You're reading: Lifestyle Blog: Japanese dress up as Ukrainian soldiers for military combat game

The Ukrainian military is the latest hit among Japanese players of airsoft – a military game where participants simulate real combat with realistic replica firearms that shoot lightweight spherical pellets.

Photos
have popped up online showing Japanese players dressed up as fighters from the Ukrainian
National Guard and the Azov Regiment, a Ukrainian volunteer unit that became
part of the Interior Ministry, for an airsoft game played in July.

Posted on the
Japanese blog, the pictures showed players
dressed as fighters from the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

One slight
inaccuracy is that some of the “Russian” players have identifying patches on
their uniforms, while actual Russians fight in Ukraine without insignia.

Otherwise, the photos
show that a lot of work went into creating very accurate military costumes. From
the camouflage patternson uniforms, the type of boots, and blue and yellow
colored tape on gun magazines – everything closely resembles the garb of
Ukraine’s front-line fighters.

But this isn’t the
first time that Japanese hobbyists have looked to events in Ukraine for
inspiration.

In 2014 Japanese
cosplayers recreated the look of Crimea’s Kremlin-appointed prosecutor Natalia
Poklonska, as well as the fighters of the Ukrainian riot police Berkut, who
attacked protesters during the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2013-2014.


Japanese cosplay is
a performance art that includes wearing costumes and accessories to represent a
specific fictional character or a real person.

Kyiv Post writer Veronika Melkozerova
can be reached at [email protected].