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.
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