In this edition of Cosplay Showcase, Fernando Ramos spotlights Noranna in a photo shoot at the Hikawa Shrine in Omiya, Japan. In addition to a photo shoot, Fernando also records an interview that sheds some light on why she decided to become a cosplayer.
"An encounter is merely the beginning of a farewell." It's a common proverb in Japan. Those more inclined to play amateur sociologist than I would say that this is a reflection of a wistful Japanese pessimism that pervades the society. Your intrepid photographer, on the other hand, is content to merely point out that the opposite holds true as well. The "Sayanora Party" is a time-honored tradition in Japan, wherein a given foreigner on his way out of the country takes as many acquaintances as possible. It was here, over massive portions of Chinese food and gallons upon gallons of liquor that I met Noranna or Jinxie as she is better known on her Cure profile.
Although she speaks with a distinct Australian-tinged accent, Noranna actually hails from the small but relatively prosperous nation of Brunei. A long-time anime fan, it has only been relatively recently that she became a cosplayer, cutting her teeth on the Australian convention scene before coming ashore to the Motherland. "I just feel like, in Australia, it was more focused on the props whereas Japan was more focused on the characterization and the make-up, which I thought was more important. [Although] your prop may not perfect and [your costume] may not be 100% accurate."
For our shoot, Noranna braved a rather nasty cold and an hour-long train ride to come to Hikawa Shrine in my stomping grounds of Omiya. In the below photos, you can see her posing off as Hinamori Momo from Bleach and Shinsengumi Captain Sanosuke Harada as portrayed in the Otome game Hakuouki, which saw it's anime adaptation finish last year. Otome games, of course, being the fairer sex's answer to the more ubiquitous dating sims such as Love Plus. When she talks about her favorite games, Noranna is obviously not without her sense of humor but she makes her knowledge and passion for the stuff clear.Not that she would need to articulate much in words considering that she is essentially slogging through dense works of fiction in her one of her secondary languages, of which English and Japanese are but two.
This particular costume is completely handmade and, as the photographer, it was interesting to note the attention to detail Noranna took with ensuring that the costume was portrayed as appropriately as possible. When our shoot finished, we had about 130 photographs to sort from and, much as we began, we poured over each and narrowed it down to the 11 that you see here before you. Given that she is also a fan of the soccer video game and anime Inazuma 11, I'll just write that off as serendipitous as our first encounter.
Noranna normally goes under the cosplayer name Jinxie and can be contacted through Cure as well as a myriad of cosplay events.
Fernando Ramos is a contributor for Anime3000 and Otaku USA and resides near Tokyo, Japan. His other photography can be found at http://www.mroutside.com or his Flickr profile.
