When meeting with important guests, it’s important to embrace their culture.

Every year the city of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture hosts the World Cosplay Summit, with tons of cosplay fans showing off their art and vying for the coveted title of “summit champion.”

And with such a big event bringing in people from all over the world to their city and prefecture, you can bet that the mayor and governor are there too, dressed appropriately for the occasion of course.

▼ This year they went with a One Piece theme, with Governor Omura cosplaying as Zoro…

▼ …and Mayor Kawamura as Sanji, here posing with summit attendees.

Just the governor and mayor cosplaying is cool enough by itself, but what happened when the story ran on the news is what really makes it great.

▼ You can watch the video clip here.
Something special starts to happen around 20 seconds in.

https://twitter.com/Friends_quail/status/1156951296978460675

The reporters start laughing at seeing the cosplay of the governor and mayor. The woman announcer seems to compose herself enough to see it to the end, but then simply can’t take it and essentially giggles the rest of her way through the story. Even when starting the next, serious story, it takes her a few seconds to get back in the zone.

In many countries, announcers laughing at the news they’re reporting isn’t a big deal. In fact, it might even be seen as a good thing, to make them feel less robotic to viewers. But in Japan, news reporting is serious business… causing what happened next in the video.

If you move ahead to 1:18 in the clip, you can see the two announcers apologizing for laughing earlier. The announcer says the reason for their laughter was: “They just looked so much like [the original characters].”

▼ When your cosplay is so good, people have to apologize for how moved they are by it.

https://twitter.com/OverlapNoob/status/1157606546387247104

Here’s how Japanese netizens reacted to both the cosplay and the announcers’ apology:

“I can’t believe the governor went all the way, even biting on the sword!”
“Both of them are so cute.”
“It was kind of rude for the announcers to laugh. I’m glad they apologized.”
“She made it through Sanji, but anyone would laugh at seeing that cheerful Zoro.”
“The announcers giggling at the news makes the news brighter. Of course it should be expressed in a serious manner, but it’s good to be reminded that they’re human too.”

Since it seems like the governor cosplaying at the event has become an annual thing, we’re looking forward to see what he and the mayor will be going as next year. Although if they end up with the Love Live! cosplay that’s popular with other older folk, we can probably expect to see a lot more news mishaps.

Source: Twitter/@Friends_quail via My Game News Flash, Hachima Kiko
Featured image: Twitter/@amoibo_25
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!