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2013 Kigurumi Chronicle

This volume records events, works and publications from this year. Announcements and completed events are identified separately.

Verified nodes

September 19-22: large kigurumi enter a public convention's costume boundary

The Tokyo Game Show 2013 archive lists September 19-20 as Business Days and September 21-22 as Public Days at Makuhari Messe. Its cosplayer rules classify large kigurumi, large papier-mache forms, and floor-dragging skirts or mantles as costumes that could obstruct others. Skirts and mantles could be extended for photography only and had to be folded while moving. The English edition renders the relevant category as “large size full-body suits.”1

This did not ban every kigurumi and does not identify what mask characters appeared. The narrower verified fact is that, by 2013, a major public game exhibition explicitly treated large kigurumi as a costume-governance issue involving circulation space and effects on nearby visitors.

The same page limits changing to the cosplay changing rooms in Hall 9, forbids changing in restrooms or elsewhere, and prohibits eating, resting, and photography in the changing rooms. It also announces early changing from the first train at Kaihin-Makuhari Station until 08:00, cloakroom conditions, and a ban on arriving or leaving in costume.1

Photography was limited to designated areas inside and outside Hall 9 and in a specified parking area. Photographers had to obtain permission from the subject, and publishing an image on a personal website required the relevant person's approval. The organizer archive proves that these conditions were published. It is not a post-event report and cannot by itself prove that every facility operated as planned or that a kigurumi participant used it.

Source

  1. Tokyo Game Show, “TOKYO GAME SHOW 2013 / コスプレイヤーの方へ / To Cosplayers,” https://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/tgs/2013/visitor/cosplayers.html and https://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/tgs/2013/en/visitor/cosplayers.html ↩↩