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A World Where Cosplayers Can Feel Proud! Luna Kamisaka’s Last Exhibition, All of Luna Kamisaka

コスプレイヤーが誇れる世界に!神坂琉菜の7年の軌跡・最後の展示会「神坂琉菜全部」
| INTERVIEW | Posted
A World Where Cosplayers Can Feel Proud! Luna Kamisaka’s Last Exhibition, All of Luna Kamisaka

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Popular cosplayer Luna Kawasaki’s final exhibition “All of Luna Kamisaki“, will be held for three days from October 13 until October 15 on the east second floor of Harajuku Design Festa Gallery.

The exhibit was produced entirely by the unit LAL Project, comprised of Luna Kawasaki, graphic designer Ryo Asakura, and designer/photographer Lewo Saito.

The exhibit will tell Kawasaki’s 7-year journey as a cosplayer, through fan-submitted photographs and other articles on display. In light of this, I sat down to interview the three faces representing LAL Project.


Luna’s desire to hold one final exhibition/最後に展示をやってみたかった

ーTo start off with, could you tell me a little about LAL Project?

Luna:It’s a production team that I recruited Lewo Saito and Mr. Asakura (only Ryo goes by his surname) to be a part of. The three of us decided on making something together while at a party thrown by Tokyo Otaku Mode, a site that publishes Japanese subculture content. Each year we’ve continually unveiled a new piece at the winter Comiket, at least up until now. At first I didn’t think we’d be working together for so long.

Lewo:LAL Project is based on making expeditions, and we try to create pieces that make people feel exhilarated after they step back from them, wondering where they’re going to go next. When we shoot, the two of them- Luna and Mr. Asakura, take a camera and we use the good cuts. Mr. Asakura is a CG pro, but in LAL Project he mainly takes normal photographs instead, and then the project conversely turns them into something CG-like. In that sense, many of our LAL Projects are kind of adventurous. Like Luna said, we first met at a Tokyo Otaku Mode party, but I remember that I’d already had a strong urge to incorporate her cosplay into a piece.

ーCould you tell us how this particular exhibition came about?

Luna:Because I had stopped working after my birthday concert in September of 2016, I was technically retired, but because I was still active online, it felt like a retirement in name only, and even I was left feeling confused. I wanted to clearly draw the line for myself, and so I decided that I wanted to finally throw myself into an exhibition, like I’d been wanting to do, and then retire! And so that’s how the exhibition came about. When I talked to the other two about how I felt, they said they said, “Let’s do it!” And setting our sights on making the best exhibition possible, we decided on doing this one.

Looking back on the past seven years with her fans/ファンと振り返る7年間の全て

ーWhat kind of exhibition will it be?

Luna:As the title “All of Luna” suggests, the exhibition’s main concept is everything these past seven years since I became Luna Kamisaka. The whole exhibition itself is proof of Luna Kamisaka’s existence these past seven years. There are many people that have this image that I all of a sudden moved out of the country and became a professional cosplayer, but there was a time where I would regularly wear these crappy costumes I worked hard on out to events at Tokyo Dome City and Toshimaen. We’ve got everything, from pictures back then up until the most recent.

Mr. Asakura:The exhibition is kind of like a “Best Album” culmination of everything Luna has done up until now, including her pieces as part of LAL Project.
What we’re actually to show is a glimpse of how she’s worked her way up, including never-before-seen, pardon my words… “rejected” pieces that weren’t used in the photo album, along with making-of videos taken during photo shoots and behind the scenes footage.

ーGive us the scoop on some of the exhibition’s highlights!

Luna:Not only will the exhibition feature photographs, but we’ve also got items and video clips, so there’s a lot to see and it’ll take quite some time? to take it all in. As for the video clips, they include footage from photo shoots, off shots, and other content never before made available. Also, we’ve gathered photos from many fans, that they’ve sent from events I’ve been apart of up until this point, and they’ll all be displayed regardless of age.

ーThere will also be a talking session, correct?

Luna:Yes, Mr. Asakura will be the MC and we’re planning on involving visitors as well. Main topics include personal photo shoot stories, why LAL Project has continued up until this point, and never publically released information in a presentation-style format. We aren’t announcing what times the sessions will be held, so those able to participate will be lucky!

Mr. Asakura: Not only Luna, but Lewo and myself really want to warmly welcome all of Luna’s fans so please indulge us by letting us ask all of you to share your own stories and memories.

A world where cosplayers can feel proud/コスプレイヤーが誇れる世界に

ーWhat are your memories as a cosplayer?

Luna:Through becoming an active cosplayer, I’ve had the opportunity to experience so many different things.

Not only creating different pieces or doing photo shoots, but meeting several other official cosplayers, MCing at Oktoberfest, doing magazine shoots, appearing on TV, holding talking events and concerts, etc… that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I not been an active cosplayer, nor would I have been able to meet so many people through.

Especially when I decided to do Dark Magician Girl from Yu-Gi-Oh!, who I’d loved for so long, and become an official cosplayer, I was truly happy that I’d decided to pursue cosplay.

I have many memories from my involvement in LAL Project as well, but I think Mr. Asakura will touch on them during the talk session, so please look forward to it!

ーPlease leave us with a final message.

Luna:When I appeared in Angela Aki’s music video four years ago, I was asked to write my future self a message about what kind of place I’d like the world to be, and after mulling it over for some time I wrote, “I’d like the world become a place where cosplayers can feel proud”

At the time, cosplayers weren’t as well known as they are now, and it was there was a world of prejudice. Cosplayers I would meet back then would tell me they couldn’t tell anyone at school, their jobs, or even their parents that their hobby was cosplaying.

For me, the thought of not being able to share something I loved with the people around me seemed strange, and so I didn’t really try to hide it, but at the time that was pretty rare, and there were many prejudiced views about something so unfamiliar.

However, I was confident that if I could explain it to people who held these prejudiced views, and if they could see my work, I could get them to abandon these views and so I didn’t hide it, talked about it with people, and many of them were actually willing to take a look at my pieces. The best compliment was hearing, from someone unfamiliar with otaku culture, that, “That’s different from what I thought it was. Cosplaying is just another form of art.”

The cosplay world is a very complex one, where there are people doing it for a lot of different reasons, so I don’t think saying “cosplay is this or that” applies to everyone, but for me personally, cosplay is an art. You have to take a 2D character and turn it into something 2.5D that’s aesthetically pleasing. You have to take a character that would never really exist and turn it into something 3D as if it really did exist in this world. That’s how I go into it when I create my pieces.

This exhibition is a culmination of that work. It’s an exhibition where I hope those who have been supporting me since the very beginning can feel nostalgic seeing my past, and where newer fans can see another side of me.


All of Luna Kamisaka
Where:Design Festa Gallery EAST Second Floor
Address:3-20-2 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo
Hours:
・October 13, 2017 (Fri) 16:00-20:00
・October 14, 2017 (Sat) 11:00-20:00
・October 15, 2017 (Sun) 11:00-19:00
※ LAL Project (Luna, Mr. Asakura, and Lewo) will make a gallery appearance on the third day
※ There will be items for sale and mini events scheduled each day


Related Links

All of Luna Kamisaki Official Twitter:https://twitter.com/zenbuLuna
Luna Kamisaki Twitter:https://twitter.com/luna_kamisaka
Ryo Asakura Twitter:https://twitter.com/seventhgraphics
Lewo Saito Twitter:https://twitter.com/lewograph

Translated by Jamie Koide

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Author
Nessie

A web producer who passionately loves Sake, Cosplay, and Idols.

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