Cosplay Girls Daily

People about cosplay...

There are three ways you can go with this:

• Buy a Halloween costume: This is easy and cheap, but “kit” costumes tend to be poorly made, only available for the most mainstream characters, and pale replicas.
• Buy a cosplay costume: These are usually higher quality and are available for more obscure characters, but tend to be expensive. You’re looking to spend a couple hundred dollars at least.
• Make your own costume: This takes more work, but allows greater creativity. Not only can you make a costume for any character that comes to mind, but you can do fun twists like gender bending (female version of male character, vice versa) or mashups (Darth Batman). The cost can vary depending on how far you go with it.

I recommend starting with the DIY route. There are a plenty of costumes that don’t take much work and can be made by combining everyday items, which are great for beginners. And at the end of the day, it’s your own creation.

I enjoy comics too, mainly Judge Dredd, actually nothing else to think about it. I’ve got T-shirts, computer games, loads of comics / books, an Oyster card wallet, badge and cufflinks of JD. You could say I’m a fan. At comic conventions I take interest in seeing the various folks in costume. It’s not my thing, but I get their enthusiasm.

One of the team on my current client in Holland is a huge Star Trek fan. He has all the films and all the episodes. At the moment he’s collecting a part work of all the space vehicles. He goes to events but hates seeing anyone who dresses up and is out of character. “No one from Star Fleet smokes, carries a beer or spends their time on an iPhone”. He doesn’t do cosplay but appreciates those who take the time to add something to the atmosphere of an event by doing it well.

Watching my shy 8 year old and his 10 year brother with the Star Wars guys at a convention made my day. These people enjoy spreading joy. To me, that act of generosity is a big appeal.

When judging whether something is cultural appropriation, ask first: is there a cultural double standard that praises the borrower while punishing those whose behaviors/styles are being borrowed from? If not, then the second test is to see if the thing being borrowed has religious/spiritual/historical significance the borrowers are disregarding or disrespecting for the sake of ‘cool’. Finally, does the act of borrowing reinforce stereotypes?

To answer your question, No. Cosplaying in the past hasn’t been used to marginalize, dehumanize, or stereotype the Japanese people. Cosplay has no major religious, political, or spiritual significance, even in Japan it is considered a commercial hobby. Cultural Appropriation is problematic because the hegemonic group (in the US case, white people) get praise for behaviors the group that they borrowed the practice from get penalized for (in this case, Japanese otaku). However, Japanese otaku have the same or superior status as American Cosplayers at US Conventions and English language internet. Japanese Otaku are not facing a double standard when compared to white otaku that favors White otaku.

There are some racists who may say white cosplayers look more like the anime/video game characters then Japanese cosplayer, but those types tend to be seen as racists and pariahs in most well-balanced cosplay communities. Most people tend to think the Japanese have very high quality cosplay.