Interest
Photo Feature: Nippombashi Street Festa 2017
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Osaka's biggest anime event isn't a convention, trade show, or dōjinshi event. Instead, Osaka is famous for the Nipponbashi Street Festa, a three-hour cosplay parade in the city's Den Den Town area (the equivalent of Akihabara in Tokyo) that takes place in mid-March.
The main street in Den Den Town is blocked to traffic, and thousands of cosplayers pose on the streetside for fans. The whole event is free.
Osaka held the 13th annual Nippombashi Street Festa on Sunday, and once again the crowds were indescribable.
The most-cosplayed characters this year seemed to be Rem and Ram from Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-. But the costumes ranged from anime and video games to Western comics and the just plain weird.
At the startline of the festival, a March comes in like a lion pop-up cafe was there to greet attendees.
On the main street the crowds are crazy and it's difficult to even move. But often it's the side streets that have the more interesting cosplays, ones that wouldn't normally work in an area that usually feels like a blocks-long mosh pit. For example, probably the cosplay with the most people involved was this Gundam one along one of the side streets.
The event also has a stage area, used for the opening ceremonies and a tokusatsu show featuring Osaka's own "Chikyū Senshi Zeros" (Earth Warrior Zeros) hero.
The full cosplay gallery is below.
To learn more about Nippombashi Street Festa, or about the history of Den Den Town, check out Mike Toole's feature from last year's event.
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