We waded through the crowd and finally entered the event hall. Kokoro’s excitement had started to rub off on me too. I was looking forward to seeing Elena’s show, the cosplayers, and the figures. I told myself that, if I did find a cosplayer that I fancied, I would ask them for a picture. Of course, I’d also keep Ai and Kokoro’s advice in mind.
“I’ll text you when I’m done changing. You can, like, walk around and stuff if you want to, just as long as you meet me back here,” Kokoro said.
“Okay then. See you in a bit,” I replied as she headed to the changing rooms.
Now left to my own devices, I thought I’d use the time to check out the figures on display. I walked over to a couple of the areas that I was interested in and looked through the booths of various companies. There were a lot that caught my eye—either because they were figures of characters that I loved or because they were sexy as hell—but I didn’t have enough money to actually buy any.
While moving between the many halls of Makuhari Messe, I walked into the cosplayer area. The cutest cosplayer of the bunch already had lines of people waiting to point their cameras at her. One by one, the photographers would snap a few pictures, thank the cosplayer, then move on.
There’s barely any interaction going on! I don’t think I’ll be able to befriend any of the popular ones...
Business cards were also being exchanged, but what were the chances of a cosplayer actually remembering you once the event was over? Slim, I thought, unless you can make one heck of an impression on them.
The cosplayers that people lined up for, however, didn’t give out their own cards. Instead, they had their cosplayer name and Twitter handle printed on a large sheet of paper or written on a piece of cardboard next to them. The idea was probably that, by taking a picture of the sign along with the cosplayer, there would be no need to hand out your information to photographers one by one, which would require a large amount of time and an even larger stack of cards.
Might as well take some pictures while I wait for Nishina, I thought, quickly scanning my surroundings. Not far from me there was a girl cosplaying Fumiko, one of my favorite IMS characters. The cosplayer was cute, slim, and accurate in her rendition of the character. I was immediately thrilled by the sight.
A character I love, done by a cute girl! Let’s go with her.
Of course, I was only the latest in a long line of people who had also thought, “Let’s go with her.”
Even if I couldn’t actually get to know the girl, I wanted to try out what Ai and Kokoro had taught me. I also wanted to give her my card and follow her on Twitter. Finding her there so I could send the pictures I’d taken was enough.
As the line moved and I got closer to the front, I started getting nervous. Of course, I was looking forward to my turn, but my hands were literally shaking. Since there were even more people waiting behind me now, I started preparing the camera in advance so that I could start taking pictures right away.
Given how popular this girl was, taking just one or two pictures would be the most considerate thing to do, but all the other photographers before me were clearly taking more than that. Since Ai had told me that it’d be rude to take too many, I decided I’d take around half a dozen.
When my turn finally came, I approached the cosplayer, who had a smile that seemed permanently plastered on her face. To her, this was probably already routine.
“Hi there!” she said.
“H-Hi. Say cheese, I guess...” I replied, pointing the camera lens at her.
I changed up the angle and zoom just as Kokoro had taught me. The cosplayer was obviously used to this kind of thing, as she changed poses every time I closed the shutter. So this is how an experienced cosplayer does things...
Moments later, I’d already taken five pictures.
I thanked her for posing and lowered my camera, and she thanked me back. But of course, walking away just like that would have made the whole thing pointless.
“I-If you don’t mind, please have my card...” I said, cautiously handing it to her.
“Oh, thank you!” she said, politely accepting it.
“I-I can send you the pictures I took if you want!”
“Oh, really? That’d be great! Thanks! You can find me here,” she said, grabbing a sketchbook that she had beside her and opening it to reveal her name and Twitter handle. The whole motion had the seamlessness of something that had been repeated many, many times.
I thanked her and took a picture of the info.
Is this all I can do? She’ll have forgotten me in five minutes if this is the scope of our interaction.
I remembered something that Ai had told me: one of the things a cosplayer appreciated most was to receive non-creepy compliments.
“Y-Your Fumiko cosplay is really great, by the way! Fumiko’s my main, so it’s great to see her done so well! Thank you so much!” I said, trying to speak as fast as possible so as not to make the other people in line wait too long.
She smiled. Was this also routine? I didn’t know, but she looked genuinely happy. I was glad I’d found the courage to compliment her.
I’ve got to remember to follow her on Twitter once I’m back home. I don’t know whether I’ve made a good impression, but it’s worth trying...
After taking my leave, I noticed I’d received a LINE message from Kokoro, so I headed back to the place where we’d planned to meet. She arrived a few minutes later.
“Did I keep you waiting?” she asked.
“N-No...”
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her Unithorn cosplay, but even with all these other cosplayers to compare her to, it held up surprisingly well. Actually, if I had to be honest, it was probably the best cosplay I’d seen that day.
If she went to that cosplaying zone, she’d have people lining up within minutes, but then she’d be so busy that she wouldn’t be able to meet the handsome cosplayers she’s looking for.
“Did you go to see the other cosplayers then?”
“Yeah... The cute ones all had tons of photographers lining up for them. I managed to take pictures of a Fumiko from IMS, actually, but...”
“That sounds great! I’ve gotta check it out!” she said, leaving no room for objections.
“If you go there,” I began to warn her, “you’ll get people lining up for you too. You know, Unithorn being so popular and all. Then you might not be able to leave the area for the rest of the morning.”
Actually, it was her cuteness rather than her choice of character that I thought would gather attention, but I didn’t really want to admit that.
“For real?! It’d be great to have good photographers taking pictures of me and all. That way, I could upload them myself... But I wanna be able to enjoy the festival,” she replied.
“Now that I think about it, are you okay with your pictures being online? Some photographers could upload them themselves, you know?”
In the past, Kokoro had told me that she only uploaded heavily retouched pictures so that none of her offline acquaintances could recognize her and find out that she was an otaku. But it wasn’t rare to see online threads where people posted all the pictures of cosplayers that they’d managed to take during events like these, even without permission.
“I thought about that, and I figured that... heh, it doesn’t matter that much. My real-life friends won’t be looking at cosplay pictures online anyway, and even if they did, I could just tell them it’s someone that just happens to look like me. Between the wig, the colored contacts, and the makeup, they’d probably believe me.”
“Oh, I see...”
Pretty soon, we were back in the area where the cosplayers were having their pictures taken.
“Look, look! There are cosplayers everywhere! There’s Yumeno☆Saki! And that’s an IMS group! They’re so cute! Ohhh, over there! These girls are crossplaying as A4 characters! They look so good!”
Kokoro was squealing left, right, and center as she noticed cosplayer after cosplayer.
“Do you want to go around as I take pictures of them, or should we take yours first?” I asked her.
“Um... Let’s take some of me, but just a few. Then we’ll walk around and look at the other cosplayers. Oh, tell me if you see a cosplayer you like though!” she said.
I pulled out the camera, mounted the lens, and put the strap around my neck.
“Okay then. Whenever you’re ready,” I told her.
Kokoro began by striking one of her well-rehearsed Unithorn poses. Even through the camera, she looked astonishingly cute. Aware of my lack of artistic talent, I snapped as many pictures as possible from different angles, hoping that I would stumble upon one that made her and her cosplay shine. If I took a bunch of pictures, at least one of them would have to be good enough for Twitter.