A New Ecchi Cosplay Trend from Japan: Low Katsu Joshi
You never know what random thing will become popular in Japan. One year all the girls might start sporting U.S. military style dog tags to be fashionable, then they’ll suddenly put on shoes with thick soles that make them six inches taller, and then there was that awesome summer of the “camisole boom” when every female in Tokyo seemed to be walking around in her underwear. One up-and-coming trend that’s getting a rise is called Low Katsu Joshi, translatable as “girls who make a living by pulling their panties down as low as possible.” It’s an offshoot of underground ecchi cosplay culture on Instagram in which cosplayers put on extremely sexy outfits then photograph themselves with low rise panties pulled down low, winning followers and invitations to cosplay events. The photography style was invented by sexy idol Ushijima Iiniku and now a new wave of ero cosplayers are making use of it to get attention “SNS,” as social media is called in Japan. Do you like this new ecchi cosplay trend? It certainly got my attention!
While it can be easy to focus on the negative things about the world we live in — problems with politics, the economy, areas of our society that aren’t perfect — I try my best to think about the positive aspects of the current age, instead. We live in a amazing world that’s mostly peaceful, experience economic opportunities no previous era has, live 25 years longer on average than our grandparents, and can travel to the other side of the planet for a very reasonable sum. Technology is cheap — a PC costs 1/12 what it costs what it did when I was in high school, for infinitely more speed and utility — and we all have mobile computers with HD camera in our pockets. In short, the world we live in is pretty darned good. One thing I love about the modern era is the way we generally have the leisure to engage in silly hobbies and strange obsessions, like the 20+ R2-D2 and other Star Wars droids I have in my office, or the amazing Airbnb One Piece shrine one of our staffers is staying in in Tokyo. Recently someone I know got married, and fulfilled her lifelong dream of getting a Sailor Moon wedding certificate, a legally registered wedding certificate featuring art from Sailor Moon. Isn’t the world great sometimes?
One product we’ve carried for the entire history of our company has been anime magazines, which are always prized by fans because they are so beautiful, and come with great bonus items like posters, “clear files” (beautifully printed plastic document protectors) and more. We recommend the new issue of Megami, because the posters in it are so gorgeous. Browse the new anime magazine now!
