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Welcome to the cosplay scene at Comiket…wait, what’s going on there??

Krista Rogers Aug 18, 2014
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It’s that time of the year again! Comiket, the world’s largest dōjinshi fair that’s held twice per year, is currently in full swing again at Tokyo Big Sight on Odaiba, the artificial island located in Tokyo Bay. Manga fans from around the world are lining up in droves and enduring hour-long waits in the hot sun just to get into the exhibition rooms that are jam-packed with merchandise.

Naturally, a comic festival as big as Comiket draws a ton of cosplayers, and while there are some truly impressive costumes out there, there are some other, shall we say, more unusual sights to be seen. Take the above picture, for example–what on earth is happening here??

On Thursday, one Twitter user posted an alarming photo of a cosplayer who appears to be completely cool with the fact that there are a crowd of cameras looking up her skirt:

https://twitter.com/sato2ch/statuses/500136714380132352

“The cosplay area was incredible…”

This bizarre sight reminds us of pictures from another cosplay event held back in March, which also showed a similar number of cameras vying to get the perfect angle for a cosplay panty shot. Apparently there’s an actual market for these kinds of photos, so for the photographers involved, it was strictly business as usual. Or so we hope…

The situation is made funnier if you take a moment to figure out who the girl is portraying. She’s dressed as Shimakaze, a character from the online card game Kantai Collection (“KanColle”), for which an anime series will begin airing in January 2015.

▼Kantai Collection’s Shimakaze. Shimakaze means “Island Wind.”

But that’s not all, because all the cute girls featured in Kantai Collection are actually personified ships and submarines from WWII!

Here’s the real Shimakaze, a destroyer in the Imperial Japanese Navy which was launched in July 1942 and sunk in November 1944 off the coast of the Philippines:

▼Hey guys, spot any of Shimakaze‘s 15 torpedo tubes up there?

Regardless of whether this qualifies as ‘work’ or not, Japanese forum viewers were quick to voice their distaste for the scene:

“Yuck.”

“Gross.”

“I’m speechless…”

“People of the world, this is Japan’s Comiket!”

“It’s ridiculous this kind of stuff is allowed in the first place.”

“They’re cockroaches.”

“It’s amazing the cosplayer’s going along with it.”

“When I see other cosplay festivals overseas, there’s not a single person being photographed from this angle. I’m embarrassed as a Japanese person…”

We do have to wonder what’s going through the cosplayer’s head, since she seems perfectly content with all the attention. Oh Japan, yet again you leave us with another mystery to solve…

Source: Hamusoku
Images: Wikipedia, Kancolle Wiki