There's a culture in Japanese fashion called ishoku-hada (異色肌), which means remarkable or unique skin. This culture utilises body paint to represent characters from their favorite games, movies and anime. As we well know, Japanese games and anime come with an assortment of colorful characters, so they don't lack in quantities to choose from.

According to Kotaku, Phantasy Star Online 2 is the best suited game to apply these kind of body paint fashion styles to, while the rest mostly focus on anime. Hollywood of course also features body paint in some of their movies, but you will only really see it in movies based on comics, like Marvel's Mystique in X-men or some of the characters in Guardians of the Galaxy. Of course, there are cosplays around the world where body paint could be applied for these characters, but I've more often than not just seen dress-ups or painted tattoos more than body paint.

Well this fashion is truly something to behold, and it seems like they go to great lengths just for one showing, as Miku explains.

This past Halloween, I did an in-store event where I dressed up like a devil, painting my whole body red. I needed help painting my back, though, because I couldn’t do that myself.

Here is a slideshow of pictures taken by one of the ladies,  Miyako.

I wish this type of culture would take hold in more areas in the world. Ok, not that I would personally paint myself up, but I'd actually want to go to conventions just to see which colorful gaming characters are represented. A Mystique persona that is painted on instead of a costume would definitely catch my eye, as well as a good dose of Gamora.

Are there any characters from games or anime that you would like to see painted up? Let us know.

Source: KOTAKU