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.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I