Tokyo Oct 08: Costume Shopping in Japan

Since I knew I was spending a week in Japan the week before Halloween, I waited til I got there to get a costume... for Japan is the country that invented 'cosplay' (the word at least),  the act of dressing up in strange costumes for little or no reason.  I knew I'd have no problem finding something good once I got here. ( and as you can see from our Halloween partying in Shibuya, I had no trouble finding something good)

I went over to the nearby 'Don Quixote'( ドン キホーテ) one night and snapped a few pics w/ my camera for you guys to check out.  For those who don't know, ' Don Quixote' is a unique discount chain store in Japan,  they're open 24 hours and they sell EVERYTHING (think like a K-mart + a super market + a Spencers Gifts crammed into a narrow ailsed multi-floor Japanese department store).

In addition to a display of costumes at the front entrance especially for Halloween, they also had a section upstairs which was devoted year round for costumes of all sorts -

well, not ALL sorts:

Hmm...  did I mention that this is Japan? :-P

Just so you don't think I am some kind of creepy guy who goes around alone looking at women's costumes:

Pat says " I want to wear this outfit for Halloween!"

Some more:

Does anyone want to guess what スケベ代表 means?

a few Anime related ones were cool:

I was tempted to buy the Galaxy Express 999( 銀河鉄道999) costume... Maeter

Yes, even a few bizarre politically incorrect Japan-only type costumes:

You too can dress up like Hitler!

(note that the one on the left is titled 'Emperor Napoleon', whereas the one on the right is titled 'Nazi President')

on a more PC level - they had these cool ski masks too:

You can be the Dragon of the slopes!

Don Quixote also has a large toy section,  I was surprised to see they make figures for ' The Goonies' (a bit surprising cause its like a 23 year old movie...)

Short Round!

I wonder if Jeff Cohen gets any money out of this?

I also went to Tokyu Hands in Shibuya on Friday afternoon to see if they had anything else cool.  The costumes were about the same, but they did have something unique.  JasmineT recently blogged about the Star Wars USB hubs she saw there,  similarly  spotted this super random merchandising opportunity:

Not just an R2D2 toy.  Can you read the labels?

Yes, the left two say " R2-R9Soy Sauce Bottle"  and the one on the right is the " R2-D2 Pepper Mill"...

nothing tastes better than R2-D2 dispensed Soy Sauce!