[Cosplay] A Man in the Twilight
I am sorry that I haven’t uploaded for a month. October is going to end soon and this year is also going to end soon…how fast time goes by. But my life is the same as before, I mean, work and cosplay…meet people, that’s about it.
This year, I made friends with a couple of photographers, and have had some photo sessions with them. They are not professional, but to me, they are because they make really wonderful cosplaying photos. I truly realise cosplaying photos are not like portraits. Professional photographers surely take photos very well, but that is not enough. We cosplayers are trying to be a character from fantasy, which means those photos have to be something from fantasy. If you cosplay someone from your favorite anime, you have to find a good location. Location is very important. And you have to learn about the character, which means what kind of pose is required, which angle looks good the most, how much the lighting is, how you photoshop, or that kind of thing. In this way, you can make a cosplaying photo. People who can handle these things so well are, of course, the fans who love the character. When I cosplay, I always try to find someone who knows the character I cosplay. Otherwise, good photos won’t come out.
This year, I haven’t cosplayed new characters a lot because I want to re-do my old characters to make much better photos. I usually ask which character my friends want to take before the photo session. The character I have cosplayed the most this year is absolutely him.
He is Hijikata Toushiro[土方十四郎] from Gintama[銀魂]. I don’t think this anime is that popular out of Japan, but it really is here. Especially among young girls including fujoshi. It’s not like Tiger and Bunny, but why do fujoshi love Gintama? Anyway, in this anime Shinsengumi is depicted as police. Hijikata is the lieutnant who always smokes and carries mayonnaise with him.
I shall upload the photos taken by the two photographers, Yoru and Aya. They are a big fan of Gintama, and asked me to cosplay Hijikata. Yoru took my Hijikata at Japanese Garden, and Aya did at the sea. I had two sessions with Aya because she wanted to use the sunset. But unfortunately, the weather was not good first, so she changed the plan. She asked me to run in the waves, and swing the sword in the air. Next tiime, finally the beautiful sunset came.
I really want to say thank you to the two photographers because I have never seen such wonderful photos before. If you want to make a film, you need a director and an actor. A photographer and a cosplayer are something like that. Read the rest of this entry »
Japanese words of anime fans, by anime fans, for anime fans 