Why I Cosplay

by Tasmin Nandu-Swatton

You may or may not be familiar with the term ‘cosplay’, Google defines it as “the practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga or anime.” 

As a cosplayer myself I would describe it, although in a somewhat comedic way, as essentially dressing up in a bizarre costume (complete with a wig and coloured contact lenses, go hard or go home), getting on a train to get to a convention in the faraway land of...London, and creeping out other passengers whilst you are too busy praying you don't get a serious case of ‘con-flu’ to notice the bewildered stares. Although on a more serious note, there is more to cosplay than just dressing up as a fictional character.

Having attended 6 conventions over the last three years I describe myself as somewhat of a ‘con veteran’. Conventions are effectively mass gatherings of nerds and geeks (a large proportion of them cosplaying) where everyone comes together to spend money at stalls selling a variety of pop culture related goods, meet like-minded people and generally have a jolly good time. ‘Comic-Con’ is the largest in the country, occurring bi-annually in multiple locations around the country. It's October event in London last year saw a whopping 130,000 attending over the 3-day period it takes place! Although originally comprised of comic obsessed attendees, as the name would suggest, it has become overrun with anime, manga and video game fans. The cosplays I have debuted at these events have ranged in price from £60 up to a rather large total of £150, though it's important to note that you don't need to spend a large sum of money to be a successful cosplayer as at the end of the day we are all nerds running around in costumes.

Cosplayers have a number of reasons as to why they do what they do, but ultimately it's for the fun they have doing it and I'm no exception. I will admit that people asking for photos with you is an added bonus in the form of an ego booster, a friend and myself once had a small queue of people lining up to have a picture with us which was both surprising and exciting given our doubts about our costumes. However the fun we have cosplaying beats this by a mile. Our self-confidence leaps up, we get to be our favourite character for the day, we can meet new people who are in the same fandom as us, in fact, I met my best friend through cosplay. I could go on all day.

To conclude, although we may look like a bunch of freaks but we are probably the friendliest, albeit craziest, people you'll ever come across. No cosplay is ever a bad cosplay in our view so if you're a 6’3 guy, for example, and you want to cosplay Misty from Pokemon, you do it (I have actually seen this at a convention, fyi) regardless of any doubt you may have in the back of your mind! The only limit is your imagination...pardon the cliché.