best thing since velcro! Anyway, here are the Denden town maids in all of their glory, being cute. The part when the wind gusts is hilarious because they all started squealing in such a coquettish way... I'm sure the males who frequent these places enjoyed that bit, as well as the threat of their skirts blowing up... :x
And that was the end of the parade. It was a pretty unceremonious ending for something that got built up so much. After that, people immediately started going around searching for cosplayers to take pictures of! Weirdly enough, we glimpsed a Japanese photographer taking pictures of us. I mean...I did look really cute today, so maybe he thought so too? Or maybe he just likes to take pictures of everyone! Who knows...
The environment was so fun. Everyone got really excited when they would see someone doing a very popular character, or a rare character that everyone loves. It was so nice that the event seemed cool or trendy, as opposed to having a nerdy connotation like anime conventions have in America. Also, the detail that goes into the construction of these costumes is just mind-blowing. I missed pictures of some really nice cosplays, but they'll definitely stick in my mind. I'm inspired to cosplay now ^-^!
Anyway, here's all the pictures I took at the event. There's a lot of them, so hold on to your hats! I didn't know the names of a lot of the series that I took pictures of characters from...
Here we go!
The girl in the front was super cold :x
Ciel Phantomhive and potentially the version of him when he had to cross-dress(?) from Kuroshitsuji!
Can you spy Spider-Man? I would've taken it from the front, but...well...he looked at me and it was creepy.
There's a guy up there -- we joked around that he was a sniper!
A famous Japanese icon of some sort. We definitely saw him on a sign on the train on the way back home!
A friend tells me this is from the Nico Nico Douga website, a site similar to YouTube only saturated with mainly anime and video game content.
Yu-Gi-Oh Cosplay! Seto Kaiba and Yugi Moto. All I have to say is that Kaiba is quite attractive. And so are his pants! XD
Another group of Yu-Gi-Oh! cosplayers. The Yugi has AMAZING hair. Even though it looks plastic, I guarantee you that it was all hair of some sort, whether it be natural or from a wig. The sculpting that went into it was amazing. I never thought it was actually possible to do his hair right, and yet...someone did!
Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that this is full of awesome.
I missed the nice Hatsune Miku (girl with the teal hair) , but I got a cute maid instead! XD
Tsukasa from Lucky Star. Kagami is next to her, but you can't see her well in the first one. Thankfully I saw them again! My friend and I, who I call my twin, use these two characters as symbols for our twin-ness, so I was excited ^-^!
Sakura and Tomoyo (Madison for those of you who only know the English character names) from Cardcaptor Sakura, one of my favorite anime! The girl who did Tomoyo is so pretty *-*
Epic pose.
Not exactly cosplay...but it's awesome fashion sense! At least in my opinion. The tutus are from Bodyline :P
Vocaloid!
Not sure where they're from -- excellent costumes though ^-^
Some very giggly maids from a maid cafe get interviewed about the event by a TV station.
Kaylie said these are people from Gundam. So here you are -- some people from Gundam.
A hilarious sign -- it says "Welcome" in two different ways with an old lady maid bowing you in. XD
This man was attractive. :3
One of those inflatable bouncing things that kids play in at big events -- Japan is no exception.
Nightmarish kigurumi (literally means wearable stuffed animals) -- p...pika?
These girls gathered quite the crowd -- three guesses why? Apparently they're from Gantz.
Friends of the Gantz girls.
Wall of photographers! Including this really adorable Luffy cosplayer! Go One Piece!
Robot box head girl. Yay? XD
SOLID SNAKE!!! from the Metal Gear series. Oh -- and Bayonetta in the BG.
Final Fantasy XII! The guy as Snow in the middle looks disturbingly exactly like the original character. I find him to be quite attractive... -^-^-;
This is a horrible picture...BUT! This frilly dress is from my favorite Lolita clothing designer, Angelic Pretty. I was so excited to be able to see it in person!
One Piece group! Enemy people in the back! From left to right, Barthomew Kuma, Crocodile, Don Quixote Doflamingo, Blackbeard, Hawkeyes Mihawk. In the front! Hancock and Luffy!
Kuma couldn't hold up his costume anymore...so here's a modified group picture ^^.
Daw... :3
Kuma disillusioning eveyrone by removing his costume. People were telling him "お疲れ様！" (otsukare sama), a ritualistic phrase for praising someone for their hard work.
Sad Kuma is sad.
An amazing Ergo Proxy cosplay! Lil's there too.
This guy was playing some kind of music on this mouth organ. He was pretty good at it. Why the mouth organ...I don't know :x
Yes yes yes yes yes!!! Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece! This guy made me so darn happy, along with a whole slew of other people. Everytime someone would notice him, they would get so excited! I'm glad I found him. I'd like to say that kiss in the last one was aimed toward me...but..well...I doubt this is true.
Nyaha. Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist! Why the giant boots though...?
She strikes fear in the hearts of all. She is -- Darth Loli.
Maid taking a short break from advertising her workplace outside of an arcade to pose for a picture!
Maids advertising their cafe!
The crowd to get this One Piece group's pictures was so intensely large that I had to resort to the ol' "put the camera up in the air, aim, and hope you got a good one" technique. Therefore, none of these are very good, so I put all of them. Bon Clay made it in again to the joy of everyone around! Law (the guy (as in the girl dressed as a guy) in the yellow) was excellently done!
Don't know the series...sweet costumes!
I think it's a pokemon....
They looked cool :3
Jewelry Bonney from One Piece!
Go! Go! Power Rangers~♪
PONY! PONY PONY!I'm not even going to attempt to explain this one. Ahahaha...
The version of Ciel Phantomhive when he is forced to cross-dress. Poor Ciel...so many people get enjoyment out of cosplaying his misfortune.
Not sure...:x
It was refreshing to only see two Narutos in a Japanese setting. Thank goodness!
Yep. This is what I'm talking about. A very attractive (at least to me) Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII/Crisis Core!
These girls were awesome. They cosplayed as gaijin! They were reeeeally good!It was so cool!
Anyway, at the end of event, there was a "Clean-Up Parade." The police made everyone get to the side of the road so that the samurai people from earlier could go through and clean up the street. It was such a Japanese thing to do! Here's a video:
Bonus:
"Hanagawa forever!"If you get the joke, you get +10 awesome points.
dayum... is that what the parade was like? LOL
ReplyDeletelooooooooool yeah XD
ReplyDeleteThe Gantz cosplayers did make me spazz. :p as did the Kuroshitsuji ones!! Sebastian's my favorite, but Ciel's cool too. haha. Spring in Japan just seems so cool.
ReplyDeleteThere totally was a pretty attractive Sebastian with another Ciel, but we were tagging along with two other people at the time, so I didn't have time to stop. It was good stuff ^-^
ReplyDelete