One day in Olomouc

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If you've been following my work, you might've noticed I'm drawn to events that are visually striking ‒ the kind of stuff where you can expect real visual impact. Whether it's a Pride parade with all those colors, a tattoo convention, some kind of Brazilian carnival knockoff, or ‒ like this time ‒ a cosplay festival.

What's cosplay anyway? It's short for "costume play". Basically, it's a hobby where people dress up as their favorite characters, mostly from comics and manga. It's about having fun, exercising creativity, showing your fandom ‒ but also about being part of a community.

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The cosplay festival that went down this past Saturday in Olomouc, Czech Republic, was focused mainly on Japanese manga characters, but there was plenty of other stuff too. It wasn't some massive event like the Brno Comic-Con last weekend. It was way smaller ‒ both in terms of space and the number of people ‒ but it had this intimate vibe to it. I wandered through the Šantovka shopping mall running into all sorts of bizarre characters. Some I recognized right away, some I could at least place in a general category, and some were completely new to me. (And honestly, there's a decent chance some of those "cosplayers" just dress like that anyway. In Olomouc, you can't be sure about anything.)

Anyway—enough talking. You're not here for my dry commentary. You're here for the photos. So come hang out with me for an afternoon packed with color, fun, and gloriously absurd characters and masks. Most of which you won't see every day 😊