Japantoday.com reported:

A Japanese pop culture festival began Saturday at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture, showcasing a range of things including fashion and music inspired by animation and manga comics. Japan Pop Culture Festival 2008, sponsored mainly by Kansai International Airport Co, features ‘‘cosplay’’ (costume playing), a type of anime subculture in which one pretends to become an animated or comic book character by dressing in a costume and role-playing.

source

I’m currently working on another edition of Cosplay Underground.  Before I joined J!-ENT, I was a big fan of the original Cosplay Underground section.  At that time, I was already doing a lot of cosplay photography at conventions.  Some of the people that were interviewed for that were people that I had photographed and knew.  I still see some of those people at local events.  A few months ago, I thought that it would be a fun idea to bring that section back to life in a new way and to try new things with regards to my cosplay photography.  The result was v. 001, which was done at Fanimecon.  It was fun project and I’m definitely going to try and get more editions out before the year is up.  I’ve done a few photoshoots done for the next edition.

Cosplayer “Susan” will make her second appearance in Cosplay Underground dressed as the character Minagi Tohno from the video game and manga, Air.  This series of photos was done at a picnic for the local anime and cosplay community at William R. Mason Park in the city of Irvine, CA.  The event was held in early August and drew over 100 attendees.

Also returning to Cosplay Underground will be cosplayer “Shiya” dressed as Princess Kairi from the video game, Kingdom Hearts.  New to Cosplay Underground will be cosplayer “Celestial Aurora” dressed as Aerith from the movie Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.  These photo sets were done at Nisei Week.

Progress has been fairly slow on this edition.  I was at Comic-Con in San Diego in July and wanted to do some photo sessions there, but it was so crowded and congested there that I was simply discouraged.  There simply wasn’t a lot of room to be flexible and everybody was so busy and didn’t seem to have time to do a long photo session.  Most of the time, I’d be working with people that don’t know what I’m taking photos for, and that’s how I want it to be.  I like to drag cosplayers out to less crowded areas where there is room to be a lot more creative.  The cosplay picnic in Irvine had a lot of possibilities, but the midday sun was harsh and I didn’t want to start taking photos until later in the day, after a lot of people had already left.  A lot of cosplayers also showed up to Nisei Week, but were busy with the cosplay contest and parade.  The two cosplayers that I managed to photograph at Nisei Week weren’t interested in participating in either.  It seems easier to work with people that I’ve worked with before and have them bring in more cosplayers to the project.

In three weeks, I’ll be attending Mikomicon, which is a small anime convention held on the campus of Cal State Northridge.  It’s probably the most picturesque location for any convention in the Los Angeles area, so I should be able to finish shooting for Cosplay Underground v. 002.  There are also a few other cosplay events on my schedule in September and October, so getting v. 003 by the end of the year is also a possibility.

“Another wonderful reference for those looking for high quality, full color photography of various cosplayers from Japan. DHP’s series of ‘Cosplay Girls’ is definitely worth it if you are in it for just to see cosplay girls or want simply a cosplay resource for ideas.”

BOOK: Cosplay Girls 2

COMPANY: Cocoro Books (DH Publishing, Inc.)

PAGE COUNT: 112 pages

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Enter the wacky world of Cosplay, Japan’s underground costume scene. All over Japan hard-core fans of anime, video games and manga dress up in their latest costumes. This is a world where ordinary girls reinvent themselves as street-fighting chicks, emerald-haired princesses and faux-fur kittens. Why do they do it? Find out as Cosplayers explain their obsessions in their own words. • All new girls • All new costumes

Earlier this year, I reviewed Cocoro Books “We Love Cosplay Girls” which was an excellent book for reference material and the way the book was broken down to several areas in cosplay from heroes to dark side, I just felt that the book was well done, sold for a great price and worthy of purchasing.

Before “We Love Cosplay Girls”, in 2007, Cocoro Books released “Cosplay Girls 2″, another cosplay book that can be found for a great price and also featuring many photos of various cosplayers in Japan in a variety of outfits from popular video game, manga and anime series.

One thing that is noticeable is that “Cosplay Girls 2″ is an 8.5×11 book, which the newer version is much smaller.

Also, the introduction features a pretty length 3-page article on the alluring world of cosplay.

Another difference between this book and its current incarnation is that in the newer version, you would see several cosplayers in the same outfit or from the same series. Whereas, this version breaks things down in several chapters such as “Cosplay Girls Catalog Part 1″, “Before and After”, “Cosplay Girls Catalog Part 2″, “Cosplay Boys Catalog”, “Cosplay Beauty Asuka and her 25 transformations” and “Cosplay Girls Catalog Part 3″.

The Table Contents features the name of the cosplayer, the character name and the series its from. While in the main pages, a single photo features the cosplayer with the character and series below the photo.

The spelling of the series is more towards the Japanese romanization, so “Eureka 7″ is spelled “Eureca 7″ and a few typos with “Scenery” typed out as “Scernery” and a few format errors where a word’s final letter would continue in the next paragraph but this is very few and it doesn’t detract from the overall book.

The “Before and After” metamorphosis chapter is actually quite intriguing as it features several women, featuring their cosplay name, age, job, how long they have been cosplaying and what is cosplay to them. So, you have their before and after photo.

And another small problem I found was that you would have an odd page featuring the before’s (ie. page 51) and then the next page on the other side 52 would feature their transformations. So, it would have been nice to have the before and after on the same page but again, another minor thing but nothing that detracts from the overall book.

Whereas the first chapter feature cosplayers in full-page or a large photo on each page, part 2 of the catalog features two or three photos per page.

And I saw this as a way to not make things too expensive as it is evident that there were so many photos that Cocoro Books wanted to feature but to make things cost effective print-wise, to put 3 photos on a page instead of just one.

In “We Love Cosplay Girls”, I wrote about how it would have been awesome if male cosplayers from Japan were shown and sure enough, “Cosplay Girls 2″ features a few pages on cosplay guys.

The next chapter features a “Cosplay Beauty Asuka and her 25 Transformations”.

This chapter features the cosplayer Asuka in a few similar poses but wearing a 25-different outfits.

The final chapter “Cosplay Girls Catalog Part 3″ returns to large photos and half-page photos.

Again, I have to applaud Cocoro Books (DHP) for bringing these Japanese cosplay books to the US. The third volume “We Love Cosplay Girls” was awesome and obviously much was learned from the previous cosplay books including this “Cosplay Girls 2″.

So, “We Love Cosplay Girls” features a very different focus and done very well. “Cosplay Girls 2″ has its slight problems but yet when it comes to these type of books, it’s not a book that is for reading, it’s a book for admiring the cosplay and creativity of that cosplayer (or its maker) and of course, for others, it’s about admiring the beauty of female cosplayers.

“Cosplay Girls 2″ does offer things that are not on “We Love Cosplay Girls” and the transformation and before and after chapter was pretty cool to see.

As well as showing a few pages of cosplay guys as well. So, it’s good to see some inclusion of that, even at a few pages.

But all in all, there are big photos which selective cosplayers can use as a reference for ideas of upcoming cosplay outfits or to see how certain outfits were crafted.

So, it’s a book that serves its purpose and all in all, for its price which you can find online at a great price, there is no need to hesitate in buying this book, even though a third book has come out.

So, check out “Cosplay Girls 2″. A very good reference book for cosplayers and for those who want to see beautiful Japanese girls and women in cool outfits based on anime, manga and video game characters. Check it out!

Check out J!-ENT photographer’s Nergene Arquelada’s first cosplay book. Now available on J!-ENT. Featuring various cosplayers in full-color, large photographs.

The book will be an ongoing series featured for J!-ENT’s “Cosplay Underground”.

You can download the book by clicking here.