Cosplay in Japan

As many of you know from my other post, last weekend I went to a gaming convention in Tokyo called Tokyo Game Show. I must admit, one of the things I was most looking forward to was the cosplay. For those of you who don't know, cosplay is when people dress up as their favorite video game or anime character typically for something like a convention. I wanted to point out what I thought were some major differences between cosplay in the USA and here in Japan.
Disclaimer: Theses are all my observations from going to ONE convention. I in no way am claiming to be an expert on cosplay in Japan. Enjoy!
1.) If they are going to cosplay, they are going to do it RIGHT! All of the costumes I saw were beautiful and amazingly well done which is not the case in the USA.
2.) Stopping people on the convention floor is a big no-no. In America, I do this freely. Stopping and asking for people's pictures as I see them. Doesn't work that way here. All cosplay photos are taken in a separate location.
3.) Cosplayers are rock stars. No, literally. There were fanboys asking for autographs and professional photographers set up everywhere.
4.) Manners, manners, manners. You have to make sure you ask before taking pictures as some of the girls are actual models. Also, people stand in a line to take the best photos possible. No group huddling.
5.) Sexy! So, I was really surprised by how revealing and overtly sexual a lot of the female cosplayers were. They were wearing next to nothing and even when fully clothed were laying on the floor with their fingers in their mouths or imitating other very sexual poses. I don't know why this surprised me so much but it did. I thought cosplayers here were classier than that...oh well!
These are just some of the major differences that I noted. Enjoy some pictures!

What up giant robot?!

Just hanging out

To start people off, they would have their friends take a picture or they would take a picture of themselves.

Tokyo Game Show

This story starts with one of my parent lessons on Friday. I asked my student what she was doing this weekend. She replied that she was going to a video game convention. I had to keep my poker face and not completely geek out at her. "Oh, really?", I coolly replied, "Where is this convention at?" I hoped I could get some details out of her. She told me in Chiba. I lit up on the inside. Only two hours away from here! I explained that I'm also a video game fan and would love to hear more about it. We ended up talking about video games for 20 mins. Parent lessons ftw!
Anyway, my first response was to quickly post my excitement on facebook. I instantly got a reply from a friend close by that he wanted to come as well. We made some plans and I now had a con buddy :)
I started the day off early, catching a 6:23 AM train. We made our way to Chiba on a crowded two hour train ride. Luckily, Japanese conventions are much more organized than their American counter parts so we got into the convention floor at 10:15 only 15 mins after it opened which was impressive considering we were in a line that wrapped around the building. When we entered, we were greeted by the booths of many a great video game companies.

Here we are!!

Konami booth

Bandai/Namco booth where we stopped to see a game announcement

Sega booth

Square Enix Booth

X-box Japan

Birds eye view of the floor

It was an amazing experience! I got to see a whole bunch of games that are about to come out including: the new Halo, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter X Tekken, Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball games that are coming out, Battlefield 3, Project Diva, Sonic Generations, and many more. I also got to see and play with the new Playstation Vita!
It was more exciting to be able to play the games! I played Soul Caliber V, Mass Effect 3, Dance Central 2, Michael Jackson Experience, and (the highlight of the day) Ni No Kuni the new Studio Ghibli game which was incredible. It was stunningly beautiful. One of the things that got me was how wonderful the music was. It really completed the game and I look forward to buying once an English version is released!

A small picture of the game. Shhh...I wasn't supposed to take a picture :p

Another highlight was seeing a vocaloid performance. For those of you who don't know, these are Japanese pop stars that are not real. The girls "sing" using a computer program and "perform" using holograms. It was quite the incredible experience to see one.

The picture does it no justice, sorry.

Next time, I'll fill you in on my experience with cosplayers at the convention.