{"id":63987,"date":"2015-10-30T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T17:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=63987"},"modified":"2015-10-30T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T17:23:00","slug":"no-tricks-halloween-all-the-rage-in-japan-as-costume-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/10\/30\/no-tricks-halloween-all-the-rage-in-japan-as-costume-play\/","title":{"rendered":"No tricks: Halloween all the rage in Japan as costume play"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo<\/a>
(Photo from Flickr\/Salvatore Gerace<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TOKYO \u2013 For the usually reserved Japanese, Halloween has become the perfect excuse to act wild in strange outfits.<\/p>\n

The spooky celebration is consuming the energy, fashion sense and wallets of people for the entire month of October, not just kids but also adults on the prowl with colorful parades, costume parties and pumpkin-inspired desserts, dress-up and decor everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen everyone is happy like this, I feel happy,\u201d said Shoko Ushimaru, a game designer, wearing white makeup and a pirate outfit at a recent Halloween party in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

She was in a room with a crowd of people, all in costumes. A DJ was playing music, but no one was dancing. The main attraction was getting photos taken under studio lighting, perfect for posting on social media such as Instagram and Facebook. Participants use such parties, popping up in recent weeks, for making friends and letting go of inhibitions.<\/p>\n

Yoshi Kaseki, who heads the Japan Anniversary Association and studies the business potential of holidays, said Japanese don\u2019t care about the cultural or religious backdrop of Halloween, or how it\u2019s celebrated anywhere else. The biggest attraction is that anyone can take part, in contrast to Valentine\u2019s, for instance, another holiday import that’s gained in popularity but which requires a lover or partner.<\/p>\n

Over the last several years, the significance of Halloween has grown, although it\u2019s still lagging Christmas in spending, according to Kaseki\u2019s calculations of merchandizing and consumption. The fact that the holiday falls on a Saturday this year is a plus.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must think of Halloween in Japan as a totally different phenomenon from Halloween in the U.S.,\u201d said Kaseki.<\/p>\n

Although Japan has its own traditional festivals to celebrate spookiness and honor the dead, Halloween is being observed with a special frenzy. It helps that everything about it resonates in the country that gave birth to the subculture of \u201ccostume play,\u201d the art of dressing up like \u201cmanga\u201d animation and mascot characters.<\/p>\n

Favorite characters for dressing up can range from Nintendo Co.\u2019s video-game hero Super Mario to the pot-bellied friendly spirit Totoro from animation master Hayao Miyazaki.<\/p>\n

Many Japanese don\u2019t bother trying to look like the usual witches, zombies and ghosts associated with Halloween. Ask them what \u201ctrick or treat\u201d means, and they usually won\u2019t know. It doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

The Roppongi Hills shopping complex in Tokyo, where streets have been decked with bobbing pumpkin-shaped lanterns for weeks, is serving up pumpkin-theme pancakes covered with yellow coconut sauce for 2,980 yen ($25), as well as a 36 centimeter (14-inch) tall \u201cmonster\u201d tower of five hamburgers for 4,860 yen ($40).<\/p>\n

Yasushi Senoo, chief research analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting in Tokyo, who has been studying the economic impact of Halloween, believes it can only get bigger in Japan because the largest participation is among teenagers. As they get older, their spending power will grow.<\/p>\n

Right now, a million Japanese are estimated to be so-called \u201cheavy\u201d Halloween consumers, or those creating their own costumes and taking part in parades.<\/p>\n

Including casual users, Halloween revelers are estimated at 20 million people, each spending on average between 1,000 yen ($8) and 1,500 yen ($12), which multiplies to 20 billion yen ($170 million) or 30 billion yen ($250 million) in economic impact, according to Senoo.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses are eager to use something that’s this well-known to everyone as an opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Japanese like to contemplate the changing seasons, and fall is one time without a cause to celebrate, according to Senoo.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Easter, with bunnies and painted eggs that appear conducive to costume play and merchandising, isn\u2019t likely to take off as easily because spring already has plenty of action, with school and work starting, in Japan.<\/p>\n

One area Halloween was likely to grow in coming years is in home decoration, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalloween has potential for growth because it is so open-ended,\u201d he said, unlike Christmas, for which the market has reached saturation levels. \u201cNew Japanese forms of celebrating Halloween can develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halloween madness culminates Saturday in Tokyo\u2019s Roppongi area, with thousands of carousers on the streets in various outlandish costumes. Those in regular clothing would be certain to feel out of place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s fun is that this is all so unreal,\u201d said party organizer Takahisa Takeishi, a young man who managed to look far more effeminate than his usual self with a purple wig dressed up as Gakupo or Gackpo, a virtual singer or vocaloid. \u201cWe can\u2019t look like this every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO \u2013 For the usually reserved Japanese, Halloween has become the perfect excuse to act wild in strange outfits. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":63988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-63987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fashion-and-beauty","tag-original","mauthors-yuri-kageyama","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}