The Fancy Frontier manga and anime expo held in Taipei over the weekend has sparked controversy, after a participant allegedly contravened the Act on Offenses Against Sexual Morality (妨害風化罪) by publicly exposing her private parts during a photo shoot.
The two-day event opened at the Expo Dome at the Taipei Expo Park on Saturday, attracting numerous comic and anime creators, cosplayers, photographers and fans.
Allegedly, a female cosplayer who was not wearing any underwear lifted up her skirt and revealed her private parts at an outdoor photography area near the venue.
Photo courtesy of the organizers of Fancy Frontier
Event organizers said yesterday that to prevent indecent exposure, they have since 2012 implemented rules to regulate the outfits worn by cosplayers inside the expo hall, citing the manga expo they held at National Taiwan University Sports Center eight years ago.
At the 2012 expo, a Japanese cosplayer known to her Mandarin-speaking fans as “50 horses” (五十隻馬) — a wordplay on her Japanese name, Ushijima — took off her skirt, exposing her thighs and buttocks in an attempt to boost her sales of comic products, they said.
Since then, the event has prohibited cosplayers from wearing outfits that would reveal their nipples, genitals, hips, bra or underpants, or expose more than one-third of their breasts, event organizers said, adding that safety pants or swim suits are allowed, but the final say still rests with the organizers.
However, the organizers said that they can only regulate people inside the rented expo hall, as they do not have regulatory power over private photography activities outside the venue.
They contacted regulators at the Expo Dome immediately after this weekend’s incident, and officials in charge of the venue said that to maintain order outside the venue, they would work with the police, who would be notified immediately if there was any illegal conduct, the organizers said.
The female cosplayer allegedly involved in the incident has also drawn criticism from the cosplay community online, with one person saying that the woman is more active as a model for portrait photography, as opposed to a cosplayer, and urging her not to “taint” the public image of cosplayers.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe