cosplay

Between fantasy and reality, whoa… that’s quite something isn’t it? Whoops! Don’t be discouraged by that exaggerating post title! You won’t find any heavy stuff here, not in my blog. Well, what is cosplay? For those unenlightened ones please read the wiki here. Sorry, but I won’t bother to (re)invent the wheel… *halah!* Bear with me please. :-)

This topic crossed to my mind when some crazy dude in Loenpia.net mailing list mentioned about wearing anime costume to a quiz show we’re about to attend (which due to its deadline, I personally doubt its realization.. sorry guys :-p) Wearing anime costume? That’s only means one thing, Cosplay! yay! For me, cosplay means two things :

1. Draw the line between fantasy and reality
To be honest, this is my first impression when I saw cosplayers for the first time. It’s quite common reaction for newbie like me back there. But the impression didn’t stop there, until now, sometime watching cosplayers in a convention or show really shock you up. It instantly awakes you from the land of fantasy, and here’s why…

Well, the reasons are simple. I’m sorry to inform you ladies and gentlemen, in this boring world, there no such thing as (or do exist, but extremely rare) :

  1. Cute, living, girl shaped, personal computer, named Chii, like you Saw on Chobits
  2. Ultra cute girl, red eyed, blue haired, slim enough to fit in a plugsuit, smile only once in her entire life, named Ayanami, like you saw on Evangelion.
  3. Stunningly beautiful, martial art master, named Tifa, like you saw on FF Advent Children.

And this stupid list goes infinitum..

So, what I’m about to say is, when we (normal, mere mortals) try to recreate things I listed above, the result is not quite like we expected. And whats sucks about it is : there’s nothing wrong here! It’s all because our limitation as normal human. Maybe we aren’t good-looking enough? Our body are not slim enough (yay!) or not muscular enough? Our skin are too dark or too white? Yup, this is “reality factor�; you can’t do anything to fix it. But hey, don’t get me wrong. I love cosplay (though never really done it). I admire those spirit cosplayers spread, I feel it and I love it. Salute to all of you cosplayers!

2. Blurring the line between fantasy and reality
Yup, you read the line right, the second meaning is exactly the opposite. Sometime cosplayers do amazing things, they perfected their appearance like the character they are imitating! Not only the face, but also the outfit, the detail and the behaviour (read it as pose)! These amazing cosplayer do exist and thus, they are blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Got it?

Remember item number 3 in the “impossible� list above? Tifa? Yes, be prepared because you’re about to see the real life version of her. Actually this is pretty basbang, because I saw it first on Toni’s blog sometime a go.

Tifa Cosplay
Tifa striking pose : Attack me please. :-p

Tifa Cosplay
Blurring the line : See what I mean now?

Wow, a perfection! Even the striking pose is redone perfectly. There’s not much info about her. This is sad, because if she’s a real cosplayer then I would like to see her again in different costume other than Tifa. The pictures are taken from Eswiftfire flickr page. You can find more pictures of this Tifa there. But don’t bother to click any link given by that guy. It’s all “spam” linking to his blog, to totally unrelated articles, without any further information about that Tifa. What’s this, eh? Using Tifa’s charm to spam people? That’s not cool dude! shame on you!

Here’s another great example of Tifa’s cosplay (in her striking pose), click to see their site/album :

tifa cosplay 01   tifa cosplay 02   tifa cosplay 03

You can find more info (and photos) on cosplay in cosplay site like cosplay.com and acparadise.com. Just search with the character’s name. Like I said before, you’ll be shocked or amazed to see how your favourite character looks in real life.

Here in my hometown, Semarang, I saw cosplay event three times. First is in Party Pake J in Gedung Juang 45 Pemuda, second is Sakura in Java in UNDIP’s Auditorium Hall and the last one is Japan Vaganza 2005 in Taman Budaya Raden Saleh. Sorry, no link for the first two, I haven’t started blogging back there :-p But I do have pictures of those event. I didn’t really participate in the cosplay event, my best attempt of cosplaying is my Smart Brain jacket from Kamen Rider Faiz and Tekken’s Jin Kazama pants! That’s all. :-)

Btw, here’s another feast of super amazing cosplayer on Koung Treasure photoset on flickr (all are girls, sorry :-p). Damn it dude, where the hell did you get all these? See it! You won’t regret it! Hurry up! Because it’s just only few days left before Ramadhan! Huehehe.. :-p Last words, any a suggestion character for me to cosplay it? Yes, I can hear voices from distance… Giant! Giant from classic anime Doraemon!!!