Halloween Abroad
Well, for the first time ever, I was celebrating Halloween outside Canada! I’d been giving lessons about Halloween for the last few weeks, but North American traditions like trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving haven’t caught on here. So, I was a little nervous about going to Tokyo in costume, but it ended up being a great night!
I’ve always liked Halloween, I have plenty of good memories of it as a kid, and still enjoy dressing up for Halloween parties. My biggest hangup almost every year is what do I dress up as? I’ve never been crazy about the more “generic” costumes, like a simple witch or zombie, but I rarely come up with elaborate or interesting costumes.
As an adult, I’ve gone as Totoro for a few years, falling back on that if nothing else comes to mind. I’ve done Misty from pokemon, and even borrowed a friend’s link costume. While some of my friends will do 3 different halloween costumes for different occasions, I usually struggle to settle on one.
This year, I wasn’t sure about dressing up at all. I wasn’t sure if there were many Halloween parties in Japan, or if people would dress up for the occasion. I’ve heard that Halloween in Shibuya can get pretty wild, but they recently passed laws preventing drinking in Shibuya, so I figured it would look pretty different this year.
After looking up some go to spots in Shinjuku, I saw there would be some Halloween parties that sounded kind of fun. Odds are, this will be my only Halloween here in Japan, and I wanted to make the most of it. So, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a costume I’ve been contemplating doing for years now.
If you couldn’t tell, my past costumes tend to lean towards cosplay, and this time wasn’t going to be any different. I’ve wanted to go as Luffy as One Piece for a number of years now, and if any one would appreciate it I figured Japanese people would. The costumes I’ve seen online tend to be a bit more expensive, around $70 for a decent pre-made Luffy costume, but here in Japan I found one for about $40.
It arrived on Friday, just in time for the Halloween party on Saturday. Since Halloween was in the middle of the week this year, it seemed like everyone would be celebrating this weekend instead. I tried on my costume Friday night, and was pretty happy with it. I wasn’t sure what the quality would be, and even less sure I would get the sizing right. Thankfully, on both accounts I got lucky.
On Saturday I started getting ready, but had a bit of a dilemma. I would be staying the night in Tokyo, so I needed a change of clothes no matter what, but did I want to go in costume, or try to change at my destination? I wanted to do some makeup for the character as well, and would either have to try and apply it when I arrived, or just do it now and commit to the costume.
In the end, I decided to be brave and commit to doing my makeup and wearing my costume. On the one hand, I’m proud of myself for being brave enough to do so, on the other hand, the experience sucked. I didn’t see anyone else in costume until I arrived at my destination, so for about an hour I was the tall white foreigner dressed as an anime character. I couldn’t have stood out less if I tried.
I usually get a few odd looks on the train, especially the further I am from Tokyo, but this was a bit of a new level. I got a few smiles from people, kids especially seemed to like it, but mostly confusion or indifference. Every stop anyone getting on the train seemed to give me a once over, I was pretty self conscious almost the whole time.
Walking through Akihabara was especially bad, since there’s simply a lot more people to navigate. I was fighting through pretty bad anxiety as I tried to get to the next train station. Thankfully, once I got to my destination I saw plenty of people in costume, though I had gotten pretty sweaty from the nerves.
My friend was originally going to a different Halloween party, but that turned out to be a bust, so they were coming to meet me later. I felt bad their party didn’t work out, but selfishly I was glad they would be joining me. It was pretty busy in this area of Shinjuku, and it would only get busier as the night went on.
There were all kinds of costumes, from anime characters to movie characters and more. I was generally pretty impressed with the costumes, as most of them seemed pretty well thought out or executed. Perhaps because there isn’t an expectation to dress up people tend to go all out if they intend to dress up.
Once my friend joined me we danced and drank the night away, enjoying catching up and running into other people we knew. I was consistently surprised at just how busy this area of Shinjuku was, I think it’s the busiest I’ve ever seen it. My favorite bar that usually has plenty of room was filled to the brim, with line going out the door and even down the stairs at one point.
It was an excellent night, and people seemed to like my costume. Mostly people just yelled either “One Piece!” or “Luffy!” at me, but some people even wanted to get a photo with me! I saw one other person dressed as Luffy, and we had a nice mutual acknowledgement, but I did take some small pride in thinking I had the better costume.
Halloween here definitely doesn’t seem as widely adopted, so seemingly all the remains are the Halloween enthusiasts. While it does mean that the people who dress up really go all out, it can make it rather awkward when you’re by yourself. I always stand out and get some level of attention in Japan, but being in costume really cranked that up to uncomfortable levels.
It is interesting to see other cultures respond and either adopt, or not adopt holidays that you know so intimately. I think it’s too bad that Japanese kids don’t get to experience going to school in costume, trick-or-treating, or even pumpkin carving! But they have their own cultural experiences and traditions that we miss out on, so it goes both ways I suppose.
All in all, I’m proud of myself for making the most of it. I won’t have any regrets about how I spent my Halloween in Japan, though I do look forward to Halloween parties back home with my friends. Maybe from now on I’ll push myself to really find costumes I care about, because this was a great reminder of just how much fun Halloween can be.
Happy Halloween everyone!
