怪作戦 (寺本浩人) 妖怪写真集 原点回帰の第七巻! by 怪作戦テラ

Some stuff is just too weird to ignore - and, sometimes, stars align and you get stuff that is both funny, weird, and simply puzzling in an exquisitely Japanese kind of way. It was the case with a last minute addition to my most recent dōjinshi shipment from Japan, a homely black and white zine that held, by cover alone, the promise of unabated weirdness. Seeing is believing, so take a look at the cover below and judge for yourself...

Yup. It's a guy, donning the world's lowest budget kappa cosplay ever. 妖怪写真集 (Youkai photo album ) is, as the full title suggests, the sevent installment of a series by dōjin group 怪作戦 (Mystery Tactics? Covert Ops?), which entirely revolves around cosplaying yōkai (Japanese supernatural beings) in the most absurd, hilarious, cheap ways. The booklet's underground cred is massive: black and white printed on cheap paper and, from what I could see, hand-stapled. It also features a gigantic, full page warning against unauthorized uploading, so for this review I will limit myself to scans that are already available on the group's own blog and Twitter.

The booklet's setup is simple. The circle's three main members (main man テラ, 桂つかさ, and 蘭陵亭) plus a few guests (including a guy in a horse mask) comment on a series of real-life reenactments of old yōkai depictions from yukio-e prints. Now, if you're thinking costumes and prosthetics in the style of Link Factory... you'd be wrong. A scrawny (eyes blacked out) guy poses half naked in a public park, behind a tree... and there you have it! A Oni cosplay! Same guy, wrapped in a towel, licks the ceiling beams of a ryōkan... and he's a てんじょうなめ (Ceiling Licker - google it, it's worth it). Props are nearly non-existent, and the whole affair is clearly an absurdist, tongue-in-cheek piece of humor: the 'cosplayer' can barely hold his laughter in, and the experts' comments range from bizarre explanations behind the choice of portrayal, to out-there jabs ('Needs to stick the neck out more!' 'What's under the towel?'). Also, don't expect to learn anything about the yōkai portrayed, because you won't.

All in all, a fun piece of bizzarro that really plays on the kind of stuff I like: underground execution, out-there content, inane comedy. Highly reccomended.