The Horrors Of Cosplay
A while back I did an article called ‘The Horrors of jPop‘ which was great fun to write and was generally well received. It earned me a few hate mail but in general people enjoyed it, so I’ve wanted to do another ‘horrors’ update for a while. So you can imagine how happy I was when this popped up on Mainichi;
A female duo dressed as characters from Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” qualified to represent Japan in the upcoming “World Cosplay Summit 2008″ after winning the Tokyo qualifying round on Sunday.
Now I’m not going to lie - I know basically nothing about the weird world of cosplay. I don’t watch any anime or read any manga, so I don’t recognise the characters these guys are dressing up as. Actually, if I posted pictures of them on this blog and made fun of them, it would be totally unfair hilarious. So without further ado;
So we start our tour of horrors on a great foot, and a fantastic pair of ears. These guys must be able to hear fake tan salesmen coming from miles away. I can’t make out what it says on those little wooden things she’s holding up, but I assume it’s instructions to help you turn your shower curtain into a cool outfit, just like these guys did.
Next we have the super cardboard robot. In case you’re wondering about the horn, his mother was a unicorn. If you’re wondering about the giant cardboard knees, his father was…er… well I don’t know. So why did this guy make it into the update? One word. Chafing.
Apparently this giant vegetable is from some Studio Ghibli film but regardless if I walked into that room and saw that I’d be out in a flash. Notice that it is in the process of devouring a spider. That girl is awfully close considering it’s a giant cauliflower with eight eyes.
The brightly colored twins spot another free hair dye sample. The girl on the left has gone for the Windows 3.1 teal screen saver look, always a bold choice. She’s easily beaten by her friend, however, who has gone for the always popular ‘rabbit goes insane, dresses like milk carton’ look.
You can’t quite see it in this photo, but this performer’s just taken their hands off an electric fence. Ok, I do know who this character is meant to be, I’m not that far behind. It’s Pikachu.
Cauliflower girl has managed to escape from her killer plant, and everyone who’s dressed as oddly as she is rushes to celebrate. Another safe day in cosplay land.
Ok, I had far, far too much fun writing those comments. Sorry if they were too mean. If there’s one of these conventions on in the summer when I’m out there, I’m totally going with my camera. I promise.