Surprises Abound: Cosplay Arrest, Drama Queen’s Back?
The Asahi Shimbun has a piece on a guy who makes superhero costumes (and, in fact, operates as an unofficial mascot for the Ibaraki Prefecture)– but it’s not a feel-good piece. The man has been slapped with an ¥1 million (about $10,300 USD) for making and selling a costume from the tokusatsu series Gekiranger without the permission of Toei.
Way to stop Christmas, Toei– the poor guy, who along with other volunteers in his community put on performances for the children of the city, has had to cancel all such events for the foreseeable future. Toei says:
“The act is a betrayal to the superhero, and cannot be forgiven under any circumstance,” said an official at Toei, who added: “We are not trying to incriminate cosplay culture. As long as it is done within the limits of personal pleasure, we would certainly encourage it.”
…But I have to point out that he sold one costume to one guy; it doesn’t sound like he was working to mass produce it. So is Toei saying that you have to be your own costume constructor (or start making friends with one) in order to cosplay? More like that you have to buy THEIR mass-produced version of the costume (if they even sell one), I’d wager.
On a somewhat happier note, there has been some activity over at the Drama Queen forums (requires a log-in)! The troubled yaoi publisher has announced that it is back to printing, and that the first book to arrive is The Tyrant Falls In Love. I’m a little confused by the way she puts this…
The first book to arrive in September is Tyrant Falls in Love v01…
Does that mean it’s not coming until September 2009? Or that the book arrived at their offices in September 2008? Or maybe she meant to say a different month? I’m a little confused there, but I’m sure it’ll all be figured out. DQ also has some optimism for their OEL BL anthology RUSH:
As for RUSH - we are working to get RUSH back on schedule - I think by December we can get Issue 2 out.
I hope all the artists and writers are still on board after this long delay, because RUSH was really pretty damn awesome. Crossing my fingers for you, DQ!
Tags: cosplay, drama-queen, toei, yaoi
October 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Yea, despite the legal issues involved there are much better ways to handle this than to appear like a greedy villain AND keep the law. GJ Toei.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Omo: Yeah, they coulda done a skit about it for the kids as a community service penance! Ibaliger could call on Gekiranger for help fighting a bad guy, and they win, but then Gekiranger lectures Ibaliger about borrowing from other people’s copyrights. The two then do a song and dance number titled “The Internet is for Copying (And It’ll Get You In Trouble).”
;D
October 29th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Well I would love to see what the forum is, but with the log in and registration - they require manual activation on the administrator’s part. That is quite frustrating, when my friend wants to see the forum activity asap.
We were also speaking about that the releases in terms of this year or next year.. who knows.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I guess Toei doesn’t want people making money off of cosplaying their characters. I hope that’s as far as it goes. I don’t want to stop seeing Super Sentai and Kamen Rider cosplayer pics from Japan just because Toei hates cosplay.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
It better be back. I want more Master!
October 30th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Lady Q went back and edited the post afterwards saying she made a mistake in month. She meant November not September. I’m so glad they’re back on their feet though!