The guy with the blue face is the governor of Aichi prefecture, and he’s dressed up as Lord Dessler from the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato. Another politician, the mayor of Nagoya joined in too, cosplaying as Dragonball villain Piccolo.

So why on earth are these two middle-age politicians dressing as anime villains? You can thank the World Cosplay Summit for that.

World Cosplay Summit

Every year, the city of Nagoya hosts the World Cosplay Summit (WCS), bringing people from all over the world to show off their elaborate, handmade costumes of their favorite anime or manga characters. The WCS is a huge event, bringing hundreds of thousands of people every single year. This year’s WCS happened just this last weekend.

World Cosplay Summit brings tons of tourism and business to Naogya, so it’s not really too surprising that the mayor and governor would try to really get involved in the event. As the saying goes, politics make strange bedfellows. In this case, it’s politicians and diehard cosplaying otaku.

The main event at WCS is the World Cosplay Championship, where teams representing countries from all over the world perform onstage to see whose cosplay is superior. These performances can be very elaborate and grand, featuring huge props, fancy costumes, and interesting storylines. Check out this video of last year’s champions, Brazil, and their intense performance.

But as an Oregonian, I know all about politicians dressing up in ridiculous costumes that might embarrass them. After all, up until recently my congressman was this guy:

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Apparently, somewhere in Nagoya, 外人さん (Mr. Foreigner) “costumes” consisting only of a nose and a pair of eyes are being sold. Not the most politically incorrect costume I’ve ever seen, but I thought it might be good for a chuckle (hopefully). Which makes me wonder, what do you perceive as the attitude Japanese people have toward foreigners? Here’s a little blurb from Wikipedia (the source of nearly all hastily gotten knowledge):

By global standards, Japan is highly homogenous ethnically. Thus, there are some issues which many non-Japanese find insensitive. The debate over these issues parallel the debate over political correctness in the West.

Anyway, you guys, have a good night, whatever you may be doing. We (the Tofugu team) probably won’t be doing much in the way of tricking or treating, so maybe we’ll finish up those other articles we’ve got waiting in the wings.

Source: merefflorescence

** 11/2 Edit: It’s not that Japanese don’t like foreigners. In my opinion, I would say that (generally speaking, of course) they merely find non-Japanese people to be intrinsically different from them. Not that foreigners aren’t human or anything, they’re just different. I think, perhaps, that it has something to do with the idea of uchi (内 or “inside”) and soto (外 or “outside”), too. Maybe we’ll explain this concept further in a different article, if anyone’s interested. Also, I feel that Japanese have a better sense of racial humor in general. They’re not too sensitive about that kind of thing. **