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2016 Kigurumi Chronicle

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

Verified nodes

March 26-27: AnimeJapan 2016 provides public cosplay infrastructure usable by kigurumi

AnimeJapan 2016's public days ran March 26-27 in Tokyo Big Sight East Halls 1-6. Cosplayers World provided indoor, outdoor, and temporary outdoor photography areas, paid registration, changing rooms, and cloakroom service.12

Daily cosplay registration cost JPY 1,000 and included the changing room and cloakroom. Normal changing hours were 10:00-17:00, with an early 7:00-9:00 session during which cloakroom service was unavailable; the cloakroom otherwise ran until 16:30.2 For participants transporting a mask, costume, and accessories, these were prerequisites for public participation rather than incidental amenities.

The rules confined vision-limiting face coverings, masks, and eye patches, together with hard-to-move large constructions, kigurumi, trailing garments, and large ornaments, to the cosplay areas. Photography was limited to designated areas, required the subject's permission, and could not involve forced poses. Photography in changing rooms and commercial use of event photographs were prohibited.2 The text directly names kigurumi while addressing vision, movement, privacy, consent, and image use.

After closing: the organizer report confirms the temporary outdoor and photography facilities operated

The post-event report records 135,323 total visitors across AnimeJapan 2016's three days. That whole-event figure cannot be converted into a kigurumi count. The report also confirms that the temporary outdoor cosplay area was a new facility and became crowded with cosplayers and photographers after midday, while official anime photography sets indoors were used by both cosplayers and other visitors.3

The report distinguishes facilities that actually operated from plans published before the event. It still does not establish a specialist kigurumi gathering or any particular animegao character, so the record remains one of public-event infrastructure.

Sources

  1. AnimeJapan, “AnimeJapan 2016 Event Outline,” https://anime-japan.jp/2016/about/outline/ ↩

  2. AnimeJapan, “Cosplayers World,” https://anime-japan.jp/2016/main/cosplay/ ↩↩↩

  3. AnimeJapan, “AnimeJapan 2016 Event Report,” https://anime-japan.jp/2016/report/outline/ ↩