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cosplay (Page 36)

“2D vs. Katana” exhibition shows off recreations of swords from anime and video games in Osaka

Casey Baseel
Dec 20, 2014
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Last year, Tokyo’s Ueno Royal Museum held an exhibition of Japanese swords inspired by the mechanical and character designs of landmark anime Evangelion. As cool as some of the pieces looked, though, you won’t find any scenes in the giant robot franchise where someone actually fights using a katana.

On the other hand, right now the Osaka Museum of History is holding an event that goes even further in bridging the gap between fantasy and reality, by displaying recreations of amazing blades seen in anime, manga, and light novel illustrations.

Japan
(anime • awesome • cool • cosplay • events • history • manga • museums • swords • video games)

CosBox: A rentable room in Tokyo for creating cosplay masterpieces

Krista Rogers
Dec 18, 2014

Just the other day, we brought you news of HACOSTADIUM, a photography studio equipped with over 40 backdrops to create all of your dream cosplay scenarios. But let’s take one step back now–just where are you supposed to design those fabulous costumes in the first place?

Introducing CosBox (コスバコ), a rentable room outfitted with all of your costume-making needs. It just opened this month in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, and its managers are offering some serious opening month deals. Whether you’re a diehard cosplay fanatic or are just breaking into the hobby, CosBox may be the perfect place to prepare for your next big convention!

Japan
(Akihabara • CosBox • cosplay • costumes • sewing)

Cosplayers visiting Japan, this is your wonderland! Over 40 realistic backdrops in one place!

Joan Coello
Dec 17, 2014

Anybody can cosplay, but achieving beautiful cosplay photos raises the difficulty level by quite a fair bit. You can tailor the perfect costume, create the most realistic props, complete the look with impeccable makeup, and practice to get every pose spot on, but a suitable backdrop isn’t always easily available.

Finding an appropriate backdrop to compliment your cosplay would be much easier if you were in Japan though. HACOSTADIUM is a mega photography studio that has over 40 different backdrops ranging from Japanese rooms to gothic chambers, and even prison cells! More details and photos of the actual studios after the jump!

Japan
(Anime Cosplay • cool • cosplay • photography)

It’s almost Christmas! Time to buy a sexy, freaky, or inexplicable costume!【Photos】

ロケットニュース24
Dec 17, 2014

Bells are jingling, gift lists are daunting, and snow is…not falling in Tokyo. That can mean only one thing: Christmas, Japan’s favorite romantic holiday, is almost here! While your crazy uncle might tell you that Christmas is apparently under siege in some parts of the world, the only holiday worry you’ll find in Japan is getting the right present for your girlfriend.

But don’t be fooled by all the lovers roaming the streets and tormenting lonely single folks, it’s not all romance. There’s more to the season that kissing atop Tokyo Tower–there are also parties and cosplay! Join us after the jump to check out some of the typical outfit offerings on sale in Japan this Christmas.

Japan
(Christmas • cosplay • costumes • party)

Fan creates cosplay bag from favorite anime series by attaching severed heads of its characters

Casey Baseel
Dec 13, 2014

You can’t talk about the currently airing anime Terra Formars, and the manga it’s based on, without touching on the designs for its humanoid cockroach antagonists. Almost everyone finds them unsettling, but that discomfort isn’t just being caused by their intimidatingly muscled physiques and blank stares. A vocal group of international anime fans also contend that they don’t so much resemble the sturdy six-legged bugs the series’ creator cites as their inspiration as much as racist caricatures of people of African heritage.

Japanese society tends to not be so reflective on the implications, whether intentional or not, that its domestically produced fiction carries when it trickles out to a global audience, though. The debate over whether or not Terra Formars’ art is insensitive or not is largely non-existent in Japan, where the aliens are taken at face value as fictional characters in a fictional setting. As such, fans feel no qualms wearing their love of the show on their sleeve, or, in the case of one cosplay enthusiast, on his bag, which is decked out with what look to be the severed heads of the divisive characters.

Japan
(anime • cosplay • manga • weird)

Avengers assemble! In a Chinese college student’s house【Photos】

KK Miller
Dec 13, 2014

Once you finally finish your years of study in high school and get into a good university, it’s party time! Or…do nothing time. Some people occupy their new-found free time with Netflix queues, watching the latest and greatest television shows and movies. Others take the opportunity to let their creative juices flow and make some really awesome things. One college senior in China decided that just watching super heroes on a screen was not enough, he figured he could become those heroes instead. How awesome would it be to punch the great evil known as homework when you look like Captain America?

China
(Avengers • cool • cosplay • costumes • creative)

State of the otaku union – Survey reveals vocaloids up, adult games down in 2014

Casey Baseel
Dec 11, 2014

Long ago, being an otaku, one of Japan’s hyper-obsessive subculture fans, made you sort of an outcast. People, especially respectable adults, didn’t really want to look at you, either out of embarrassment for your childish hobbies, or perhaps fear that having spent the last three days indoors had given you a case of shut-in cooties that would jump onto them.

That’s starting to change, though. More and more people are becoming comfortable identifying themselves as otaku, and while some still worry their fixations on fantasy are a drain on society, they’re definitely a boost to the economy, as shown by a survey that indicates spending is up in several sectors of the otaku world.

Japan
(anime • cosplay • Idols • music • otaku • video games • vocaloids)

Up your cosplay game by shooting fire from your hands

Anime News Network
Dec 10, 2014

Ellusionist has released the ultimate cosplay accessory—the Pyro Fireshooter, which allows you to literally shoot fireballs from your hands thanks to a $174 gadget that is “definitely not a toy.”

Japan
(Anime News Network • cosplay • fire ball)

Nausicaä re-imagined as an action movie! Check out this awesome fan art!

Evie Nyan
Dec 9, 2014

We love awesome art here at RocketNews24, especially when it features characters that are close to our hearts being re-imagined in different and striking ways. Recently, we brought you some pretty sweet fan art depicting a scene from Princess Mononoke. Now we’d like to continue the Ghibli theme by sharing this piece that re-imagines Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as an action movie! There’s Nausicaä in her Ghibli form above, but the fan art itself can be viewed after the jump!

Global, Internet, Japan
(cosplay • digital art • fan art • Ghibli • Nausicaa • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind • Studio Ghibli)

Un-bear-ably cute! Munchkin the Shih-Tzu hits the treadmill in teddy costume【VIDEO】

Evie Nyan
Dec 2, 2014

If you’re feeling a little blue at the start of another work week and need an adorable pick-me up, perhaps we can interest you in a fuzzy doggy waggling her way through an intense gym session while dressed as a teddy bear? Munchkin the Shih-Tzu has been earning “Aww!”s all over the interwebs with this video uploaded to her personal YouTube page. In it, Munchkin struts her stuff whilst wearing an improvised costume created from a gutted teddy bear. Thanks to some magical camera-angle trickery, Munchkin appears to walk upright with the jaunty swagger of a carefree teddy just workin’ out in the gym. Join us for the video and more on Munchkin after the jump!

Internet, USA
(animals • animals in costumes • bear • cosplay • cute • dog • shih tzu)

Knock ’em dead on the battlefield with this cute military cosplay corset

Cara Clegg
Nov 19, 2014

Girls, have you ever been put off from the army because their uniforms just aren’t cute enough? Well here’s your answer: a KanColle-inspired corset that’s made–to–order!

Japan
(cosplay • fashion • military)

Glowing skirt lets you cosplay Hatsune Miku, show off your sexy thighs

ロケットニュース24
Nov 16, 2014

Hatsune Miku has been portrayed in nearly every way imaginable, from highly detailed Final Fantasy-esque character model to gorgeous anime-style re-imaginings. She’s also one of the more popular characters for cosplaying, with results that range from the adorable to the slightly insane, so if you want to show your love for the animated singer, you’ll need to put in a bit of extra work to stand out. But don’t worry, we have just the thing to help the next time you plan to don a teal wig: A glowing Hatsune Miku skirt!

Internet, Japan
(cosplay • fashion • Hatsune Miku • skirt)

Somebody call mall security! Grown man dressed as little girl shows off for shoppers

Evie Nyan
Nov 11, 2014

Last weekend, shoppers at Q’s Mall in the Abeno district of Osaka were treated to an appearance by this (unidentified) middle-aged man dressed in the typical garb of a Japanese junior school student. Unfazed by the public gaze, he posed for pictures and smiled for shoppers who paused to take in his… unusual choice of attire.

Japan
(cosplay • crossdressing • School uniform • schoolgirl)

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu dresses up as the Corpse Bride, bumps into Tim Burton

Evie Nyan
Nov 7, 2014

How can anyone not love Kyary Pamyu Pamyu? She’s cute, kooky, and occasionally ooky – and she recently dressed up as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride! Kyary shared several snaps on her official Twitter account of herself getting made up as the Corpse Bride, hitting the streets for some spooky fun, and even meeting the great man himself!

Japan
(corpse bride • cosplay • halloween • Kyary Pamyu Pamyu • Tim Burton)

Japanese high school holds annual contest to decide the prettiest “girl” in school

Mike
Nov 3, 2014

The whole concept of an all-boys high school is kind of cruel when you think about it. You take a bunch of young men who have only recently hit puberty and are practically oozing hormones out of their pores and lock them in a prison-like environment filled with nothing but other males for the majority of their teen lives.

So it’s understandable that at least one Japanese all-boys high school, faced with an utter lack of girls to ogle, chose to get a little creative… by holding an annual beauty pageant to determine the prettiest “girl” in school.

Japan
(cosplay • crossdressing • fashion • Tokyo)

Tokyo’s Shibuya holds its first Halloween costume contest aboard a train, we ride along

Casey Baseel
Oct 29, 2014

Back before Halloween became as popular in Japan as it is today, Tokyo expats looking to celebrate the holiday would stage impromptu costume parties on the last car of the JR Yamanote loop line. At the time, though, most Japanese people weren’t familiar with Halloween, and this tended to freak the indigenous locals out, leading Japan Railways to eventually crack down on the festivities.

Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years, though. Tokyo is starting to seriously get into the Halloween spirit, so much so that another rail company, Tokyu, actually held a Halloween costume contest onboard one of its trains, and we went to check it out.

Japan
(cosplay • events • halloween • trains)

Frozen’s Olaf spotted out and about on the Tokyo subway

Casey Baseel
Oct 27, 2014

Because of its time zone, holidays come to Japan several hours sooner than the rest of the world. Last weekend, Halloween came especially early, though, with parades of costumers being held in both Kawasaki and Tokyo’s Roppongi.

But even as Halloween continues to become more and more popular in Japan, one thing that hasn’t changed is the way most people get around by public transportation. Just about everyone takes the subway, whether you’re a student, businessperson, or living snowman from Disney’s Frozen.

Japan
(cosplay • Disney • frozen • funny • halloween • movies)

Cosplay as you cook with new Sailor Moon aprons!

Evie Nyan
Oct 17, 2014

If you’re a woman in her late twenties in Japan, chances are you grew up obsessed with Naoko Takeuchi’s “Magical Girl” manga series Sailor Moon and its accompanying anime. Given Japan’s love of natsukashii (nostalgic) cuteness, it’s really not that shocking that there’s now a thriving market out there for adult-appropriate Sailor Senshi outfits and accessories – we’ve even recently seen a trend for grown women wearing Sailor Moon undies. Not content with mere ribbon-bedecked panties? Well, now you can replace your dingy old curry-stained cooking apron with a stylish and colorful Sailor Moon version! In the name of the Moon… let’s get cooking!

Japan
(anime • cooking • cosplay • fashion • Sailor Moon)

Want your own Attack on Titan 3-D maneuver gear? You can order a life-size replica now!

Casey Baseel
Oct 17, 2014

Last January, fans got hit with a mix of awe and envy at an Attack on Titan event in Osaka where the heroes’ 3-D maneuver gear was on display. Looking over the intricate harness and paired swords, it was hard not to find yourself wanting a set of your very own.

Soon enough, that anime daydream can come true, as preorders have now started for life-size replicas of Attack on Titan’s iconic giant-killing battlefield technology.