Yoshiyuki Shimizu

The Original

Yoshiyuki Shimizu is a man who, despite all his achievements, is incredibly hard to think about as a person.

He's cute, apparently. But in person, you can see his facial hair through his foundation—nobody ever taught him how to use colour corrector. Or if they did, he's willfully ignoring their advice. I think the latter is more likely.

He's nice, apparently. He sure showers his bandmate Toda-san with gifts. Only to turn around and break Toda's beloved Macross plastic model kit that he so carefully put together, then whine on his blog that he's a terrible person. He also, apparently, cries a lot. I don't doubt he cried then too. Maybe he cried as he fessed up on his blog.

He even called his label manager, who has too much patience, to babble and whine about all of his songs being lame and beg for an extension on the deadline for the album he was writing. It was only about a week away and he had only written two songs. At least he makes good music.

It's no use making good music because he seems not to know how to perform. At all. I almost can't bear to watch his attempts rile the crowd up during an instrumental track; he drags a heavy feeling of secondhand embarrassment even through my screen.

I once paid money to be treated to a performance in which his heavy autotune was completely outoftune instead. He fought with it for several songs, turned it off, and it was revealed that his voice is weak and shaky and somehow even more off-key. He might have sounded alright if only his music was microtonal. He can't dance, either, and shuffles around a little before giving up. He seems to have no idea how he fits into space around him. He is as if you made the concepts of "useless" and "awkward" into a person.

In Shinjuku Gewalt, he neither writes songs nor sings. That is glorious Toda's job. He has the role of left-hand man, first-class robotic maid, fake guitar player, lunchmaid, hype man, boyfriend, and more. He throws flyers and is... there... with a pair of nunchucks, when the music is actually being performed and he isn't busy doing skits with Toda. WHAT THE HELL IS HIS PROBLEM?!

He's so useless that it becomes moé. Super moé. And I relate to him. I, too, have no idea how to carry myself. A cosplay is in order, especially since I finally have a real-life buddy who loves Gewalt and wanted to cosplay with me.

Costest

In theory Zetsubou-san and I only needed appropriate wigs and helmets. We already own gakuran in some form. Both of us already do cosplay in gakuran, in fact—his first ever cosplay, recent as it may be, was Amano Tonbimaru of Guruguru Eigakan fame. And we both have wished to cosplay the Gewalt brothers together since we became acquainted.

But, as he was supposed to be Amano-san on the first day of the convention we were set to cosplay at, he thought wearing gakuran twice in a row would reflect on him as lazy. We made a deal: we would both crossdress and wear seifuku, just like the real Shinjuku Gewalt do when they feel naughty... teehee.

We have a problem, though. He is 186cm, or 6'1". Not even mentioning the height difference between us, it's hard to find female attire for someone of his size. He sent me a link to an AliExpress listing with sizes up to 175cm, worrying about the length of his skirt. Yeah yeah, you can buy the longer skirt and I'll wear a shorter one, it's in character for Toda and Shimizu to... CHOTTO MATTE!!! I can probably find this for cheaper on Taobao!! I clung to his leg, metaphorically, begging him not to make a rash decision, and did my digging. I found an appropriate listing using the same images, with the same sizing charts, for a bit less than half the price.

Plus-sized Japanese-style men's CD crossdressing JK uniform skirt sexy crossdressing cosplay outfits for beginners and crossdressing masters is just the thing we needed!

...but, hey, Zetsubou-san's size is 5XL. That makes sense, sure. But at 161CM, I'm... LARGE SIZE, STILL?! Chinese beauty standards are rough. Yikes. Are we sure these are not just female clothes sold to a different market?... but I bought the matching uniforms anyway, plus safety-certified fibreglass helmets at less than three bucks each. When everything arrived and we got the chance to pick up the package, we took care of the helmet decorations ourselves.

I wear heavy glasses in my daily life. Thus I bought contact lenses online illegally, as my prescription is too old and I'm too broke. In the wee hours of the night, though, I shot up. I realised something, double-checking my online order receipt. I MESSED UP THE PRESCRIPTION FOR ONE OF MY EYES!

Frenzied, terrified of my money going down the drain, I emailed support with my order number and everything relevant to me, begging and pleading, or at least that was what it felt like. It was a quick and cordial message, really, asking if there was anything to be done or if my order could be cancelled. I got a simple email back later on: they hadn't processed anything so they just changed the prescription and left it at that.

The contacts arrived without issue in only two days! I was surprised. Reusing my cheap, fucked up wig from my Ham no Hito cosplay, I was finally ready. I practiced my makeup and marched on... And now was time for the costest...

Ne, it's pretty good right? I look terrible, and tired, and my helmet is secured incorrectly, and I want to die, but that's just like the real Shimizu. A few people said they thought it was a real photo of Shimizu at first glance. Or even second glance. Or even until they were outright told that it was me.

People seem to be tricked by my cosplays. I am not Toda. I am certainly not Shimizu. Despite everything, including my phone thinking that we are the same person, I am absolutely not Uyuni, no matter how similar our faces are in makeup. I'M NOT A JAPANESE MAN!!! ...but if my cosplays are good, at least that means I've got a good face.

You will notice that I am not appending a full-body photo here—this is due to my being alone at the time. The only photo I could manage made me genuinely look like I run a sissy fetish blog. Despite the accuracy to real-life Shimizu, I am smart enough not to put that here.

2026.04.12: Gold Coast Supanova 2026

I HAD LOADSA FUN! And we looked cool as shit. I already wrote a blog post about this, so here I leave you with photoz instead.