Today was the third and last day of Comiket 78. Comiket is short for Comic Market, and is the world's larget self-published comic book (called "doujinshi" in Japanese) fair. It's held twice a year, two-three days during summer and winter, at Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba. This was my fourth time going - my first time was winter 2005 which was Comiket 69. I only went for the cosplay. I didn't even enter the common booth area, since I know there's a ton of people there, and there's not much to see unless you're after something special. Cosplay means costume play. Let's get on with the pictures, I'll keep writing between them. I couldn't identify them all myself, so many thanks to those who contributed!
First, a thinly dressed Hatsune Miku. Honestly, she's one of the the best and hottest cosplayer I've ever seen with my own eyes. Female sweat is moe.
Sasasegawa Sasami from Little Busters! and Miyafuji Yoshika from Strike Witches. Have not seen either.
There was a big group of Little Busters! cosplayers who got together, which you see in the picture below. As you can see some of them are male. Dressing up as a character of the opposite sex is called crossplay. There were many crossplayers, but did not take photos of them.
To not distract female reader's, I'm going to mix in some dudes here and there. This being two funny dudes - left one being Hikonyan, the mascot for Hikone Castle, and right one being General Vamp from Sunred. When taking photos, you can ask them to do a famous pose for the character. For General Vamp, someone said "Ano yubi wo shite kudasai!" ("Please do that finger!"), and he gladly made the pose.
Another Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid. Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application for PC, and Miku is its mascot. The name Hatsune Miku is written with the kanji that literally means "the first sound from the future".
The age of the cosplayers vary, these two being a little bit above average. Furukawa Nagisa from Clannad and Yurippe from Angel Beats.
A few Evangelion cosplayers as usual. Top row, left to right - Nagisa Kaoru, Adam/Lilith, Kaji Ryoji. Bottom row - Shoryu Asuka Langley, Ikari Shinji, Ayanami Rei. I have only seen the first of the new Wevangeliwon movie trilogy.
Two more photos of the first Hatsune Miku girl. If you want them to look into your camera, you can either raise your hand and say something like "kochira onegaishimasu" ("please (look) here"), or you can try to wait until you're alone and get closer. Remember, you always need to ask the cosplayer for permission before taking photos. And be sure to thank them properly when you're done!
Sengoku Nadeko from Bakemonogatari. Very nice smile there!
A very tanned and sweaty Black Rock Shooter.
Lelouch Lamperouge from the popular Code Geass series.
Many friends get together and do duets. This is Koyori & Komugi from Nurse Witch Komugi-chan to the left, and the twins from Dragon Quest VIII to the right.
Also many trios. Shinra, Celty, and Shinra's father Shingen from Durarara. The paper he's holding up says "father-in-law". Not sure why, I haven't seen Durarara.
Cosplaying as a random maid is also quite popular.
The Bayonetta woman and Kasumi from Dead or Alive. They're both using an alternative version of their costumes - Bayonetta with a school buruma (gymnastic wear) and Kasumi in the black version.
Sometimes, it can get chaotic with all the photographers. When this happens, usually a staff member has to break in to let the cosplayer get some rest and space. Many of the girls are happy to pose for big groups though.
Obligatory Sailor Moon cosplay. Sailor Venus, Moon and Jupiter here.
Sion from the Melty Blood series and Dr Faust from the Guilty Gear series - both being fighting games. Gender unsure! Really, some people you just don't know if they're guys or girls behind the costume.
Sion from the Melty Blood series and Dr Faust from the Guilty Gear series - both being fighting games. Gender unsure! Really, some people you just don't know if they're guys or girls behind the costume.
Not only anime and video game cosplay at Comiket. This is Ultraman and some dude from Kamen Rider, both tokusatsu series. Tokusatsu literraly means "special effects", and is a Japanese term for movies and TV series that have super heroes in them and use alot of special effects.
More duos. Piyoko and La Vie en Rose from DiGi charat and two maids from Kare ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama. DiGi Charat was one of the first funny anime that I watched. Glad to see that it's still fans around.
What's even more obscure than tokusatsu cosplay, is cosplay of Japanese famous religious people. This is Kuya, a Japanese priest who lived during the 10th century, and initiated the pietistic movement in Japan together with the most influential Mahayana Buddhism scholar, Genshin. But he is most famous for this wooden statue, which can be seen at Rokuharamitsu-ji in Kyoto. The six small statues coming out from his mouth stands for the six kanji 南無阿弥陀仏 ("Namuamidabutsu"), which means "I sincerecly believe in Amitabha", or as we would say in English - "Lord have mercy on me".
And this is Ishikawa Ryo, a pro golfer, and an Xbox mascot guy.
This girl I think is from the Toho-series. Toho means the Orient, and in the anime and video game world, it's referring to the shoot 'em up games made by Shanghai Alice. Shanghai Alice was originally one person, ZUN, who made everything in the games by himself. Not sure about what his company looks like today. His games got really popular, and I had to line up for 2 hours to get Shoot the Bullet at a previous Comiket, even though I was able to enter at 10 am, opening time. Usually, to be able to enter at the opening time, you need to start lining up from the first train in the morning, around 4:30am. Now there are self-made comics and games based on these self-made games. Deep!
Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee from the latest Macross series, Macross Frontier. I saw the first episode and liked it, but never got around to seeing more of it.
Kobayakawa Rinko, Takane Manaka and Anegasaki Nene from Love Plus.
These ones are all still unknown to me. If you know who they cosplay as, feel free to post a comment.
Many rich otakus like to spend their money on spicing up their cars with anime stickers and fill them with dolls and figures. These cars are called "itasha" and literally it means "painful car", because some people consider them painful to look at. I find them pretty cool.
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