2015 Kigurumi Chronicle¶
The 2016-2025 volumes are complete. Following the rule to avoid completed years and move backward one year at a time, this edition covers 2015 only. Verifiable first-party material is concentrated in AnimeJapan's public cosplay infrastructure. Specialist gatherings without a reliable date, place, and outcome are not converted into facts.
1. Evidence boundary¶
This volume uses only AnimeJapan's organizer-maintained event outline, Cosplayers World rules, and post-event report. Together they establish dates, venue, rules that explicitly name kigurumi, and whether the related facilities actually operated.
AnimeJapan is a general anime convention, not a specialist animegao kigurumi event. Its total attendance is not a kigurumi count, and ordinary cosplay photographs cannot establish animegao participation. The record here concerns the areas, changing, storage, assisted movement, and photography governance on which public kigurumi participation depended.
2. Verified nodes¶
March 21-22: AnimeJapan 2015 expands public cosplay space usable by kigurumi¶
AnimeJapan 2015's public days ran March 21-22 in Tokyo Big Sight East Halls 1-6. Cosplayers World provided indoor and outdoor cosplay areas, paid registration, changing rooms, cloakroom service, and official anime photography sets. The organizer described the changing room and outdoor area as expanded from the previous year.12
Daily cosplay registration cost JPY 500. Changing rooms ran from 10:00 to 17:00, with an early 7:00-9:00 session. Cloakroom service cost a separate JPY 500 per day, allowed repeated access, and ran until 16:30; the indoor cosplay area closed at 16:30 and the outdoor area at 16:00.2 For participants transporting a mask, costume, and accessories, these hours, fees, and access conditions determined whether public participation was practical.
The rules confined large constructions, kigurumi, and doll costumes to the indoor and outdoor cosplay areas. Participants wearing costumes that limited vision or movement were asked to remove or carry obstructive parts or move with an assistant so as not to impede surrounding visitors. Photography was limited to designated areas, required the subject's permission, and could not involve forced poses; cameras and phones could not be used for photography in changing rooms.2 The text directly addresses vision, movement, privacy, and consent in a kigurumi-relevant setting.
After closing: the organizer report confirms the expanded areas and photography facilities operated¶
The post-event report confirms AnimeJapan 2015 ran March 20-22 and drew more than 120,000 visitors overall. That figure covers the business area, public area, and the entire event and cannot be converted into a kigurumi count. The report also says Cosplayers World's changing room and outdoor area were larger than in the previous edition, more cosplayers gathered than the year before, and queues formed for official anime sets and general-purpose photography backdrops.3
The report distinguishes facilities that actually operated from plans published before the event. It still does not establish a specialist kigurumi gathering, a particular animegao character, or the number of kigurumi participants, so this remains a record of public-event infrastructure.
3. Domain decisions¶
| Domain | Verifiable 2015 material | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Chronicle | AnimeJapan public days and post-event report | Include in the annual axis |
| Daily life / discussion | Changing, storage, area hours, and movement assistance | Discuss only conditions established by rules |
| Workshop / craft | No verifiable new 2015 tutorial or workshop publication found | Omit |
| Reference / education | Movement management for limited vision and large costumes | Treat as public-safety material |
| Etiquette | Photography consent, no forced poses, and changing-room privacy | Include as public governance |
| Academic | No directly relevant, verifiable new 2015 research found | Omit |
The existing chronicle, education, and etiquette structure is sufficient. One general-convention node does not justify a separate event or academic section.
4. De-duplication against 2016-2025¶
| Continuing subject | Kept in 2015 | Later-volume treatment |
|---|---|---|
| AnimeJapan public facilities | Changing and outdoor areas expanded from 2014; separately priced registration and storage | 2016 retains its new temporary outdoor area, combined registration service, and post-event confirmation |
| Movement and assistance | Removing, carrying, or using an assistant when vision or movement was restricted | 2018 retains its stronger mandatory attendant rule for a parade context and is not backfilled into 2015 |
| Photography and privacy | Designated areas, subject permission, no forced poses, and no changing-room photography | Later volumes retain only new or changed policy text |
| Official IP / specialist events | No sufficient first-party evidence | Verified 2019-2025 nodes are not backfilled |
5. Annual conclusion¶
The reliable 2015 record is not a specialist-event list but an expansion of public cosplay space with evidence that it operated. AnimeJapan directly placed kigurumi, doll costumes, large constructions, and vision-limiting clothing within area and movement governance while providing changing, storage, photography areas, and consent boundaries. The post-event report confirms the expanded facilities were used. Gaps remain gaps and are not filled backward from later growth.
Sources¶
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AnimeJapan, “AnimeJapan 2015 Event Outline,” https://anime-japan.jp/2015/about/outline/ ↩
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AnimeJapan, “Cosplayers World,” https://anime-japan.jp/2015/main/cosplay/ ↩↩↩
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AnimeJapan, “AnimeJapan 2015 Event Report,” https://anime-japan.jp/2015/report/ ↩