The opportunity arised when I met a friend at work last year. She was a cosplayer herself, and that made me wonder how did she manage to juggle her hobby and work altogether. I was interested, but didn't get going until recently when I made my 2010 new year resolution of trying out cosplaying this year.
A few weeks ago, I started my online research on the playable characters in my friend's team. (She's playing a lead character in Final Fantasy XIII, and of cause being a noob, I needed some company). So I settled for another character who I felt I had a better connection with; Lebreau.
Fast forward to now, I'm in Japan, and I had spent my entire afternoon scouring the streets for cosplay shop. It was lucky that I had foreseen being unable to tell the locals what I had wanted, so I had already prepared a script and had my japanese colleague write the message out in japanese.
My day started with lunch at Shinjuku, then me and another friend split at Shibuya where she went to shop for her craft stuffs, and I, to my cosplay stores.
I was looking for Mandarake, one of the few famous anime/cosplay/manga store brands in Japan. Yet all I had with me was a piece of paper, a vague worded direction guide, NO MAP, and the store address.
Did I mention I LOVE JAPAN?!
One point in time, I found myself not knowing where the hell I was. The next best alternative, I walked into a shopping mall where there were 2 gentle ladies working behind the information counter. I showed one of them the building name where Mandarake was located at, automatically, she withdrew a map in her shirt pocket, located it on her map, proceeded to step outside the mall with me, and hand guided me the way!
Just as you thought that was it, you thank her, yet she bows ever so sincerely and thank you as well. (A;ready expecting that would happen; that Japanese always bow when they thank customers; I too bowed when I thank her too to show my sincerity)
Where on earth have you seen such sincerity, tell me!! ONLY IN JAPAN.
(And it almost always happen, where the locals are really helpful in directions.)
My 120yen vending machine milk tea
I found Mandarake, but it didn't have what I was looking for.
The assistant, with no knowledge of English, drawed out the directions of 2 other different stores that I could try out- Cospatio & Animate.
Leaving the place, it took me 2 more times of asking the shop people where Cospatio was located before I managed to locate Cospa.
Entering, I then realised that the staff were stock-taking, and that it was not supposed to be open for customers today. Then came the Japanese hospitality; one of the staffs behind the counter actually motioned me to hold on for awhile.
2 minutes behind the computer later, she came with a piece of paper with a few English sentences saying that they did not carry what I wanted. I then realised she had used the internet, gone through a language translator to convey the message to me. That gave me an idea, and I motioned if I could use the translator as well.
I spent 20minutes in the store, 2 of us at the side using the internet translator to speak to each other.
Of course there were times when the message came out weird in English, and definitely vice versa when I could tell by her facial expression that she did not quite understand the Japanese that was being translated by the system.
Yet, I still managed to find out that my character's, or even for Final Fantasy XIII, for now, is still not officially produced in Cospa. I even managed to ask her to help me call Animate to ask, saving me the wasted trip of walking another 20minutes to the Animate shop.
The visit for Shibuya was over, and I headed to another area called Nakano.
Nakano Broadway at Nakano area was also a 4 story building for all things anime.
I entered and was amazed!
Figma characters- Kevin's favourites.
It was beautiful.I first entered a Cosmint stall where they had costumes and apparel. Using the internet translator yet again (thanks to my previous encounter in the Cospatio shop and their clever salesgirl) and asked the quote of making my costume for me.
Showing me the final figure after working it out for 10 minutes, my jaws dropped.
When I walked into such shops, I always see their costumes going for 15,000-30,000 yen. I thought that was quite reasonable, being made in Japan and being of fantastic quality.
My shock came when my costume added up to 94,500 yen!!! That is about SGD$1450.00.
10 times more than the one I can customize from Hongkong, 7 times more than from US.
I really wasn't expecting that quote. I thank them still, and walked out the shop flabbergasted and cursing why I wasn't a rich spoilt girl who could afford such luxuries. LOL.
Doll shop selling its body parts; eyes in this picture. Cool!
Little doll shoes~ (Behind inside are the limps/arms/head/etc)
I also walked into Mandarake's costume shop, spoke to a fantastic english speaker (whom I suspect was a English man because of his perfect slang) through the phone because the salesgirl did not understand English, and the answer was the same.
NIL.
He however recommended that I could try to customize a entirely new set from smaller shops in Akihabara, whose quote I guess may scare me also.
So in the end, I didn't go to Akihabara. I'll leave it to next month when I'm back in Japan, but I doubt I would be commissioning my costume in Japan anymore. Language is a disaster here, and I would not want to risk my chance in this year's participation in Cosfest held in July.
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