AnimeJapan 2018 cosplay and models gallery

AnimeJapan 2018, held over fours days between March 22 - 25, saw attendance figures reach 152,331 at the anime convention’s Tokyo Big Sight venue. Among these numbers, up 105% from AnimeJapan 2017, was a strong, colorful and delightfully bonkers cast of cosplayers and booth models.  

Organizers of AnimeJapan 2018 laid on plenty of room for cosplayers to show off their costumes, setting aside space in Halls 3 and 8 for the creation of a “Cosplayer World” as well as a cosplay area outside the venue fronting the industrial waters of Tokyo Bay. Together with official AnimeJapan 2018 backgrounds and a “Cosplay Parade,” there was plenty of ways at the event to partake in, and sample, cosplay culture.

Cosplay at events like AnimeJapan comes hand in hand with photography, and getting a photograph of the more popular cosplayers requires the patience of a saint. Cosplay areas are criss-crossed with lines of expectant photographers wielding eye-watering amounts of expensive camera kit. Getting around the myriad of models essentially leaves no time for taking in anything else of the event. Cosplay photography is thus emphatically a full-time gig, at least over the course of such conventions and shows.  

Occasionally, a free-for-all photo session forms during which queues somehow dissolve (Is there a signal?) and anyone with a camera is free to elbow their way into position in front of a posing cosplayer. It makes for quite the scene. 

<Related: AnimeJapan 2019 in photos: Senses set to overload>

While the photographing of cosplayers at AnimeJapan is limited to the designated areas, models involved in promotional work at company booths are also willing to have their pictures taken (as is perhaps expected of them … with promotional materials in hand), and they too are typically sporting extravagant costumes.

All in, it makes for a fun, although sometimes frustrating, way to negotiate events like these. So, this photographer dove in to compile a gallery of cosplay and models at AnimeJapan 2018.

For cosplayers and photographers

There are rules in place at AnimeJapan to safeguard the cosplay experience and the well-being of those who take part. As well there might be. In recent years anime conventions such as San Diego’s lauded Comic-Con have received some bad press due to cases of sexual assault and harassment of cosplayers.

While such an atmosphere isn’t particularly noticeable at similar events in Japan, in this writer’s experience, it remains something of a truism that the contrast between cosplayers and most of the photographers taking pictures of them couldn’t be starker -- young things (mostly female), often in revealing getup, having their pictures taken by feverish men in their 30s.

Precautions / rules listed by the organizers of AnimeJapan 2018 included cosplayers not being allowed to wear “overly exposing costumes, or ones that may disturb other attendees,” as well as a similar rule regarding costumes that appear as uniforms of public authority. Arriving at, and leaving, the venue in costume was also forbidden.

It would be a shame to end this on a negative note though, so we won’t. Instead, it can’t be emphasized strongly enough the level of creativity that goes into the costumes on display at events like AnimeJapan 2018, and you don’t have to have the first clue as to which characters are being portrayed (if any at all) to appreciate this.

Were you at AnimeJapan 2018?  See any great cosplay? Let us know in the comments.

Further reading ... 

AnimeJapan 2018 wraps up 5th anniversary celebrations in Tokyo

Tokyo Comic Con 2017: Cosplay and comics come to the capital

Biggest and best anime, manga, otaku events in Japan

See us on ... 

Twitter and Facebook: @citycostjapan