Japan Trip #5!~
Some behind the scenes filming of when we went to do photo shoots at Haco Stadium, Ikebukuro. BALL PIT MADNESS
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Cosplay in Japan – Etiquette and Cosplay Studios (HacoStadium)
Photo taken from japan-attractions.jp for WCS 2014
My girlfriend, best friend and I recently had a trip to Japan, and all of us being cosplayers, going to Japan, the two of them were keen to do photoshoots and the like. But when I went to research for them I didn't find a heck of a lot of information, and most of it was just travel guides talking about “Japanese people in costumes on a bridge! How eccentric!” ...which is no actual help whatsoever to people who actually want to wear costumes. This is a quick-fire guide to what you need to know about cosplaying in Japan, and the places you can do it.
As far as cosplay ettiquite in Japan does go, there are tidbits out there written up about it, but as you can see if you click through the links above, a number of them are pretty old, or you can only read through google translate, or only really talk about cosplay at conventions such as Comiket. What about photoshoots and that sort of thing? There are some guides written in Japanese which I'll link google translated versions of above, but in summary the main things about it are:
DO NOT COSPLAY IN PUBLIC. There's a lot of things that go into the reasoning for this, mostly Japanese manners and cultural views, but that's another essay. Despite what many of these travel websites lead you to believe, the only time that it's normal to see cosplayers in public spaces in Japan are people advertising for their stores, or if there is an event on in that specific area at the time. We went to the main places you see people talk about public cosplaying, Akihabara and Harajuku, on both weekends and weekdays, and the only time I ever saw someone cosplaying was an obvious tourist, who most of the Japanese people were staring at and giving weird looks (and this was in Akihabara). Cosplaying in Akihabara is actually banned by the local government after a series of incidents, which you can read more up on here (cosplay coming under the ‘street performances’). Cosplaying in public is NOT common at all, and even travelling to/from events, people will go in normal clothes and change later. If you really really want a Japanese street shot, like my two travel companions did, the key thing to remember is not to be a nuisance or cause trouble to others. Don't try and pose on a busy street, don't do it during hours where there'll be a lot of foot traffic, and don't travel to/from your location in cosplay, change when you're there. We took the photos below at about 5am in a back street in Shinjuku near our hotel – weird thing about Japan is it was actually just as light out at 4am as it was in the middle of the day during our stay in late May, so doing a small shoot in the early morning with no-one around was no hassle at all – might be something to keep in mind!
(Slinky-sews as Honey Lemon, Icarus-cos as Gogo Tamago and photo processing, photos taken by myself)
GET CHANGED AT THE EVENT/LOCATION. Following on from above, get changed into, and after the event, out of, your cosplay at the event or location itself. With events and cosplay studios, they will have changing spaces and lockers specially set up just for cosplayers, so go ahead and use them! If you're going to a cosplay studio these changing rooms will also have a load of resources for you to use as well. Many cosplayers also use small suitcases and opaque garment bags while traveling to keep the fact that they're cosplayers secret, and to not draw attention to themselves.
BE RESPECTFUL. When you are wearing a cosplay, you are representing the cosplay community as a whole. Don't act in a way that will reflect badly on the community – if you're cosplaying from something that's popular with kids, don't let kids see you smoking or using bad language as their favourite character. Make sure to take any trash you create with you, keep out of other people's way, and always be polite.
Now with all this in mind, if you can't go around shooting wherever you want willy nilly in the middle of the day, where can you go for photoshoots?
This is where I'd like to introduce the most golden aspect of cosplay in Japan – Cosplay Photography Studios. You may remember a while back news about Hacostadium Tokyo.One opening caused waves of envy throughout the western cosplay community – we went there during our trip, but in addition, there are many other cosplay studios spread through Tokyo and right throughout the country! If you're interested in going to one, I would really recommend either brushing up on your Japanese, or taking a Japanese speaking friend – I myself have studied Japanese for 9 years, and graduated with a degree in it, and there were still some moments where I struggled asking for things or filling out forms – these places aren't made with foreigners in mind, so it'd be good to be aware of this.
I'm gonna talk a little more specifically about Hacostadium Tokyo.One because that is the one we went to, but for the most part this sort of knowledge can be applied wherever you end up going. Make sure to read the rules for each place you go though, some have completely different rules, especially in regards to males – cosplay in Japan is 99% female so there are often rules at studios to keep the girls safe.
There are two ways you can buy tickets for Hacostadium, either online, or at the studio itself. If you are buying tickets online, you can reserve what day and type of ticket you want up to three days in advance – after that online reservations close, and you'll only be able to get it on the day. There are three types of tickets you can go for – First is for 9:30am – 2:30pm (5 hours), next is Last is 3:00pm – 8:00pm (5 hours), or the all-day ticket, 9:30am to 8:00om, for a total of 10.5 hours. If you're buying tickets on the day, as we did, they have a twitter (https://twitter.com/hacostadium_t) that announces if tickets are free to buy, as there is a (very faint) chance they may be booked out for a type of ticket, though I could only see this happening if there's an event on.
If you get to Hacostadium before the mall itself opens (Hacostadium actually opens earlier than the mall it's in) then there will be a sign out the front door from which a studio assistant will collect you, and escort you through the mall and to the elevator, and tell you which way to go when you get to the third floor.
Once you get there on the day, go to the first person you see to the left of the line-up queue, they'll ask you things like if you've booked or buying today, and you'll be given forms to fill out if it's your first visit for your Staca card – in future you'll be able to use this to book tickets, but it's also important to keep track of things while you are in the studio, and you earn points. Bring some ID! They will ask you for some sort of ID that shows your address as well as your name etc, but we just presented our passports and were able to get in. They will usher you into the queue for the counter, fill out your forms while you're waiting. Once you get up to the counter, they will go through your forms, and you'll get to choose which design of Staca card you want – they sometimes offer anime themed ones for a small extra charge.
Once your Staca cards are sorted, they'll ask you what kind of ticket you want, and once you've paid, they'll show you to the next person to go by. Right as you're entering the building itself, there will be a studio assistant who will check your tickets, and give you a lanyard for your Staca card with keys attached to it. This lanyard is your lifeline while you're there, make sure to keep it on you at all times! The keys are for your locker where you can stall your suitcase or bags of cosplay stuff, (includes a coat-hanger for items you don't want to crinkle) and the plastic casing that the assistant will put your Staca card in will also be used when you borrow props.
Now that you're in, there's a map in front of you to show you were all the sets are, and just behind you will be the huge female changing room. If you're super uncomfortable about changing around others, there are three private changing rooms available in the locker room area, but Japan doesn't have the same kind of shame about nudity etc, so basically everyone changes in the normal changing room. It's a huge bare hall with ceiling to floor length mirrors dotted around the perimeter, people generally gather in their little groups in a pile around a mirror, change from their normal outfits into their cosplays, and do their make-up. (Most used a small mirror propped on top of their suitcases.) There's also little racks of different things to help with your cosplays – safety pins, tape, wet wipes, tissues, scissors, you name it. Now a special note – don't do your wig stuff in here!! There is a special room called the set room for cutting and styling wigs, in fact they actively encourage you to do so in there – there's wig scissors and hairspray freely available in the set room.
Once you've changed and done up your wig in the set room, go and store your things in the locker room so you don't drag them around the sets, and then you can start shooting! A note about Hacostadium, but it's prohibited to take photos in the changing rooms, locker rooms, and set room, so if you want selfies, just do it at the Hacoplus cafe area, or even on one of the sets for a nice background!
Use of the sets is shared between the cosplayers, so if an area is taken by cosplayers already, don't just jump in and use a different section of the set, they won't want you in the background of your shots just as much as you wouldn't want them either (that being said, if they're obviously focused in one corner alone, feel free to ask them if it's okay to use the other half). With as many sets as Hacostadium has, it's pretty easy to run around and find something free. Just make sure to be polite if you have to pass in front of someone – wait for them to take a photo or that sort of thing before storming through. If you desperately want to shoot at one particular set (like I did) best advice is to look for others in the meantime, or wait somewhere so it's not obvious you're waiting for them – avoid making others feel pressured to move from sets, just remember to be polite to the other patrons. Also don't leave your bags somewhere to claim or hog a space for a very long time – both of these are actually in the rules and you may get removed for this sort of behaviour (reading the rules is very important!)
That being said, one of the main draws to Hacostadium is the sheer number of sets. They do have a floor map at the stadium, but they also have maps you can view online, with example pictures of each stage. I've included a link to the base map here, and the picture below is a quick translation to each “area” of sets they have. Click through each area link to see what kind of sets they have in store! They also have a few event spaces that change depending on what's happening at the time, while we visited, they had Nozaki's room set up, as well as a huge Sakura tree for the Touken Ranbu cosplayers.
Another big plus is you can rent out a huge range of props! Props are generally completely free to rent out, all they ask is that you return them promptly once you're done with them before you get changed again. You can actually also rent out things like camera equipment, even cameras themselves, though these do often include a small fee, but some pieces of equipment are free, such as reflectors that are found in bins scattered around sets.
As for personal experiences, it was really different from our local cosplay scene (we're all New Zealanders). For a lot of the cosplayers it was very much a get-in, get-out thing, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of socializing going on between groups, so it's not really a place to make Japanese cosplayer friends, it would probably be better to go to an event rather than a photo studio.
Another interesting thing I found was that a lot, and by this I mean the majority, of the cosplayers there didn't really have a photographer with them, most of them took their photos by remotes, or by timers with cameras set up on tripods. There were a couple of larger groups who had one set of people do lighting and photos while the others posed, and then they'd switch (each group cosplaying different things in the first place), and the third type seemed to either have organized a shoot with a proper cosplay photographer via a forum/hired someone – there always seemed to be a photographer or two waiting in the cafe area, going off with one cosplayer, coming back and sitting down, and then going off with another cosplayer to shoot them instead afterwards. It can be a little weird to see the first type when you're so used to having someone else take the photos for you, but they really make it work – some doing it by timer were all by themselves!
Despite me being the only one who spoke Japanese in my group, the staff were always really kind and helpful – one of the rules of Hacostadium is that if you're wearing a short skirt, you MUST wear spats/shorts underneath, and the staff (all women) would go around and actually ask you if you are wearing them, just to make sure you're not caught in any compromising moments.
And the final note from me is that it takes AGES to get out there – it took us about one hour and two train transfers from Shinjuku to Minami-Funabashi with quite a bit of walking as well, so factor that in if you want to go. There are closer cosplay studios to Tokyo, such as the Hacostadium Cosset branch in Ikebukuro, and Studio Booty. Getting out to Hacostadium Tokyo.One and getting home takes a lot of effort, so make sure to factor that in if you want to go. I'd recommend taking no more than two costumes, and make sure they aren't bulky or heavy, taking three huge bulging bags on busy trains is not fun. We ended up doing a total of four shoots, two for me and two for the other two with me, and we were completely and utterly exahusted by the end of it. Hacostadium is a lot of fun, but like any cosplay photoshoot it can be very draining, so if you tend to get tired easily, or you don't want to travel as far, it might be more worth going to somewhere in town. (And highly recommend you bring your costumes in a smaller suitcase, it will save a LOT of hassle!)
With all this being said, shooting in a big Japanese cosplay studio is an experience we all loved and would not hesitate to do again. The fact that they have all these resources specifically for cosplayers is amazing and it makes me so envious! If you decide a having a shoot in Japan is something you want to do, I'd definitely recommend looking into cosplay studios around where you're staying, taking a good look at the rules, resources and sets they have there, and most importantly – have fun!
(I’ve also written a guide on buying cosplay items around Tokyo, you can read it here)
