Sponsored by New York Comic Con, Del Rey, and Viz Pictures, Kinokuniya up in New York City hosted a cosplay day for Gothic Lolita and Maid fashion last Saturday. Besides celebrating the fashion style, they also took the event as an opportunity to promote Del Rey's new light novel Maid Machinegun, and Viz Pictures' Kamikaze Girls. If you happen to be a heavy Twitter user, then you might've seen the updates over at AnimeAlmanac's feed, but I took the traditional journalist route and waited until far too long to write this up.
What was in store for us? Some truly elegant Gothic Lolitas? Some ultra-perky maids, who would say "goshuujin-sama" to us all day long? Well, I think you know what the answer is.
No. God no. Don't be a fool. It was hard to properly capture the boredom on the three EGL girls up at the header of the post, but I assure you, they were bored. There were giveaways, and special events going on at the store, but the talking began at 3pm, with an introduction to Gothic-Lolita fashion and what it's all about. The audience felt the need to correct the young woman who was talking -- apparently she runs one of the major LJ communities for Gothic-Lolita fashion -- on every slight mistake she made on a Japanese word.
Due to the sound equipment, it was hard to hear her, but she did bring up some interesting topics, going through the general history of Gothic-Lolitas, and all the different subtypes. Two that I had never heard of before were Wa-style and Aristocrat style. "Wa" is something frequently used to specify Japanese-style things. So, Wa-style Gothic-Lolita involves kimono and the like -- perhaps a bit along the lines of Jigoku Shoujo. Aristocrat style is something I couldn't hear her describe all that well, but something that I'll be delving into Google to find out more on.
Afterwards, we had two more events: the first was a live recording of an episode of Samurai Beat Radio. During the show, they played five songs, had us rate them, and then interviewed us about Japan. The songs played were "Sky Blue Days" by Shoko Nakagawa, "Perfume" by Foundation, "Sentimental Generation" by Ami Tokito, a song by AKB48, and "Dream" by Shoko Nakagawa. Only thanks to Japanator Radio did I already know most of those songs. I was actually one of the people interviewed, as Scott from AnimeAlmanac snapped a photo of.
Finally, we had a reading from Maid Machinegun, a new light novel from Del Rey Manga. I'm in the process of reading it for review, but so far, it's an interesting read. Metal Gear Solid 4 takes a bit of precedence, though, I'll admit. While not terribly exciting, the event was a nice way to escape the horrible heat of New York City, and a good chance to corner someone about the Kodansha rumors.
Anyways, check out the photos below, as well as the gallery over at MediumAtLarge.
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