When it comes to recreating the characters of Japanese horror manga artist Junji Ito in real life, there’s no one better for the job than dedicated fan Mamakiteru. Mamakiteru’s Twitter bio reads “I want to live in the world of Junji Ito”, and since living in the artist’s manga is impossible, she decided to do the next best thing – bring Ito’s characters into the real world, using face paint and a bit of digital editing. Most of her work involves expertly applying makeup to turn herself into almost perfect renditions of Junji Ito manga characters, with digital editing only being used to recreate surreal images which could not otherwise exist in our world. She’s been at it for four years now, and has amassed quite a following on social media. Read More »

A longtime Predator fan in Thailand has been getting a lot of attention for dressing up as a real-life human-hunting alien and riding his custom-made, Predator-themed choppers on the roads of his home province. A video of a someone wearing a realistic Predator costume and riding an alien-looking chopper on a road in Thailand’s Mukdahan province has been doing the rounds on social media since last month. Unfortunately, the viral video doesn’t offer any context whatsoever, relying solely on the impressive visuals to attract attention, but it turns out that this isn’t just a random cosplayer, but a dedicated Predator fan known by the local communities as the Predator of Mukdahan. Read More »

Skinny Japanese men looking to get that coveted “slim and macho” look without putting in the work and breaking a sweat at the gym now achieve their goal pretty much instantly. All they have to do is put on the Super Macho T, a special undershirt that instantly gives them a buff physique. Developed by a Japanese company named “His Company Group”, the Super Macho T features inflatable air bags that go into small pockets located around the chest and upper arm areas and visually enhance the wearers chest, biceps and triceps. The cool thing about this system is that you can inflate the air bags as much as you want, allowing you to go for an inconspicuous moderately toned look, or an absolute gym addict. Read More »

Erik Finman, the world’s youngest Bitcoin millionaire, recently made headlines for creating a real-life, functional version of Dr. Octopus’ iconic four-arm prosthesis for a young Marvel fan who also suffers from hypermobility symptoms. 19-year-old Finman, who got his start in cryptocurrency when he was only 12, by investing  a $1,000 gift from his grandmother in Bitcoin, is now worth around $3 million, and is considered one of the world’s most influential teenagers. He has been involved in several projects over the last few years, from start-ups to an ongoing collaboration with NASA, but his most exciting venture yet has to be transforming a 10-year-old comics fan into a real-life version of Marvel villain Dr. Octopus with the help of an intriguing prosthesis. Read More »

With millions of fans around the world, Dragon Ball Z is one of the most popular anime series to ever come out of Japan. From cosplaying as their favorite characters, creating amazing fan art to spending their hard earned money on memorabilia, fans love to show their appreciation for the epic saga, but few have gone as far as this hardcore Dragon Ball Z fan from Thailand who covered his whole body in colorful tattoos inspired by the Japanese franchise. Read More »

If you’ve been looking for something to help you leave the house even less than you currently do, you’re probably going to love “Human Uber” a tech concept that allows people to be present anywhere using another person’s body. Japanese researcher Jun Rekimoto presented his idea, called ChameleonMask, at MIT Tech Review’s EmTech in Singapore this week. Although he described it as “human uber,” his intriguing concept is more accurately described as mobile FaceTime, although even that is too much of a simplification considering that the technology aims to allow someone else to live your life for you. Read More »

Applying bright pink poster paint all over your face can leave you with pink skin. At least that’s what everyone though after seeing the photos of a twitter user who recently did just that. No one knows exactly why Twitter user @LeleTill decided to put bright pink poster paint all over her face, but she did, and also documented the experience in a series of photos posted on the popular social network. @LeleTill, whose real name is Leah, first drew people’s attention with a picture of herself covered in pink Palmer Washable Glitter Poster Paint. She followed that up with a couple of close-ups of the label on the bottom, which read “Washes off easily off skin and most fabrics”. However, her “after” photo clearly shows that you should never put your trust in labels, especially if you don’t plan on using the product as intended. Read More »

Luis Padron, a 25-year-old fantasy fan and cosplay enthusiast from Argentina, has spent tens of thousands of dollars altering his looks in his desire to become a real-life elf. Luis says he became obsessed with fantastic beings like elves and angels after being bullied as a child. He used to get picked on because he dyed his hair and had a different dress style than most boys his age, and since he didn’t have many friends growing up, he spent all of his free time reading fantasy books and dressing as his favorite characters. By the end of high-school, his unusual looks and natural quirkiness let to him becoming admired, and that just fueled his desire to be different. Now, he’s trying to make the changes permanent with the help of cosmetic medical procedures. Read More »

Lianne Moseley is not your average makeup artist. While she has a full-time job doing bridal makeup, her real passion lies in painting faces to resemble three-dimensional cartoon characters! The 25-year-old said that her passion for comics began as a child – she would spend hours sketching Sailor Moon after school and pour over her brother’s graphic novels. She also picked up all her makeup skills growing up. “My mom sold catalogue cosmetics and right from the start, I just got right into it,” she said. “In high school instead of studying I spent a lot of time practicing and doing friend’s makeup.” Although Moseley has been painting faces for over two years, she recently started doing the comic-style makeup that has made her so popular. “When I first did Archer, I posted it on my Facebook page and my friends liked it but I didn’t have a big following but my brother really liked it and he posted it on Reddit,” she said. “Just last night Ashton Kutcher shared an article on my work on his Facebook page.” Read More »

Japanese designer Kiyoyuki Amano has combined fashion and technology to create futuristic short skirts that illuminate the wearer’s thighs. Aptly named ‘Hikaru Skirt’, which means ‘Shining Skirt’, the garment comes equipped with LED lights and the miniature gyro sensors on the inside. So the skirt lights up, and the color and pattern of the light changes every time the wearer moves. Amano said that he first placed light bulbs inside a skirt on a whim, and that’s when he noticed that it created a pleasant illumination of the thighs. So he worked on the design some more and soon created a whole line of LED-illuminated minis. The Hikaru skirts, he said, are meant to bridge the gap between everyday fashion and cosplay. Read More »

29-year-old Rene Koiter spent the past ten months exercising like a maniac. And now, all his efforts have finally paid off. After putting on 10 pounds of pure muscle, he has succeeded in perfectly resembling the terrifying Khal Drogo, leader of the Dothraki and husband of Daeneyrs Targaryen in The Game of Thrones TV series. Koiter’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures are pretty unbelievable. He used to be this regular guy, and look what he’s transformed into! He’s now a major heartthrob and women are practically queuing up at his doorstep with marriage proposals. A big fan of the Game of Thrones universe, Koiter pretty much had his heart set on looking like Khal for his company’s annual Halloween cosplay. “Blizzard Entertainment, the company I work for, has these yearly Halloween competitions where the most creative employees show off their costumes and stage skills for the chance to procure prizes and glory,” he said in an interview.

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Richard Schaefer is a talented costume design major at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, but he’s also a huge fan of Disney fairy-tale characters, so he spends a lot of his time creating real-life costumes of princes and princesses. The young Disney costume maker is also quite androgynous, and he knows it. So in addition to creating the costumes, wigs and accessories of all his favorite characters, Richard is also very capable of showing them off on himself. In fact the popularity of Ariel’s Grotto, his Tumblr photo blog, went through the roof after photos of a prince to princess transformation starring Richard as the model were picked up by popular media outlets like Buzzfeed. He used a lot of makeup to slip into the skin of Disney princesses, but the result is nothing short of impressive. One could say he does a better job playing the princesses that he does the princes. Read More »

Japanese samurai are famous all over the world, but one Belgian man has taken his passion for these medieval warriors to a whole new level by making his own authentic armor from thousands of custom metal pieces and hundreds of meters of cord. Danny had always been fascinated by the history and culture of the samurai. He began collecting Japanese swords when he was 16 years old, and dreamed of one day owning his very own armor. He couldn’t afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars on an authentic samurai costume, and replicas, though cheaper, weren’t built for his impressive nearly two-meters-tall size. But he wasn’t going to give up on his dream too easily, and with the help of some supportive metalworking friends, the now 42-year-old bank teller set out to build his own samurai armor. Just like the Japanese craftsmen of old, Dennis assembled his protective suit out of traditional chainmail and 3,000 small pieces of metal, every one of which was hammered by hand to the correct shape and size, strung together with 225 meters of cord. It took two long years to finish the whole thing, but the end result is simply breathtaking. Read More »

Ever wondered what Mr. Miyagi would look like dressed as a schoolgirl? No?!? Me neither…Who does that? Anyway, you’ll get to see it anyway, as we take a look at one of Tokyo’s most iconic characters, Hideaki Kobayashi, better known as the “Sailor Suit Old Man” or the weird guy wearing a schoolgirl uniform. As some of you may know, schoolgirl uniforms are very popular in Japan, but mostly it’s the girls who wear them. One man decided to turn the fashion trend on its head and started wearing the outfit himself, in some of Tokyo’s most crowded places. Hideaki Kobayashi is one of Japan’s most experienced cosplay photographers, meaning he’s been attending anime and video game themed events for over a decade, taking pictures of people dressed as their favorite characters. The flashy dress code must have rubbed off on him at some point, as he started making appearances in his now-famous sailor style school uniform. He was a bizarre sight to behold even at cosplay shows, but Hideaki decided to take it one step further and wear his girly uniform wherever he went. In the Western world, most people would probably be shocked and disgusted at the sight of a hairy old man walking around town in a schoolgirl uniform, but not in Japan. Here, the Sailor Suit Old Man became an internet celebrity, sought out by young girls who wanted to take pictures with him and post them online for everyone to see. He even bragged about being mobbed for photos “like a popular celebrity”, on Facebook. Read More »

Maid cafes are a dime a dozen in Tokyo’s geeky Akihabara district, but Kigurumi Cafe t.t.t. one-ups them all by introducing waitresses wearing full-body suits and creepy plush heads to reallybring anime characters to life. Wikipedia defines cosplay as a performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. You’ve probably seen cosplayers dressed as popular video game or anime characters at geeky events, or at least photos of them posted online. But few people know there’s an extreme type of cosplay known in Japan as Animegao or Kigurumi. It implies not only wearing a character’s costume, but also an oversize fake head complete with giant anime-style eyes to bring popular 2D drawn girls into our 3D world. If you’ve seen my post on Anna Amemiya, the half-human half-anime model, you already know what I’m talking about, if not, get ready to be freaked-out. Read More »