Hello! I am Okuno! Do you know Nipponbashi in Osaka? It is to Osaka what Akihabara is to Tokyo! Here you can buy anime goods, electronics, parts for computers, and more. Once a year, they hold a street festival in the area. So many people attend that you can’t even see the road in front of you anymore! This street festival is called the Nipponbashi Street Festival and I want to introduce it to you, the readers of MANGA.TOKYO!
On the day of the festival, 19 March 2017, the road was reserved just for pedestrians, stalls were out on the street and cosplayers could be seen everywhere. It was extraordinary! I took a lot of photos just for you. Take a look!
The morning of the event. The weather is good and everybody is smiling.
This is how the main street looks.
Wow… The road looked so big without all the traffic. The sidewalk got so crowded that everybody was squeezed.
Here, nobody cared about your nationality, gender, or age. Here, only those who like anime, manga and other geeky things came together.It was a mini paradise.
The events started at 11:00, so when the traffic regulation was done, the police car slowly passed through and you could walk onto the road!
The event finally started. I just had to blink once and suddenly the street was full of people!
Not only the main street but also many side streets were crowded too!
As soon as the event started, I saw some Sabers surrounded by photographers. All the popular cosplayers were surrounded by people taking photos.
This pose is very gallant. Beautiful.
And look at the quality of this cosplay of Ainz-sama from Overlord. I feel overflowing love.
I also met these four from Kono Subarashi Sekai ni Sukufuku wo! (KonoSuba)
Satania and Gav from Gabriel Dropout. They were so cute, I thought they had come straight out of the anime.
Everybody from calss 1-A came together (My Hero Academia). The details of Kacchan’s cosplay are amazing!
A group of Naruto cosplayers. The person cosplaying Killer B was so in character, he even used the iconic ‘Bakayaro! Konoyaro!’ (laugh)
Ryu Fujisaki’s Hoshin Engi was there, too! Including Dakki-chan’s hamburger steak…
These kids cosplayed Yowamushi Pedal together with their mother!
There were also people from overseas! He looks like the real Erwin from Attack on Titan. Seriously!
These two cats cosplayed San and Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke. They were too cute, it was hard to move on.
These two are Tanaka and Sato-san from Ajin, and Sato-san looks exactly like the real character! Around us, people would pass and say ‘Oh, that’s Sato-san.” “Look, there is Sato-san…”
This is my personal favorite. Takasugi from Gintama. The cosplayer is even cooler than in the manga. He even carried around a Yakult, but switched to the pipe when you started talking to him. So great. Of course, the Kurusu from Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is amazing as well!
The street looked like this. You walked a few steps and there were cosplayers everywhere. However, even if you saw a cosplay that was really beautiful, you couldn’t just take pictures outside of the designated area. So let’s look at the area where pictures were allowed.
（Next page: That’s what a cosplay event is! Look at the march of the Zeon army!）
Can you already smell the sea? Can you feel the sun on your skin? Have you already had your first slice of watermelon? Well, the only certain thing is that the summer anime season is coming this July!
