Musical and visual tributes to anime including Your Name, Sailor Moon, often require her to cosplay as two different characters in the same video.

Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, particularly outside the east exit of Shinjuku Station, is packed with entertainment options, including department stores, restaurants, bars, music clubs, and movie theaters.

But on the evening of September 24, a crowd of people bypassed all of those tried-and-true nightlife options and instead gathered in front of the Kurosawa Violin shop, where a young woman was giving an amazing live performance.

With her bleached-blond hair and denim miniskirt, 26-year-old Ayase may look more like a pop star or rock vocalist, but she’s a legitimately talented professional violinist who’s released solo albums and provided background music for commercials. The surprise Shinjuku concert wasn’t her first time to mesmerize an audience with her energetic way of playing the classical instrument or unorthodox attire, though, as she’s also made a name for herself performing violin covers of famous anime themes while cosplaying as the series’ heroines.

Not surprisingly, one of the biggest hits on her YouTube channel is the above video, in which she rips through “Zenzenzense,” the hit anthem from Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and simultaneously pulls off an impressive cosplay of body-swapping country girl Mitsuha.

And while Mitsuha’s outfit is pretty easy to replicate with an off-the-rack skirt and blouse, the same can’t be said for the costume of Fate/Zero’s Saber, which Ayasa wore to play “oath sign.”

In the covers, Ayasa’s violin essentially takes the place of the vocals. You might think this presents a problem for anime themes that are duets, like Macross F’s “Lion.” But nope, in those cases Ayasa simply records two violin tracks for the mix…and also does two cosplays!

▼ The “Ranka or Sheryl?” decision becomes all the more difficult when they’re both the same person.

▼ More double-role cosplay accompanies Love Live! Sunshine’s “Happy Part Train…”

▼ …Sailor Moon Crystal’s “Moon Pride…”

▼ …and Macross Delta’s “Ichido Dake no Koi Nara.”

Of course, it’s not like Ayasa has to rely on cosplay to get attention, as her most-watched cover is her rendition of Attack on Titan’s original opener “Guren no Yumiya,” for which she wore a non-anime-related black dress.

With the fall anime season just about to kick off on Japanese TV, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Ayasa finds plenty of inspiration for future musical cosplays.

Source: Twitter/@ k_yomiyomi
Top image: YouTube/Ayasa channel
[ Read in Japanese ]

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s had Zenzenzense stuck in his head for well over a year now.