What exactly have I gotten myself into?

[gurdymonkey]

bovil's  recent journal entry pegs Costume Con pre-registration at over 600 attendees. I'm on the official schedule grid for Sunday 10 AM. Is it time to start panicking yet?

This is not going to be like the average SCA class where I get anywhere from two to ten people - if I'm really lucky. It's not even going to be like Known World Costuming & Rattan, where I got twenty or so for the sideless surcote class. This is a convention for costuming. SCA attendees are only part of the equation. Instead of a tiny SCA-Japanese niche, I expect to see attendees from the anime/manga/cosplay part of the spectrum, and I could get quite a lot of them.

Here's the thing. I don't know jack about anime. I'm not into it, it's never really grabbed me.

OK, I have actually done some homework when it comes to historical Japanese clothing or I wouldn't have let myself be roped into this gig, but anime? Only this afternoon someone posted a question about a "hime-cut" to Immortal Geisha. I scratched my head and went a Googlin'. (Which is not, praise John Fogarty, the same as Chooglin'.) Please compare the following:

Bangs???? Hime don' wear no BANGS! Sidelocks yes, but bangs?

It's my understanding that the character is supposed to be a miko (Shinto shrine maiden). The woman on the right actually is one and her vestments have their origin in Heian women's underwear, which later became fashionable as outerwear during the Kamakura period (see scroll drawing at far left).  The toon is also wearing hitatare instead of a kosode: note the artistically flying strings at the lapels and the drawstrings in her billowingly not-kosode-sleeves.

This is a bucket of freshly caught squid I just cannot embroil myself in during the presentation.  If someone asks me for an opinion about what some toon in some series is wearing, I'm going to have to say, "Sorry, I'm not a fan, I can't comment without having seen it." Well, shucky darn. Or should I say, shigata ga nai.
 

Comments

It can't be helped...

[elmunadi.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, to tweak the Japanese speakers amongst your audience... a snarky response is "Shigoto ga nai" versus "Shikata ga nai".

It's "I don't have a job" versus "It can't be helped". They will sound alike to most, and unless your accent is dead-on, even most Nihonjin will at least do a double take.

Your class description indicates *historic* costume/clothing, yes? You could advise that you're terrible at mixed period clothing, but that kosode with a square sailor collar and thigh-high wrap-around-hakama just doesn't cut it... (What *is* that girl on the right in the anime shot wearing?)

I've no doubt that you'll do fine - BTW, there's a reasonable chance that Mela Hoyt-Haydon (M. Mela du Prion when she played SCA) may attend your class - if she does and introduces herself, please tell her Akagawa Yoshio (a former life of mine) says "Hi".

Re: It can't be helped...

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

What *is* that girl on the right in the anime shot wearing?

Japanese High School girls uniform, AKA "seifuku" (this one being sailor suit style.) Yes, I have seen real Japanese schoolgirls wearing things much like that, and in such colors too.