2008 Woodie Awards
An inside look on Cosplay
By: Thomas Bumpers
Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Opinion
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At first I was shamed and more nervous than a bunch of hens with a fox inside the hen house, but after three years of doing this, I'm enjoying it fully.
What I'm talking about ladies and germs is the Anime culture's absurdly random world of Cosplay.
Cosplay is basically a Japanese slang term for costume play used to describe people who dress up and for some take in the mannerisms of the favorite characters from manga, anime, and video games.
And trust me when I say this, it is way, way more different than your typical put on costumes and then go gallivanting around (hooray new vocabulary).
For starters, when those of us who do cosplay, we typically have to go through massive planning stages in order to get our stuff just right. After all, for us cosplay is serious business ya.
Back on topic we actually have to plan out who it is we want to be, so we go ahead and start to gather reference of our chosen character or characters if we plan on going to a big convention like Anime Expo or Otakon (wiki it fools, I'm not explaining those two right now!).
Then after our reference gathering spree is done, then we move out to buy the necessary items to complete the costume. Yes items. We gather cloth, plywood, cardboard, paint, beads, corn (really long story) in order to create our costumes from scratch.
Granted when the end result is horrendous or other costume building times start to overlap, eBay turns out to be a cosplayer's best friend.
Fast forward weeks to months and even the rare occasion of three hours beforehand of preparation and onto the big stage short of Halloween for us to unveil our creations, conventions. This by far is nothing but mass chaos.
Seriously, this is the point where people start getting into character. There's nothing more hilarious than watching a guy cower in front of a girl with a whip or seeing somebody dressed as a Pokemon get pegged with a ball by somebody dressed as the trainer from the series.
Heck aside from that it's just one big happy time with a bit of baaawww thrown in for good measure from those whom are a tad bit overdramatic.
Aside from acting in character we Cosplayers generally delve into other things which spark laughs such as a mobbing (anybody in any style of costume from any series gathering together in one place) and doing the Soulja Boy or Caramelldansen (YouTube FTW).
There's just too much to actually explain in full detail, but if you want to see just how epic this is, all I can say is break out a sewing machine and get to a convention.
It's nothing but pure fun.
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