Cosplay Girl

Every year, the Sunday night party invites club-goers to dress as their favorite manga or anime character. American comic book characters are also welcome. Alternatively, those who don’t have an anime or comic-related costume can dress as a schoolgirl.

“There are a lot of cosplayers in the scene,” said co-promoter and DJ Xian Vox, herself an anime fan. “You would expect that, but no one really fesses up to it as much as they readily fess up to be being involved in Ren Faire or Pirate Faire. When you see so many people come out in these costumes, you go, wow, you didn’t put that together in one weekend.”

Otaku Society has become a popular event for the club, not just for the cosplayers in the club scene, but for those of us who love anime but don’t necessarily dress the part. Several people I met confessed that this was their first cosplay experience. As for myself, I never attempted cosplay before, but happened to be Ai Enma/Hell Girl for Halloween and had intended to repeat that for the party until my wig turned into a hideous, shedding beast and I was forced to go as Girl in Japanese Winter School Uniform.

Kingdom Hearts!

Dressing up is an automatic conversation starter. Within five minutes at the club, I met local artist Jettila Lewis of the manga-influenced graphic novel Motor City, and proceeded to strike conversations with a handful of others throughout the night. We talked about the depression that sets in after watching Gunslinger Girl, how being inside a 21+ nightclub means no Naruto cosplay and how everyone excluding yours truly managed to get a picture of an apparently fantastic Alphonse Elric cosplayer at Anime Expo last summer.

At midnight, prizes were awarded for the best costumes (the Kingdom Hearts Halloween Town cosplayer seen here took second place), but it seemed like many of the people were unconcerned with contests. The real highlight of the night was having the chance to unleash our inner otaku.

Check out ladead.com for the club’s photos from Otaku Society. This event took place on November 23, 2008.

Editor’s Note: The Anime Blog’s Guest Contributor Liz Ohanesian is a Los Angeles-based journalist covering music, media and club culture. She is a staff writer for Club World and her work regularly appears in such publications as the L.A. Weekly, Razorcake and Outburn. She has written for such publications as Punk Planet, PopMatters, Santa Monica Mirror and others.

Hmmm, lets’ approach this with my personal pros of cosplaying first:

• I’d get to dress up in an awesome costume and have adoring fans want their picture taken with me.
• I’d meet new people.
• The ol’ creative muscle will get flexed.
• I’d get to sew a challenging costume.

Let’s look at the cons of cosplaying:

• Fans wouldn’t want their picture with me, they’d want their picture with the character.
• I’d meet new people.
• To do a costume justice would potentially cost hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours.
• The ol’ creative muscle might get torn.
• I might get glomped, which might lead to a ripped costume, which would then lead to me behind bars for beating someone to death with a cosplay prop.

The number one reason I don’t cosplay, however is:

• I look nothing like my favorite characters.

What gets me, is some people dress up as cool looking characters they have zero connection with. They’ve never even watched the anime their cosplay’s in. It’s like wearing a band shirt and you don’t own any of the band’s albums or listen to their music. Posers. If I were to dress up as a character, it’d be a proper homage to one I like.

I like good cosplay, don’t get me wrong, but one of the reasons some cosplays just don’t work out is because the person wearing it doesn’t go the extra mile. If you’re not ripped and you’re playing a ripped character, maybe choose a costume the character wears which hides your unripped-ness. Finagle with the hair or buy a really good wig. Dressing like the character is only a part of the cosplay. Frankly, I just don’t look good in costumes, which, ahem, hug curves.

Those are my reasons I don’t cosplay. I like cosplay, though. It’s fun and something which fans of it bond over. That’s gotta be a good thing. If you don’t cosplay, what’s keeping you? Do you think it’s stupid and a waste of time and energy? Do you just like to gawk at the lovely and scantily clad ladies? Are you wanting to cosplay but can’t sew? Is shyness your issue? C’mon, dish: What’s keeping you from cosplaying?

Please share your reasons, in the comments below, for not dressing up as your fave character! (Even the “lame” ones.)