Akihabara hair salon caters to ‘cosplayers’
TOKYO (Kyodo) — A hair salon in the Akihabara district, the “anime” mecca of Tokyo, is helping costume players get closer to the anime characters they aspire to emulate by trimming and styling wigs they bring in to emulate the characters’ hairstyles.
Cosplayers, who often go to great lengths in matching their costumes, makeup and hairstyles to those of their favorite characters in Japanese anime, manga comic books and video games, can bring in wigs to salon “fuwat,” where a team of a hair stylist and an assistant stylist will cut them into a desired shape upon careful consultation with the customers.
“What’s important is that we try to grasp the different images people have of the same characters,” said an assistant stylist who goes by the name Umeko.
The customers leave their wigs with the stylists for about a week and the wigs have a final fitting when they return to the salon for pickup. The service is by reservation only.
“We are trying to create a 2.5-dimensional world between the two-dimensional, virtual world and the three-dimensional real world,” said Aki, a stylist at the salon.
