World Cosplay Summit and Public Baths

My childhood dream fulfilled! :)

My friends and I had known for a while that the World Cosplay Summit 2013 was coming to Nagoya, because we scour the local event pamphlets, and we were excited to see what was in store! We were pleasantly surprised to see tons of costumes as soon as we entered the Oasis 21 open mall in the downtown/Sakae area of Nagoya. We enjoyed watching all the dolled-up girls posing like collectible figurines, and we confessed we didn't recognize half of the characters. The exception, of course, were the Sailor Scouts; I was obsessed with Sailor Moon as a kid, and even collected paraphernalia from the show, like wands and dolls.

So many of the costumes were intricate and accurate, and we couldn't get enough of gawking at them. We sat down in the audience area to watch part of a kimono fashion show, and we passed right by Sailor Venus waiting for her other Sailor Scout friends. There was just the right balance of costumed fans and plainclothes fans, so the cosplayers really stood out!

Intricate wings

After we had wandered around the cosplay summit, we made our way to Osu (one of our favorite neighborhoods, if you couldn't tell by all the mentions it garners here!), to search for a public bath we had heard about. In Japan, many onsen (hot springs) and sentou (public baths) often prohibit tattoos, traditionally to keep out yakuza, or gangsters. Our friend L has three prominent tattoos, so we chose this sentou because they do not discriminate against tattooed customers!

I had made sure to shower beforehand, because guests are supposed to be completely clean before entering the baths. In fact, the bathhouse has areas for guests to scrub down directly in the facility, but we hadn't thought ahead enough to bring shampoo and soap. So we paid ¥400 for towels, stripped down amid elderly Japanese women in the ladies' locker room, and snapped up some small buckets to use in cleaning ourselves as best we could. I hope we didn't offend anyone by not scrubbing for long enough! The Japanese women spent a very long time making themselves clean before entering the baths.

Outside the sentou

It was a freeing experience to bathe in such a public way among other women, without judgment or inhibition. We relaxed in the three or four very hot baths, occasionally taking refuge in the coldest one when things got too hot. There was even an electric bath! We didn't find out until later that the tingling we felt upon dipping our toes in it was, in fact, a weak electrical current.

We felt very relaxed and at peace afterward, and walked more just enjoying this pleasant new state! We circled back to Oasis 21, where the cosplayers were still at it by dusk.