Gran Snow Okuibiki offers amazing scenery for fans of anime and video game costuming.
Ski resort Gran Snow Okuibiki, naturally, gets its heaviest visitor traffic during the winter months, when winter sports enthusiasts head to its slopes in the town of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, about an hour north of Nagoya.
But even when there’s no snow on the ground, there’s still plenty of dramatic scenery to appreciate, and with no skiers or snowboarders zipping around, Gran Snow Okuibuki occasionally transforms into a grand cosplay photo shoot location.
These special cosplayer-only days are organized in partnership with Reiyer’s, a cosplay event-planning group based in Nagoya. The towering mountains, lush greenery, and cascading waterfalls provide ideal backgrounds for enthusiasts dressed as characters from historical and fantasy franchises such as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Fate, Naruto, and Touken Rambu.
Cosplay days in the fall have the added appeal of the susuki, or pampas grass, being in season, with their golden-tipped stalks blowing in the wind as the shutter is snapped.
Within the cosplay area is a traditional wooden building which lends itself well to samurai or ninja-themed series…
…and Gran Snow Okuibiki can even work for non-sword-and/or-sorcery series like Pokémon.
▼ A partial selection of the cosplay areas
For the most recent cosplay day, held on October 5, participants had the area to themselves from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a per-person cost of 5,500 yen (US$39). Reiyers’ keeps a list of upcoming events on its website here, however, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for when the next one at Gran Snow Okuibiki.
Related: Reiyers’ offiicial website, Okuibuki official website
Source: PR Times, Reiyers’
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times (1, 2), Reiyers’
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