Itasha show at World Cosplay Summit lets cars get in on the anime costume fun

This summer, Nagoya once again served as the host city of the World Cosplay Summit. With anime fans arriving from all over, some of them came by car, and you know what that means: itasha, automobiles covered with anime graphics.

Held concurrently with the costuming competition was an itasha exhibition, and we strolled by to check out the rides adorned with their drivers’ favorite 2-D heroines.

Building a top-class itasha requires more than high-quality decals of your anime muse. Given the unusually-shaped canvas a car’s body provides, you’ve got to carefully consider the proper layout. For example, you wouldn’t want your anime crush’s head to get sliced when the door opens, so positioning her on a solid patch of sheet metal is extremely important.

▼ Although this girl’s getting a haircut every time the driver enters or exits the vehicle.

Retrofitting your car with scissor doors means you can make the character stand at attention, like with this Love Live Honda S2000.

▼ Just be sure your plushies don’t get stuck.

The high-revving convertible above was parked in a row of sports cars, along with this Mazda RX-8.

Another sporty ride, the owner of this Toyota 86 could have made himself an Initial D itasha, but went with the less obvious (and cuter) choice of Subarashiki Hibi.

▼ Steins;Gate led to the creation of Mayuri’s sedan.

Almost all of the itasha you’ll see are based on Japanese series, so we were pretty shocked to come across a My Little Pony Toyota MR-S.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t get much more Japanese than a Hatsune Miku version of the Honda Beat.

Not only does dropping the top let the driver feel the wind in his hair, it also lets him show off the interior, with its Miku hair green accents and collection of Vocaloid figures.

▼ Even the air conditioning vents have been repainted.

Alternatively, a non-convertible gives you even more space to plaster Miku’s likeness onto.

▼ More musical inspiration with an Angel Beats hood honoring the members of in-show band Girls Dead Monster.

▼ And even more with the cast of K-On, coupled with a kei car, no less.

▼ Would these let you qualify for the carpool lane?

Also paying tribute to Steins;Gate, this aggressively lowered Audi with blacked out insignia was one of the newest models in the show.

And here we see one of the most classic.

Some itasha are actually pretty subtle in their anime connection. This Mazda Atenza, for example, looks like it’s decked out in racing team livery, until you notice the girl on the hood and back quarter panel.

On the other hand, you’d know this was an itasha from a mile away.

You might think the sakura-shaped wheels are the girliest thing on this Madoka Magica one-box, but not once you hop into the back seat.

▼ It’s practically a canopy bed.

The trunk area is no slouch, either.

Actually, the event wasn’t just for itasha, but for any mode of ita-transportation. For example, there were also itasha motorcycles.

A few riders even showed off their itachari bicycles. As slender as some anime girls are, though, they’re still not so skinny you could paint them on the tubes of the frame. Instead, itachari crafters put a cover on the back wheel, and decorate that with the character.

▼ First some dude’s back, and now some dude’s bike? We’ve really got to stop meeting Love Live’s Nozomi in such weird places.

There was even a selection of ita-skis and ita-snowboards, the only means of conveyance their owners couldn’t have come to the venue by.

Unlike cars and bikes, their simple, flat shapes make them pretty easy to cover with anime characters. The most creative one, though, wasn’t used for a portrait, but for an environment.

With only a bit of the tip used as space for a character from Kantai Collection, the rest of the board served as an aircraft carrier flight deck for the owner’s figures from the naval combat-themed PC game.

And while that probably means the owner can no longer use it to carve down a mountain, it leaves no doubt as to what his favorite series is, which is what ita-transportation is all about.

Photos: RocketNews24
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