Akihabara: “Baka Gaijin”
American cosplayers: Akiba hates you! Okay, maybe not all of you. Especially not the hawt girls (pics pls, kthx). But you know who you are!
Just take a look at these posters that have been found stuck to lamp posts along Akihabara. (Original post by Akiba-blog)
They all depict a cosplaying gaijin with the words “Baka Gaijin” over them. Baka bakka~
Image taken from Akiba-blog
I have to chalk this up as a fake: those fonts are nicely formatted and we all know that Japanese people can’t Photoshop for nuts! (Just take a look at 2ch, yuck) Those who can are probably too busy slaving away in office cubicles drawing the next episode of Naruto to find time to stick posters in Akihabara. :P
For those of you in Tokyo now, the lamp post in question is located right outside Gamers Honten. Go take more pics!!!
Interestingly, some other anonymous person has pasted replies to this with posters saying “I love Baka Gaijin“, ain’t that sweet. They love you!…
…but you are still stupid. XD
September 25th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
meh. baka gaijin~
September 25th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
OWNED.
September 25th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Lol. These silly failure cosplayers are all baka.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
LOL… Disgusting..
September 25th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
… And I thought you meant “…lame post in question…”, silly neurological lapses there.
But no love for Man-Fay?
September 26th, 2006 at 12:03 am
LOL, well, I myself never did like Western cosplaying that much too.
September 26th, 2006 at 12:09 am
LOL, I would be in agreement with Kurogane there.
Aesthetics and immersion are a key to cosplaying, I tell you..
September 26th, 2006 at 3:07 am
Meh, whoever had this idea is a baka nihon-jin (possibly miswritten cause i don’t know jack of japanese).
Man-Faye FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111
September 26th, 2006 at 5:59 am
Meh, what a lack of aesethics :p
September 26th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Lol. For all I care, Japan can keep them.
September 27th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
somethings:
the girl in the top right hand corner doesn’t seem to me cosplaying at all!
neither does the guy in the top row, second from left!
I can’t seem to find anything to suggest that these people are cosplaying at all, except the sub zero one at the top left hand corner, which looks rather “genki”…I don’t quite see what there is to be worked up about.
By the way, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought usually “gaijin” usually refers to the caucasians right? For those of sino-asian decent or anglo-chinese decent usually get widely labelled chuugokujin right?
Cosplaying is a difficult business when people needlessly make fun of you for your costume and and your looks, but very few people stop to look at the effort put in by cosplayers for their costumes and tht time spent making the costumes. As someone who can barely call himself a cosplayer, the criticism you get, especially when you’re not looking, is quite discouraging and it’s nowonder there are so few “true” cosplayers in S’pore. A lot of the cosplayers I see don’t make their own costumes and buy pre-made costumes from the internet or something else, so much so that most of the time even if you put a lot of time into sewing, assembling, accessorising, cutting, shopping for the fabric, correction, practicing you skits/dance, etc etc, there are some people who make disparaging remarks that make you want to kill them with your corugated cardboard katana. In the end, many people only think those pre-made costumes from the internet are better than the handmade ones.
Those people who insult cosplayers with unreasonable comments like “why is tifa so fat?” or “[insert name of character]‘s costume looks like it’s from the rubbish dump” should consider we are also humans, and we have to be full-time students too.(or full time work for those who are older). We spend a lot of our time poring over our costumes, buying the things we need,++ often using up our free time. So, to whoever called the sub zero cosplayer a baka gaijin, just shut up! Keep your crap to yourself, in other words!!!
September 30th, 2006 at 6:30 am
“I can’t seem to find anything to suggest that these people are cosplaying at all”
Usually a fake beard and giant viking hat is a good indication :D
September 30th, 2006 at 8:54 am
..Nah.. I meant some of those look more like common everyday clothes than the normal fare of cosplay. :p
December 18th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Hello! I’m the one who made thos stickers, fore more info, I’m the guy in the middle here:
http://www.akibablog.net/archives/img/2006-09-25-206.html
All he “Baka Gaijin” are my friends, who also traveled to Japan with me. The “I love baka gaijin” stickers are also mine. I’m, of course, not trying to insult my friends or myself, so take the “cosplayer baka gaijin” thing with humour, please! We love cosplay, but I must say we mostly cosplay for the fun of it, we don’t need ultraperfection in our costumes! Subzero and the Saint Seya guys (You should have seen the boxes for the ormors) put more efort than others, though :)
FYI, the costumes are, from left to right:
Top: Subzero, Seiya, Superman in underware, and plain clothes (she have never cosplayed!!)
Bottom:Random vicking, Tifa from Advent Childres (in the box says “Final Fantasy” because nodoby knew what was she dressed as), random kung fu master, Shun.
I can’t read japanese, so if someone could please tell me what the original post in Akiba-blog, I’d be very glad. Thanks!
Also, anyone knows if the stickers are still there? We put a lot in Harajuku as well.
Ah! we are not american, we are spanish!
December 18th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Apologies for the spelling in my last post…
December 18th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
The post doesn’t say much actually. It just describes the stickers, the location where they were pasted and the characters depicted.
I need to do something to get myself posted on Akiba-blog the next time I’m in Japan… <_<
December 18th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
OK, thank you very much!
Now, does anyone know if any of them is still up?
I can send you some stickers to print if you want, so you can lead the second Baka Gaijin wave…
Go go power rangers!
January 5th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Hello!
Just saw the stickers, and…hahahahaha…I mean…wow!! u’re FANTASTIC!!
C’mon people, they’re GREAT!! I mean…they may not be the most fashionable and “perfect” cosplayers, but they had the bollocks to put their photos there, and saying “baka gaijin”!!! (AAAAAAAAaaaahahahahahahaha!! that was goooooooood…), and they even appear, BY CHANCE, in the internet!! I mean…if I, in one of my travels to China, would find anything that I put in a fucking post, commented on the internet…aaaaaaaaahahahahaha…
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!
And as exaltdragon says, it is easy to be critic, bt it does take a long time and effort to do a just “acceptable” costume…and as ninpuukamui says, the most important thing is to have fun, no to be “ultraperfect”. Taking it so seriously just kills the funny part of cosplaying…I think those people are having reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaal fun, and I admire them.
By the way, ninpuukamui, is that really you?? Are they really your friends?
Oh my God…hahahaha…
March 30th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
what’s that?! cant you make your image bigger?!?!
December 16th, 2007 at 6:15 am
NinpuuKamui Wrote on December 18th, 2006 at 10:00 pm:
“Hello! I’m the one who made thos stickers, fore more info, I’m the guy in the middle here:
http://www.akibablog.net/archives/img/2006-09-25-206.html
All he “Baka Gaijin” are my friends, who also traveled to Japan with me. The “I love baka gaijin” stickers are also mine. I’m, of course, not trying to insult my friends or myself, so take the “cosplayer baka gaijin” thing with humour, please! We love cosplay, but I must say we mostly cosplay for the fun of it, we don’t need ultraperfection in our costumes! Subzero and the Saint Seya guys (You should have seen the boxes for the ormors) put more efort than others, though :)
FYI, the costumes are, from left to right:
Top: Subzero, Seiya, Superman in underware, and plain clothes (she have never cosplayed!!)
Bottom:Random vicking, Tifa from Advent Childres (in the box says “Final Fantasy” because nodoby knew what was she dressed as), random kung fu master, Shun.
I can’t read japanese, so if someone could please tell me what the original post in Akiba-blog, I’d be very glad. Thanks!
Also, anyone knows if the stickers are still there? We put a lot in Harajuku as well.
Ah! we are not american, we are spanish!”
Hm, just for fun, huh?
I can tell you, you’re very brave by doing this without thinking on all this flaming.
I thought cosplay was only for anime characters and never thought of Superman as one. Anyways, if you’re going to do it for fun, I guess it’s allright. No professional effort, but a lot of fun.
Then Have fun!
And all those who are flamin’: let’s see what you come up with instead of shallow criticism! Stop that “Thou shalt not” kind of thinking! Cosplay anyone of you? Who Dares?
Joey