Cosplay Squared
June 9, 2006 7:54 PM   Subscribe

What does the true anime otaku do when cosplay just isn't enough? It's called animegao or kigurumi and it crosses the ridge into the uncanny valley. Some examples: Belldandy, Mahoro and Minawa, Lum, another Mahoro, Naru. Sometimes they wear lingerie, or swimsuits, or vinyl, or do bondage. They pose, and put their pictures online. Some of the sites are quite sophisticated. They create different costumes for themselves. They go on location and try to freak the mundanes. A lot of the people inside are men. And aficionados get together at conventions and party. All of which proves that I'm not nearly afraid enough of the Japanese. (As if that needed proving again.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste (83 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Damn it; I hit "post" before I was ready. The corrected link that should be on the word "mundanes" is this.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:55 PM on June 9, 2006


Is this a sting?
posted by wrapper at 8:08 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]


Well, that completely freaked me out. Eyeball scrub please!
posted by marxchivist at 8:11 PM on June 9, 2006


I have come across this before, but I'd never thought of constructing an FPP around it. Good work. I think.
posted by blacklite at 8:15 PM on June 9, 2006


This used to be an earth-shaking, hyper-aggressive, war-mongering empire of stone-cold killers.

What. The. Fuck. Happened?
posted by frogan at 8:15 PM on June 9, 2006


Throw the freaky cartoon-faced ladies into the sea. All of them, please.
posted by yhbc at 8:17 PM on June 9, 2006


Actually, its cartoon-faced GIRLS. Which, now that I'm calmer, I think may be an even bigger reason for my revulsion than the "uncanny valley" - it's the disjoint between the (ostensibly) sexy, "desirable" body and the (obviously) childish, "forbidden" head and frozen facial expression.

I think.
posted by yhbc at 8:20 PM on June 9, 2006


it's the disjoint between the (ostensibly) sexy, "desirable" body and the (obviously) childish, "forbidden" head and frozen facial expression.

Plus the fact that underneath the costume is a man.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:23 PM on June 9, 2006


* shudders *
Okay, that's it. No more internet for me, thankyaverymuch.
posted by yhbc at 8:25 PM on June 9, 2006


Just imagine, in 5-10 years, when the masks can be made as animatronics, speaking and having all the usual facial expressions... though I expect a /few/ of the anime/manga tropes and cliches will be a bit harder to model in real-life than others.
posted by DataPacRat at 8:26 PM on June 9, 2006


Speaking of anime tropes...
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:29 PM on June 9, 2006


I'm not scared of the Japanese, I am just thoroughly creeped out by their mentality towards women.

And the fact that these are men dressing like cartoon women. It could be worse, I'm sure, but this is pretty sad all on its own.
posted by fenriq at 8:41 PM on June 9, 2006


This is Sportscenter.

Sorry, couldn't resist. In a number of ways, the antics of Japanese animation fans isn't too removed from the devotion of ball fans here in the West.

Witness John "Big Dawg" Thompson, the Hogettes, or even the Oakland Raider Nation. Though brawnier than the otaku, the level of mania's still there.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:44 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]


crosses the ridge into the uncanny valley

I don't know. I think these horrific things come much closer.
posted by crumbly at 8:44 PM on June 9, 2006


Wow, that's the weirdest thing I've seen in a while. The most interesting thing is where you see a masked person next to some uncostumed person - it really emphasizes the ways anime characters do not look like people.
posted by pombe at 8:52 PM on June 9, 2006


Generally I'm not a fan of these "look at the adorably eccentric Japanese!" posts, but This Needed To Be Seen. It's weird, yes, but there's also something awesome about it. I mean going out in public dressed as a giant anime girl is kind of punk rock. Or maybe anti-punk-rock. Shit, I dunno. I tip my glass and raise my hat to you, freaky otaku!
posted by mr_roboto at 9:09 PM on June 9, 2006


Wait, there's something wrong with this?
posted by hugecranium at 9:33 PM on June 9, 2006


"546,442 users marked this as their favorite"
posted by hoborg at 9:40 PM on June 9, 2006


Yeah. There is something very unsettling about someone identifying with an anime personality to such an extreme that the face of the individual has to be obscured with a mask.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 9:55 PM on June 9, 2006


You all know that the vast majority of these are guys/men/boys, right?

(hint: check out the hips - they're poorly "padded panties")
posted by porpoise at 10:00 PM on June 9, 2006


This is really interesting, but I have to disagree with the uncanny valley assessment. Anime-style faces are certainly cartoony enough to not be creepy, even if this behavior on the part of the fans is.
posted by danb at 10:03 PM on June 9, 2006


Where is the information that "A lot of the people inside are men"? It doesn't say that in the wikipedia article, and a lot of women are into cosplay. They could be, and frankly they have every right to, but looking at the photos, they have legs more like what the media presents as desirable than most women (including myself).
posted by jb at 10:09 PM on June 9, 2006


Also, their hands are smaller than mine.
posted by jb at 10:13 PM on June 9, 2006


Where is the information that "A lot of the people inside are men"? A friend of mine told me that he found that out the hard way. It's by no means the case that all of these are men, but some of them are. Once I was alerted to that, what I looked for was bulging biceps on the arms. That's something they can't really disguise.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:16 PM on June 9, 2006


I'm surprised no one has commented on the very last link. (It's about something entirely different.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:17 PM on June 9, 2006


This is really interesting, but I have to disagree with the uncanny valley assessment.

I had this thought too, but when I read the comment I wondered if it falls into the uncanny valley anyway because the process these people go through to look like a character is a regression along the continuum.

takes a picture of b1tr0t's panties
posted by carsonb at 10:35 PM on June 9, 2006


Yeah, these guys give me nightmares. But I had a recurring mannequin nightmare back in the day. Eueughh.
posted by Isabeau Sahen at 10:39 PM on June 9, 2006


I think the Japanese culture jumped this particular shark when they — and by "they," I mean adult Japanese men — rushed in droves to buy a comic book that had been packaged with a pair of pre-schooler's panties.
posted by cribcage at 11:10 PM on June 9, 2006


These "OMG Japan is so weird!" posts always disappoint. It's like Westerners intentionally seek out the most bizarre, most numerically insignificant fetish in this country and make it out to be the national pasttime.
posted by nightchrome at 11:11 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]


b1tr0t: those people ARE fucked up weirdos. They're men, dressed as sexy teen or pre-teen girsl, wearing cartoon heads with gigantic eyeballs. This, from the same culture that produces videogames involving photographing panties, from the same culture that sells used panties in vending machines, from the same culture that has video games where you poke your antagonist in the rectum as hard as possible for points. These people are fucked up weirdos, and part of it is clearly a huge culture gap between the West & Japan.
posted by jonson at 11:12 PM on June 9, 2006


porpoise:
To quote Harvey Fierstein: "Ain't that a kick in the rubber parts?"

I've seen some anime with males. This post seems to suggest its all about females. Maybe something there is otherwise, but I'm too bored to check any further.

The uncanny I see in anime is that I've seen some that were exciting.
posted by Goofyy at 11:14 PM on June 9, 2006


jonson: All those things you quoted exist in America as well, people just don't pay any attention to them because weird things in other countries are more interesting.
Go to any sci-fi, comic, rpg convention in America and tell me how many people you see dressed up as sexy fictional characters. Go to any adult store and tell me how many games you can find of an adult nature, not just innocent panty-shots but full-on hardcore porn games. Just the other day someone posted on ask.mefi about how to sell their underwear on eBay.
It's just a small percentage of odd people though, right?
Now imaginine you have the same population Japan does, all concentrated together, and guess how many of those same otherwise rare kinks exist.
posted by nightchrome at 11:24 PM on June 9, 2006 [1 favorite]


well said, nightchrome. Still, you gotta admit, they ARE sneaky. At least we can agree on that, right? The relative sneakiness of the Japanese as a whole?
posted by jonson at 11:26 PM on June 9, 2006


heh, "the mundanes." Fascinating collection of links, Steven Den Beste.

Some years ago, I discovered this phenomena at a site called Dolliseum which is now only a shell of the original site ... I found it an utterly inscrutable and fascinating. This led to Emma Peel Unmasks and then this female mask gallery that depicts a similar tho stylistically different group of costumers. Meet Sabrina, Jean-Francoise, Gerry and Jovina who hosts many masking events and who shares many trade secrets on her page. While the Japanese have a particular anime style, this female masking and human doll phenomena is apparently an international pastime.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:27 PM on June 9, 2006


jonson: Not really. In fact, I'd say the average Japanese is far less sneaky than the average North American.
posted by nightchrome at 11:31 PM on June 9, 2006


All those things you quoted exist in America as well...

They do? I don't remember seeing any magazines packaged with pre-school panties on the newsstand in Harvard Square. I don't recall American subways being forced to operate female-only cars to curb rampant waves of random gropings.
posted by cribcage at 11:39 PM on June 9, 2006


am I...turned on by this?

Hmm...any Gertrude Stein masks?
posted by Smedleyman at 11:40 PM on June 9, 2006


nightchrome: on your user page, you list your location as Tokyo - does this mean you're one of the sneaky Japanese? Because if so, I can't take your opinion as to your own relative sneakiness at face value. Frankly, even you yourself should doubt your own sneakiness.
posted by jonson at 11:43 PM on June 9, 2006


jonson: I'm Canadian by birth, and have managed to out-sneak the Japanese completely. After all, I've been living among them for years now, practically unnoticed!
posted by nightchrome at 11:45 PM on June 9, 2006


cribcage: In Japan, you don't see beauty pageants where 5 year old girls are dressed and made-up to look like high-priced callgirls, and then paraded around while people judge them solely on their sexiness.
There are a lot of things which exist as cultural differences, sure. But to make one culture out to be somehow "worse" than another, simply because the kinks and fetishes are different, is just silly. People who live glass cultures shouldn't throw stones.
posted by nightchrome at 11:49 PM on June 9, 2006


"Freaking the Mundanes" was one of the cards in the Steve Jackson collectible card game "Illuminati, New World Order".

But the term has a long and honorable history in the SCA.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:56 PM on June 9, 2006


I think the Japanese culture jumped this particular shark when they — and by "they," I mean adult Japanese men — rushed in droves to buy a comic book that had been packaged with a pair of pre-schooler's panties.

When the anime series "Najica Blitz Tactics" was released here in the US by ADV, one package included the first DVD, a collectors box, and a pair of panties. I understand it sold very well.

Looks like it's still available. (But I think I can live without it.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:05 AM on June 10, 2006


I walked past one of these (girl? guy?) at Ometsando station one dark, overcast Saturday evenning. After a short delay while my brain tried to process what I thought I saw, the uncanny valley freak-out hit me. To add to the weirdness, the person had a transparent plastic protector around the mask to protect it from the rain, which made the effect even more freakish.
posted by Meridian at 12:24 AM on June 10, 2006


A lot of the people inside are men

A lot=all.
posted by sourwookie at 12:34 AM on June 10, 2006


There's actually an ad on Japanese TV using exactly this sort of mask featuring a real girl in a bikini catching a flight to a resort and then riding a jetski. I guess that has legitimized it.
posted by Meridian at 12:35 AM on June 10, 2006


I think people are assuming this works the same way female avatars on the internet work, that all the people presenting themselves as female are in fact male.
You are grossly underestimating the massive number of women who are serious anime fans in this country. I typically don't like anime, I dislike the hardcore fans extremely, and I don't associate with them in any way. Yet, I still know many, many women who are serious fans of anime and manga.
Look at all the infamous cosplayers who hang out in Harajuku, the vast majority of them are young girls. Do you really think there won't be huge swarms of girls who desperately want to be as cute as some anime character?
posted by nightchrome at 1:10 AM on June 10, 2006


Yeah, this most definitely isn't just a Japanese thing.

I don't know - for all the people squealing 'oh god, my eyes!' and 'this is so weeeeeeird!', I can't help but appreciate this sort of thing for the sheer variety it brings to the world. Faced with the choice of a world in which I've had surreal conversations with seven-foot talking latex dolls and one in which people get to live free of the unexpected and 'creepy', I know which I prefer.
posted by terpsichoria at 1:13 AM on June 10, 2006


This is only really weird if you think that crossdressing is really weird. If you're a guy, and you're going to crossdress, why not wear a mask? You're already crossdressing, for chrissakes.

(Ok, so the fact that they're wearing cartoon masks is a little weird, but, yeah, Japan - what can ya do?)
posted by Afroblanco at 1:20 AM on June 10, 2006


Steven C. Den Beste writes "I'm surprised no one has commented on the very last link. (It's about something entirely different.)"

I thought it was awesome. Awesome panty-photographing-fight-game-link, Steven C. Den Beste!
posted by mr_roboto at 2:41 AM on June 10, 2006


Finally, Metafilter knows my horror.

2-3 years ago I was somehow linked to a site I knew only as "Sabrina" -- since that fateful day I have been nought but the broken shell of a man.

I'd describe it, but, well ... words fail me.
posted by Riovanes at 3:12 AM on June 10, 2006


I know you're exaggerating for comedic effect and all, but does this sort of thing really bother some of you that much? Why? I'm not implying any judgement - I'm genuinely interested.
posted by terpsichoria at 3:26 AM on June 10, 2006


The Brits were doing it early on": boys playing the roles of girls in Shakespeare's plays. Fetish sthick finds an audience everywhere and this beats bombing Pearl Harbor
posted by Postroad at 4:25 AM on June 10, 2006


I think it's cool, and I think it fills a very different need from cosplay. Most of these Lum cosplay images are cute girls (and guys in there somewhere) dressing up like Lum, like kids playing dressup. Steven's link seems to be more like someone really trying to be Lum, like some kind of ritualistic outfit that consumes and submerges the individual, literally: they had to wear a full ultra-pink Kaukasian brand body stocking to get the effect right.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:23 AM on June 10, 2006


> I know you're exaggerating for comedic effect and all, but does this sort of thing
> really bother some of you that much?

Speaking as a different kind of otaku (the kind that straps on steel plate armor and homemade--i.e., real--chainmail, and spends weekends running around in an entirely imaginary Middle Ages,) the only "uncanny valley" thing I see about these girls/women/babes (I speak of what's presented, not what may or may not be under the costume) is the entirely predictable fact that they look a bit strange out of context. Inside the anime/manga, where everybody has huge eyes, it's no trick at all to accept them as cute and attractive. Dumping them in the mundane world amongst the agog tourists and horny sararimen just emphasizes what we already knew, namely that toons only sort of look like actual people. As for shocking the mundanes, well, it's kind of a surprise to find so many of 'em here, of all places.

Thank'ee, Den Beste, cool links.
posted by jfuller at 5:33 AM on June 10, 2006


Huh. I spent 6 weeks in all corners of Japanese life, travelled with Japanese people, lived in Japanese houses...and I never saw one of these people. Closest to "weird" I got was porn in highway reststops and sitting next to a Gangouro girl on the train. (That made me realize why people tended to look at me weird - I look JUST LIKE HER. Except not fake.)

Where were these people when I was in Japan?! I feel kinda cheated now.
posted by divabat at 5:38 AM on June 10, 2006


Is it wrong if I find these more creepy than the $5,000 sex dolls?

I'm glad I saw this in the morning, because these pics scream nightmares to me.
posted by Busithoth at 6:34 AM on June 10, 2006


Great post, SDB, but no way am I gonna [+fave] it. That'd make me feel a little weird and dirty. Or more than usual, anyway.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:54 AM on June 10, 2006


wtf otaku.

However, I think it's entirely appropriate that since I don't have the right Unicode packs installed, every single caption on one of those links was '????????????'.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:15 AM on June 10, 2006


American Christian fundamentalists have Japan beat for scary weirdness, any day of the week. Check this out, for example.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:16 AM on June 10, 2006


I'd love to see some otaku film a send up of the mansion scene from Eyes Wide Shut.
posted by cortex at 7:27 AM on June 10, 2006


Odd as they may be, at least these costumes are competently constructed. Whatever the wearers may feel about them, they look like fairly well thought out mascots for some deranged sports team. And what's wrong with harmlessly adding to the surreality of modern urban life? But when I see a thing like this, all I can think is, Sir, you are simply not trying hard enough. Show some commitment to your fetish! Take a class! Back to the sewing machine, chop chop!
posted by maryh at 8:00 AM on June 10, 2006


dirtynumbangelboy: heh.

I agree with terpsichoria, life would be deadly dull without people well distributed over the "weird relative to me" curve. That said, these people are pleasantly weird, relative to me.
posted by everichon at 8:25 AM on June 10, 2006


cribcage : "I think the Japanese culture jumped this particular shark when they — and by 'they,' I mean adult Japanese men — rushed in droves to buy a comic book that had been packaged with a pair of pre-schooler's panties."

The Wai-wai section of the Mainichi plays very loose with its phrasing (and translation). If you read waiwai enough, you learn to interpret phrases like "It has, the monthly notes, sold so well that reservations for advance orders have been shut off because the publishers can't keep up with demand" as meaning either: "They usually only sell 10 issues a month, but they got orders for 12 issues, so they shut off advance orders" or "The company that was going to provide the panties cancelled the contract when they found out what they were for, so the publisher had zero panties, was unable to fulfil any orders, and therefore was unable to keep up with any demand, and shut off advance orders" or the like. A phrase like the original in Waiwai is almost guaranteed not to actually mean "Japanese men rushed in droves to buy". This is one of the many, many reasons that Waiwai is entertaining but sucks incredibly.

jonson : "from the same culture that has video games where you poke your antagonist in the rectum as hard as possible for points"

That's a Korean game. It's described as Japanese in most places on the net because it's Asian, and it involves poking people in the ass, so..."hey, it must be Japanese!" It was shown at the Tokyo game show, and I gather they got a few advance orders, but I remember stumbling across figures somewhere and calculated that there was something like one ass-poking game for every 10 cities in Japan. To say that it was a miserable failure would be excessively polite.


But it's interesting to note how far news of Japan has come. About a decade ago, people were reporting about stuff that was really normal in Japan, but seemed really fucked up in the West. Recently, we have stuff like this: it's seen as really fucked up in the West, and really fucked up in Japan as well. Now the Japanese have to start learning about Western furries and plushies and balloon fetishes and the like, and we'll all be one happy family intimately aware of the fucked up things in eachother's respective countries.
posted by Bugbread at 10:15 AM on June 10, 2006


I don't find this shocking in the slightest. I mean it's weird but not much more so than some of your gamier trannies or bondage freaks. Freaks is as freaks does. Nobody got hurt. Moving on.

Good post, though. I wish New York still had stuff like this.
posted by fungible at 10:57 AM on June 10, 2006


Bugbread:
That's a Korean game. It's described as Japanese in most places on the net because it's Asian, and it involves poking people in the ass, so..."hey, it must be Japanese!"



Well, kancho itself is very japanese so he's not that far off.
posted by BackwardsHatClub at 11:00 AM on June 10, 2006


I rue the day Den Beste rented some anime! RIP USS Clueless.
posted by BackwardsHatClub at 11:03 AM on June 10, 2006


BackwardsHatClub:

Ok, true. I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Boonga Boonga, so I may not have come off as balanced as I could have been. True, in general, it's the kind of game that could be Japanese (kancho is Japanese, and odd games are Japanese), but the specifics of the game are clearly not Japanese, and the horrible reporting feeding off other horrible reporting irks me.

For example, Wikipedia says "Developed by the Korean company "Taff System" for the Korean and Japanese market (but un-released in Japan)". Wired says that 200 units were ordered for the entire country of Japan (population 127,463,611), which works out to 1 game for every 637,000 people, but then describes it as "the new butt-poking arcade game Boong-Ga Boong-Ga that is sweeping Japan". The second external link in Wikipedia even flat out states "This is one of the most bizarre video games i've ever seen, and so of course it must be Japanese." It seems like everyone is so taken with the idea of Japan being a country of freaks that they are loathe to let contradictory information dissuade them.
posted by Bugbread at 11:37 AM on June 10, 2006


Now the Japanese have to start learning about Western furries and plushies and balloon fetishes and the like, and we'll all be one happy family intimately aware of the fucked up things in eachother's respective countries.

Yeah I think the U.S. has been catching up to Japanese weirdness lately, like some guy goes and makes a Tron outfit that shows off his nut sack and he becomes a national celebrity.
posted by bobo123 at 11:59 AM on June 10, 2006


Reality going the other way, aging, depressed and bulimic Barbie.
posted by nickyskye at 1:24 PM on June 10, 2006


.... like some guy goes and makes a Tron outfit that shows off his nut sack and he becomes a national celebrity.

Or how about the (extremely NSFW) Perfect Penis guy?
posted by Afroblanco at 1:26 PM on June 10, 2006


(I should warn you, the above link is incredibly gross and disgusting. You probably don't want to click on it. The purpose of its inclusion is to demonstrate a point.)
posted by Afroblanco at 1:27 PM on June 10, 2006


I don't remember any case of Americans holding a religious festival to honor the erect phallus, however.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:45 PM on June 10, 2006


That 'perfect penis' nightmare certainly wouldn't fit into Japanese condoms, which are advertised in a strangely child-like way, sort of an anime match.
posted by nickyskye at 1:46 PM on June 10, 2006


UnintendedConsequencesFilter: In addition to evading the NSA, my domestic surveillance countermeasures also allow me to view kiddie porn at work. Also dudes in padded panties.

Although I must say, neither are as titillating as their forbidden-ness would suggest. I'll have to try again on Monday when there are more people around...
posted by ryanrs at 2:09 PM on June 10, 2006


nickyskye writes "That 'perfect penis' nightmare certainly wouldn't fit into Japanese condoms, which are advertised in a strangely child-like way, sort of an anime match."

Nickyskye: Those condoms are the exception, not the rule (and it looks like those are all made by one company; they're all takeoffs of regular products (the Kit Kat takeoff is the most obvious if you don't know Japanese snack packages)). Most Japanese condoms come in relatively generic and unobtrusive boxes, same as American condoms.
posted by Bugbread at 3:43 PM on June 10, 2006


ah, thanks for the heads up bugbread. ;-)
The only ones I found with Japanese writing on them were the one's I linked to. But even looking at other sites with other brands, the selling style still seems pretty childlike, with blinky cartoon girls, cuddly looking cartoon lion, little pink animated waving condom. The name is cute, "Shy Boss". I didn't know that the Japanese didn't legalise the birth control pill until 1998.
posted by nickyskye at 4:26 PM on June 10, 2006


I think part of the reason for that is that nobody really scans pictures of average condom wrappers from Japan to put on the net. Instead, they put the goofy, stereotypically Japanese ones. That's part of the whole thing I'm talking about here: Most of the information about "weird Japan" is factually correct, but massively magnified by the net because it's so odd. Take, for example, the fact that pretty much any 20something American on the net knows about Tentacle Rape or Bukkake, but most 20something Japanese don't (informal poll administered over the last 10 years to various Japanese friends). The little weird bits (and there's plenty of them) get on the net, and become converted into Big Weird Stuff.

Here, by the way, is a pretty representative view of what condoms in Japan look like.
posted by Bugbread at 4:46 PM on June 10, 2006


uncanny valley (flash, possibly nsfw)
posted by Tenuki at 6:13 PM on June 10, 2006


Is that a leek?
posted by mr_roboto at 7:39 PM on June 10, 2006


Yes, I do believe it is a leek.
posted by Tenuki at 8:08 PM on June 10, 2006


yah, it's the Loituma Finnish folk song. The anime version, tediously safe for work and the actual band singing acapella.

Can anyone tell me the specific word for the appeal of infant faces? I learned it on MF but can't remember the dang thing now.
posted by nickyskye at 9:44 PM on June 10, 2006


Hang on. Doesn't this happen every single day at Disneyland?

Except for casual Fridays, I suppose.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:08 AM on June 11, 2006


Furries ... Now anime wanna-be's... sigh
posted by pezdacanuck at 9:44 AM on June 12, 2006


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