Japanex

A fairly small expo by any standards, Japanex was nonetheless interesting enough to keep us amused from our arrival just after 9 right through to the end of the cosplay (costume play) competition at 4.30. There was just enough of a spread of retail therapy - food, toys, clothes, manga and anime - to part even hardened shoppers from their cash, and a few grace notes of culture - kendo and taiko drumming exhibitions, origami and go stands - to enhance the illusion that it was anything other than an anime convention. But the flood of fanchildren in their lolita outfits and character costumes quickly dispelled any doubt, and provided the main focus of the day. As hard as Japanese culture afficionados may try, it's still the export of their popular culture that's dominant in the West.

I was most impressed by two things. The kendo exhibitions took me by surprise, as I hadn't realised just how much of a mental discipline it is until I watched how micro-movements are used to unsettle your opponent and camouflage your true strike. Also, the quality of some of the cosplay outfits was unbelievable. To compete in cosplay, the outfit has to be made by hand, not bought, but many of the outfits truly appeared to have been assembled by talented seamstresses and modellers. The only disappointment of the day had nothing to do with the expo; I had relied on my phone camera for snaps of the show, and the quality completely let me down. Not going to make that mistake again. I seem to have rescued a few of the better snaps, so:


A really decent Bomberman outfit, winner of the "Cutest Costume" award. Would also have won "Hottest Internal Temperature" award, as well as "Most Dangerous to Wear", as it had no eye- or breathing-holes in the head. Made from chicken wire, foam and material.


These two had made their Chobits costumes from scratch, and they were simply amazing; good enough, in fact, to net them Runner Up place in the Cosplay competition. Chii (on the left) had to lead Freya (on the right) along the ramp for the parade, as she was without her glasses to complete the look, but was clearly blind as a mole.


Bleach seemed to be the anime du jour with practically an entire cast's worth of cosplayers apperaing in full costume for Japanex. It was astounding that not only did they not know each other but that they had somehow managed not to duplicate a single character.


This Kurosaki Ichigo cosplayer stole the limelight from his fellow Bleach'ers. Pictures just don't do justice to the size of these swords, or the weight!


Based in Greenwich (hence the 'Meantime' moniker) these drummers were quite astoundingly LOUD. Good, too. They have occasional free perfomances, and I'm sorely tempted to catch one of their lunchtime shows at the Euston Tower, to see how they compare outdoors.


Kevin was practically drooling over this display of restored Japanese swords. They were incredibly beautiful, in his defence.


The Kendo exhibition did steal the show, for me, and not because of some supposed manly aspect of martial arts but simply because it was the most polished and impressive performance on the day. Strictly speaking, this is a picture of an Iaido kata, since it involves drawing and striking with a naked sword.


Kendo proper. You can clearly see the full suit worn to provide targets for striking - head, wrists, torso and throat. The speed of the strikes completely flummoxed my poor E70. In fact, most of the time, the human eye couldn't follow the strikes easily.

We also caught a rare appearance of a trained furisode-san (sponsored geisha) outside of Japan. Here is Hisami performing a Nihonbuyo dance¹. She took pains to make it clear that, out of respect for the actual geisha tradition, the dance that the furisode-san do is deliberately altered from the original.

¹Hisami has asked me to remove this video, as she thought her dancing was awful and doesn't want it to be representative of her normal performance.