Hakuouki: Saito Hajime

One of the reasons I chose to cosplay Saito was because of what Chizuru said about him in the normal ending route in the game.


That single line tugged at my heartstrings so hard. The characters I tend to get attached to have this intimidating exterior along with formidable fighting skills — but under that lies a certain vulnerability and an unexpected kindness.

Even considering character designs though, it was his that I immediately felt attached to when I first saw the game illustrations. _{My friends happened to have their eyes on other characters so it was really easy for us to organize our group.}

For a long time I had associated the name Saito Hajime with the visualization of him in Rurouni Kenshin: [link]

When I first stumbled upon the artwork from the Hakuouki game, I did not expect that Saito would be the relatively short, blue-eyed boy with long purple hair in a dainty side ponytail: [link] It certainly was a big change of perception, but not necessarily a bad sort! While the RK version will always stick with me, I also do appreciate this softer depiction of him.

Journal entry with outtakes from this shoot and more [link]

Jin (me) as Saito Hajime
photo taken by Kat
photo editing by me
costume by Charmie ~yaoiangel14, with help detailing from all of us
background texture from #resurgere, some stock from ~masterjinn
_{characters are from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan © Idea Factory}

_{About the shoot:}
For those of you who are wondering, Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan is an otome game. _{(An anime adaptation was made which started alright but just became TERRIBLE by the second season. Even the bad ending route in the game is more dignified than how the anime ended. I suggest you only watch the first season if you are really interested.)}

My friends and I have been interested in the historical Shinsengumi for many years now, and pick up almost any work of fiction that involves them. We decided to cosplay Hakuouki after seeing artworks from the game around the time it was released. The art style was the type that appealed to us, and we thought the character designs were excellent.

_{About this photo:}
As with the other photos from this series, my goal with the photography and editing was to emulate the look and feel of the game artworks and some fanart. The reference illustration for this shot was this [link]

I went for this pose because I was actually feeling a bit tired (but in a good way) from the rest of the day's activities by that time.