I’ll be honest: I’ve long enjoyed
cosplay and costuming.
I was often loathe to admit it,
downplaying my interest as “not really
my thing” but secretly harboring a desire to dress up like my favorite
characters at any opportunity. In my mind, cosplay was something weird and obsessive
people did at conventions. I was too cool for that stuff. I liked nerdy stuff,
I just didn’t want to act too much
like a nerd… Thus, Halloween was my only option for going full on. (One costume
of which I was particularly proud was Seishirou Sakurazuka from Tokyo Babylon.)
Now, that didn’t stop me from
creating outfits “inspired” by characters I liked. On numerous occasions, I
showed up to school wearing pink Chucks with rainbow shoelaces (an homage to
Laine from Lost Souls) or some
coordinated outfit subtly designed to reference Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing or Haruka Tenoh from Sailor Moon. I was subtle in my nerdiness, damn it, and I thought I was hot stuff.
Cut to a few years later. I was
at university and hanging out with folks who enjoy costuming as much as I did,
but they were actually talented enough to make their stuff from scratch (rather
than trolling the aisles of local thrift stores looking for something that
resembles what I wanted/needed). Sometimes they would say, “Panda, you should
do a group costume with us.” But, of course, I had to downplay my interest—I still
had delusions of coolness, after all. “I’m down for that,” I would reply, “if
you guys will create the outfit with me.” (I lacked the talent to create
anything on my own, anyway, so it was a good way to get a decent costume.) I
took a few turns as L from Death Note
and Hiromasa from Onmyouji, and
thoroughly enjoyed myself (as much as I feigned boredom).
And then I moved to Japan, the
cosplay capital of the world. I went to a summer Comiket and took ungodly
amounts of pictures, blown away by the sheer talent of the costumers. They were
so skilled with sewing, their bodies were perfectly suited to the characters… I
was intimidated, to the point that I told myself I would never cosplay a character
unless A) I was completely satisfied with the result, and B) the outfit was on
par with the costumes I had seen at Comiket. Suffice to say, I was deterred from
ever cosplaying again.
Seriously, how is this level of
skill even fair?!
Luckily, a couple of friends
introduced me to the world of Lolita fashion, along with other Japanese street
fashion, which helped satisfy my need to wear remarkable outfits at random
times. We would head into Tokyo every so often to shop at Laforet or Takeshita
Douri in Harajuku, our favorite stop being Closet Child (the ones in Shinjuku,
Harajuku, and Ikebukuro—there are more, though). I would expand my Lolita
closet there, favoring the Gothic and Dark styles. I might have felt a bit
lacking in skill, compared to my more talented friends, but at least I looked
the part well enough.
When I came back to the United
States for graduate school, I brought most of the fashionable items I had
acquired back with me. I wore them around, usually at small local conventions.
I had since relinquished my deathgrip on the idea that I might be cooler than
the “average nerd.” And I started feeling inspired to create costumes from
scratch—a dream which never quite left my head, as I had yet to learn the
sewing craft. My first foray was for Phoenix ComiCon 2012, when I decided to
cosplay a feminized version of Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. I made the freeze ray (with a lot
of help from my father) from parts gathered at home improvement stores, and
gathered the other necessary items from thrift stores (which I altered for my
purposes). The costume turned out passable, and it met the first part of my
previous criteria: I was satisfied with the result.
And now, as I quickly approach
the delightful age of thirty, I find myself wanting to cosplay more and more.
It gets worse, the more shows I watch with characters I adore. I know I’ll have
to start small, but by god I will cosplay! And I will do it well!
Stay tuned…
~Panda
Clearly, I am the coolest person
I know.
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