School idols, Hatsune Miku, and Attack on Titan‘s survey corps top cosplay manufacturer Cospa’s list of biggest sellers.
Costume and accessories manufacturer Cospa is one of the major cosplay manufacturers in Japan, providing ready to go costumes for any cosplayers. The company has released a list of its top 10 sellers of last year, giving a good insight as to what some of the more popular games and anime series are in Japan.
For people who don’t have the skills, time, or care to make a costume, several stores exist – especially in Japan – for cosplayers to buy cosplays. Costumes tend to be manufactured as a series gets popular, and if they remain popular, they remain in stores and online for purchase. Attack on Titan is an international hit, but while there are lots of survey corps members seen at anime and comic conventions in the United States, the series first got popular in Japan. It’s not unusual to see plenty of the survey corps at various cosplaying events in Japan.
Even so, Cospa’s Eren Yeager costume from Attack on Titan is not its most popular. It managed to beat out other popular hits like the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku, but a multimedia series spanning music CDs, manga, video games, and anime called Love Live! stands proudly as number one in 2014. Love Live! is about a group of girls become idols to save their school from shutting down and later participate in a school idol competition, and its second anime season aired from April to June in 2014.
The full list is below:
10. Gintoki Sakata from Gin Tama
9. Destroyer Division 6 outfit from Kantai Collection
8. Shimakaze from Kantai Collection
7. Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
6. Free Planets Alliance Star Fleet from Legend of the Galactic Heroes
5. Hatsune Miku
4. Trafalgar Law (New World version) from One Piece
3. Eren Yeager (Survey Corps) from Attack on Titan
2. Kongo-Class Tunic from Kantai Collection
1. Otonokizaka Academy Girl’s Uniform from Love Live!
There are nine main characters in Love Live attending the same school, so with nine characters wearing the same uniform, there’s no surprise Cospa sold so many. However, Love Live! is also just one of the more cosplayed series right now. Cosplay sites like World Cosplay show rankings of the most cosplayed series, and even there Love Live! has the most photos.
Kantai Collection is a free-to-play browser game in Japan released in 2013 with an official tabletop role-playing game, manga, and light novels. An anime series is currently airing, and a Vita game is on the way. In the online game, the player is an admiral and assembles a fleet of ships who are actually girls. The game has a large fanbase in Japan, so it’s not too surprising to see some of the costumes become popular sellers.
It should also be noted that while Danganronpa 2 released in the U.S. and Europe in September 2014, the game actually came out on PSP first in Japan in 2012 and then released on the Vita in 2013. For a costume from the series to be in the top ranking after the initial year’s hype is impressive.
Cospa is just one of many cosplay stores, but for anyone flying into Tokyo soon, Cospa has a satellite store in Narita International Airport until the end of May. It even has official distributors in San Francisco, Barcelona, and Singapore.
Source: Nico Nico (Japanese) via Kotaku
