Costume-loving Japan warms up for Halloween bash

Mainstream clubs advertise "Fetish Halloween" and "Erotica Halloween" parties. Fashion retailers decorate their windows with slogans such as "Play! Party!! With cute trick!".

Japan's passion for Halloween extends a long tradition of festivals that liberate ordinary Japanese from the extreme control they face in everyday life, according to Patrick William Galbraith, a researcher at Sophia University's Japanese Studies faculty.

"The matsuri, or festival, might be seen as a communal experience that allows behaviors outside rigid behaviors and etiquette, one reason this social pressure release valve has been so crucial in Japan historically," he told Reuters by email.

Galbraith sees costume role-play as characters from manga comic books and "anime" films as a similar escapist fantasy.

In addition, Halloween and cosplay encourage another popular Japanese pastime: enthusiastic consumption.

Shopping malls in other Asian countries, too, have picked up on this aspect of Halloween. Around this time of the year, cobwebs and jack-o-lanterns adorn shops and bars in Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore and Seoul, tapping into a deeper Asian interest in the otherworld that shows through in local festivals for the dead.