A Vipper shares with us his photographic account of Finnish anime and cosplay event Tsukicon 2008, along with the World Cosplay Summit and Helsinki Book Fair, all held in Helsinki some weeks ago:
The venue was packed to the rafters it seems…
Here’s a tasteful building to admire:
A nation of Narutards?
You may have noticed I don’t ordinarily like to mock cosplayers, least of all when there’s a good chance some will be reading this site, so I’ll leave them to your tender mercy.
This report is apparently by the same person who brought us a report on Connichi 2008, so you can see some more there (the Saber cosplayer is well worth seeing). If all this is too much for you, there’s always the unrealistically good cosplay elite gallery.
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Marshmallow Imouto Succubus Hits The Beach
Bishoujo Mangekyou Fan Translation Emerges
Samurai Rising – Square Enix: You Guessed it!
Mangaka Pay Tribute to Kyushu
Street Fighter V Enlists Guile
Chinese Death Simulator “Hopefully Won’t Explode”
Re:Zero “In The Nick Of Time!”
Muma Astacia Sultry Succubus Ero-Figure
Hundred Sloppy Kissing Anime
Greek Woman “Born Without A Vagina!”
Let It Die Trailer Unforgettably Fierce
Shinjuku Station Reveals “All Yu-Gi-Oh Cards Ever!”
KanColle Arcade Scores A Direct Hit
Bakuon!! Relentlessly Cute
Fuwary Gymnastics Girl Onahole Frighteningly Flexible
Star Fox Animated Short Takes Flight
Big Order “Big & Scary!”
Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei Really Retro
Monster Hunter Generations Monstrous As Ever
Live Action Naruto Stage-Play Filthier Than Ever
Goddess of 2ch: “What A Cute Hole!”
Alice Margatroid Ero-Cosplay by Hiyo Nishizuku Full of Cheer
Sheryl Nome Bunny Girl Cosplay by Mike Super Scandalous
Marvelous Madoka Mizugi Cosplay by Mashiro Yuki
Marie Rose Cosplay by Mike Undeniably Sexy
Tasha Tracer Cosplay Truly Tantalizing
Witch Craft Works Cosplay by Kagune Intensely Seductive
Kaine Cosplay by Yuricha Flawless
Kasumigaoka Utaha Cosplay Pretty Pure
Goddess of 2ch “Another Bathing Beauty!”
hahah i was there
I would have RAGED so hard.
Wait wut? Free hugs? ;_;
Pretty common among anime events.. XD
OMG i had hopes that happened only here in spain (because people who attends to anime events are stupid kids).. DX
Wow. Finland's such a dump.
And the city is pretty bad looking too.
There's just a few random houses from the old town and you judge the whole city by that? :D
But seriously.
Narutards aside (I'll get to that later) one thing that'll separate a good cosplay picture from a god awful one is the expression of the player, for the love of Jesus and Heaven cosplayers, stop looking at the camera, it shows just how much of an amateur you are. If you are going to look at the camera, wipe that retarded as "Baby's first cosplay" smile off your face, you look like you're posing for pictures in a high school yearbook.
Now onto Narutards. Artefact, I salute your mercy in not taking a cheap shot and ragging on the same character cosplayed by 15,000 people, but unfortunately I'm not that benevolent. I'm not the kind of person who usually cosplays, I've only done three ever, and they were pretty obscure. But as someone who has been to my fair share of conventions, and has seen the darkest sides of the otaku community, I must say, there are SO many better options for cosplayers other than Naruto and Hellsing.
I mean, seriously, expand your horizons you fanboys and fangirls, your power levels will explode if you do and then the rest of the otaku community may not scorn and cast you aside like we do.
Really...all I can do now is facepalm...facepalm long, and hard....
Someone's getting way too worked up over here. Let them have their fun.
I said it once already, but Tsukicon is a meet-up for TEENAGE GIRLS WHO LIKE JROCK. It's not about having high powerlevels and one upping each other on obscureness of their cosplay. It's about NORMAL TEENAGE GIRLS MEETING AND HAVING FUN TOGETHER. Frankly, elitist otaku sneering at it is just pathetic: do you think you get some kind of scene points the more obscure your cosplay is, or the more you know about anime?
tl;dr the game
Well, for someone who's major ability is to clone himself, having 15,000 cosplayers of the same guy has it's own merits.
Well said.
If you punch them do they disappear in a cloud of smoke though, no good otherwise
It could be a mass shadow clone jutsu.
You strike me as one of those people that are always saying how they were 'so into X before it was like, popular and stuff'. Honestly, some people actually dress up for the fun of it, not to expressly entertain you.
You know, you're right, you're all right. It was early in the morning when I wrote that, and in retrospect, I may have been a little overzealous. So I apologize if I offended anyone, I've done my fair share of questionable cosplay, without consideration of the approval of others, so I was rather hypocritical. Like I said in my rant on the German cosplayers, I understand that cosplaying is meant to be fun, and not exactly a contest to see who can do it better, but I also believe it's important to consider that some things make others around you uncomfortable, and that should be taken into consideration when choosing what you cosplay as.
Again, I apologize for being overly critical and judgmental, but really, think before you put on a bikini if you're over 200lbs...
Kageryu you've already said it all
if you don't like fatties in bikinis, don't go to an American beach.
Likewise if you don't like ugly cosplays, don't go to an gaijin anime con.
gaijin anime cosplayers are ugly?
firstly gaijin is an offensive term and secondly we are not ugly.... ok most are but most people in the world are ugly. you just cant get away from that :P
How about this: Don't cosplay.
It may be clumsy, but it's strangely charming in an old-fashioned way. Reminds me a little bit of how conventions used to be when the fandom and industry was less sophisticated.
Please... Burn it with fire...
Cosplay - in all possible shapes and forms, are of an equal amount of fail in my eyes. One of the reasons I've never gone to a convention.
That cosplay con is EPIC FAIL.
Tsukicon is mainly a jrock event, though. Notice the distinct lack of men in the pictures? Yeah. So I'm kind of surprised there even was this much cosplay.
Hyvä Suomi!
"A nation of Narutards?"
Yes, I'm afraid so.
I took the risk and once visited a con here in Finland and yes, it was horrifying. Narutards, Kingdom Heart fags, Dir en Grey fans were 90% of the visitors. I went to 2 events, they failed massively. Nowdays I try to avoid anything related to Finnish cons, since they truly are a pack of fail with hugging and horrifying 200kg girls (in too small outfits) failplaying.
200kg means that you're dead. I've never seen someone that fat in my life right in front of my eyes. And Finnish cons are getting better, by every con. I've been to five already, and I enjoyed them all.
About the photos:
I'm horrified how you can post those photos here, and call them ugly. Few of my friends were there in those pics. Explain why they are an epic fail.
'cause I hate you right now.
I myself, have cosplayed as KH-characters, 'cause that's my favorite fandom right now. I have many others too, but right now KH is my thing. It's everyone's own choice, who to cosplay as, and it's not fair to post photos and call them names just because of the character they cosplay as.
And it's not our cosplayer's fault if the city looks bad. Blame the one who designed it.
I only like the loli standing in front of this shop, around her neck a Moi dix Mois Emblem. Very sweet :D
Hey, don't talk bad about Finland. Period. Some of those were quite good btw too.
Finland = WINland.
I should point out that "good" cosplay also exists in Finland, albeit in quantities so minute that it's nearly impossible to distinguish from the mountains of manure seen e.g. in this set of photos. It's kind of sad, really -- given the amount of effort that's gone into doing the costumes themselves, these people could also have lost some weight and perhaps improved their postures.
I'd say that a lot depends on the photographer and the context too (come on, a few weeks ago? that means there's like, 7 hours of daylight each day in Helsinki), but that'd be making excuses. We could also compare this to cosplay in other eastern european countries (which Finland is, unless you ask a finn -- they tend to think they're in some sort of a ludicrous special case of "northern europe") but holy crap who wants to see that.
In closing, Finnish people are embarrassing to be around, and even more so to be one of. "The summers are nice though."
Pretty much every country suffers from bad cosplay. Including Japan. Should you plan to focus on that.
Do you think Greece is an Eastern European country too? Hint: East Europe is a (mostly outdated) political term, not a geographical one.
The only genuinely embarrassing Finnish people are the fucking apologists. Get over yourself, no one gives a shit; teenage girls act retarded in every country on the planet
Ukraine certainly is. As are such delightfully modern places as Bulgaria, Belarus and Romania. Most of Poland is west of Finland's longitude range. I'm just saying that the obsession with Finland's "not being like those Other, Worse Countries" is ridiculous to anyone who hasn't had that bit beaten into their skulls since they were toddlers, generally in the uniculture era before the recession.
That said, cosplay fail is obviously universal. This much should be understood without explicit mention.
Amusingly enough Swedish and Norwegian people are apparently quite similar in the "asking a giraffe in Africa how he feels about Finland" sense.
Eastern in location, but still Northern. Finland, Hungary and Estonia, not to mention Russia technically, are the most Asian countries in all of Europe. They don't even speak Indo-European languages. And Russia(the Indo-speaking one), has loads of Siberian and other Asian culture. Not to mention over half of it located in Asia.
Though why is this relevant? You can make the comparison to all of Europe. Or all the West and East even.
We are completely unrelated in blood, culture, religion and language to Eastern European countries. We share a portion of our blood with the Swedish, who are our close brothers in terms of relationship, since Finnish WERE SWEDISH for almost a thousand years, till the Ruskies conquered this area of Sweden and gave it almost independent control over itself and then when the revolution came they didn't even care about us anymore. We have copied our governmental and legal systems from the Swedish, and almost every road sign in Finland has the Finnish and the Swedish name, supporting the large minority of the Swedish-speaking Finns (the size of the entire Iceland population). Also they say that Finland is the northern-most country where you can still farm, since go any norther and nothing will grow. Plus in recent news it was stated that Finnish school kids were the thinnest in Europe. You could as well as say that Africa is a Western European country. Here in the north, we feel kinda out of the "European image", and more like Nordic. I mean the three most "powerful" people in Finland right now: an old granny with a slight speech problem and red hair and we keep wondering who the hell voted for her, a metrosexualish young fella slinging jokes at EU meetings and another glasses wearing (all three wear glasses) dude who had lots of issues with his ex-wife releasing a book of their relationship detailing every single thing that happened.
And cosplay, if you take it SO SERIOUSLY, go choke on a figurine please, and don't forget to pull the anal plug out of your anus first.
Depends on what you mean my "Eastern European". Slavics no, Uralics, yes. Neither Estonia nor Hungary are located on the Western side of Europe, and those Uralic tribes, some of them are located all the way in East Asia.
Those Yukaghir, I've read about them, they're so east it's almost to Japan. And the Samoyedic people are east of the Ural mountains as well.
Also, how do you explain that COPIOUS amounts of Haplogroup N you've got over there in Finland? You Finns are Nordic all right. But you're also Eurasian.
In any case, I agree with that of people taking cosplay so seriously. It's just a bit of fun. Cosplayers have no responsibility to be fitting or good looking.
Nobody cares about invisible genetics, or language isolates, in determining this. By common understanding Finland is a Northern or Western European nation.
If you want to say Finland is a Eurasian nation you logically have to say the same about the rest of Europe too, as they all have common Indo-European roots.
"Invisible genetics"? What the hell does this "invisible genetics" thing mean? Haplogroup N is a real Haplogroup. One that stretches all the way to Japan. Italians, British, Spanish, French, all do not have this Haplogroup in their populations.
Also, Finnish isn't a language isolate, it's part of a LANGUAGE FAMILY. One that is not part of Indo-European.
Stating your opinion as common understanding is cheap and silly. By any decent understanding, one would know Finland is NOT a Western European nation. That is just silly. It is a Northern and Eastern European nation, that is just a common understanding to anyone who actually studies the issue and understands anything about the origins of culture and anthropology, instead of living in their own little dreamworld.
Somebody doesn't know linguistics or genetics.
The Uralics are more Eurasian than any other countries in Europe. Yes, about every European country can be said to be Eurasian to some degree, but Finland is moreso than most of Europe.
What god did the ancient Finns worship? Ukko!
What is the language the Finns speak considered? Uralic!
Where is Haplogroup N mostly found? Norethern Eurasia! And mostly Finland!
Yes, other Northern European countries have a bit of this as well. But only to the degree Finland does when it comes to the Sami!
Now if you use "Eastern European" synonymously with "Slavic" and "Communist". Then yes, Finland is more "Western European". But the Uralics are at least TWICE as Asian as the Slavics.
I couldn't care less about your efforts to impress by dragging anthropology in to support yourself. Nobody considers Finland an Eastern European country, least of all the Finns themselves.
Genetics or linguistics are irrelevant to this: culturally and historically Finland is Western, Scandinavian, and very closely tied to Sweden, notwithstanding being grabbed by Russia. What a bunch of pagan tribes did thousands of years ago has no bearing on that nation now.
Ancient tribes leave the groundwork for culture.
"Genetics or linguistics are irrelevant to this". Linguistics are one of the most IMPORTANT parts of culture.
I'm basically running through different parts of culture as I thought about them. And then you're basically saying each thing I mention doesn't matter in terms of culture.
And if things like "Communism" and "Democracy" is Western and Eastern divide and all these "ancient tribes" don't matter at all, then Japan is a Western nation.
I've laid evidence for why I think Finland is culturally Eurasian. You have come back with nothing but assertions. If you're so adamant about saying Finland is Western European, you can try to prove it by comparing the Western European culture to "Eastern" culture and see how many more examples of Western European culture you can find.
And culture aside, Finland is located in the East. It's on the freaking border of Russia.
What's going on here is really three different comparisons. Western European culture versus Eastern European culture, and both against Asian culture. Slavic culture isn't very Eastern really, even though it's considered "Eastern European" culture. So yes, by this definition, Finland isn't very "Eastern European", but then Slavic culture isn't very Asian either.
So perhaps at the same time it is more "Western European" at comparison to the "Communo-Slavic" definition of the term, but more "Eastern" or Asian than Eastern Europeans. The non-Uralic ones that is.
Finland may be more West than Russia, but it's more Asian culturally than the Slavs. And by Asian, I mean anything that might be applied to the Japan idea of Asian, East and North Asian. Not Indo-Arab culture.
And Finland is still geographically more Eastern than most of Europe.
Some of your arguments are perfectly sound, but I think we differ fundamentally in approach. As far as I am concerned, the purposes of utilitising terminology such as this, the language used is based on majority consensus.
This consensus happens to be that Finland is completely Western. There is no point in arguing with established language usage (unless there is something larger at stake perhaps), so until I see evidence of a consensus that it is not, Finland seems to be as Western, or Northern, as any other nation. It could be floating in the sky for all I care.
And I do think Japan is a Western nation - more western than many nations in Europe or elsewhere, certainly more so than in certain marginal cases.
Of course, if this is at variance with the accepted usage of the term then I might face an uphill struggle using the term thus...
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/cache/24469__448x_finland-cosplay-event-tsukicon-80.jpg
YOINK!
My god--it's like I'm looking at the sister page to the infamous Americans Shouldn't Cosplay.
I gotta admit those cosplayers are horrible... I'm ashamed, I live in Finland :/
OMG MOOMINS! I USED TO WATCH THAT SHOW! rofl
my eyes...it burned like a thousand suns
All the stage shots taken in front of screens are from a completely separate event altogether.
And you know what they say - no one can look good in a bad, dark and blurry photo. Seriously, this guy could have even tried... but maybe that was the point.
Cute Scandanavian chicks were non existent.Don't deny me Finland, God damn!
I'm up there and I can't help but lolling, damn that's the worst picture anyone has ever taken of me. But I agree, we have A LOT of fail cosplays here in Finland, most of the kids don't even try to make the costume as good as they could.