Tell me about the outfit you are wearing – who are you cosplaying and how did you decide to pick this particular character ?
I am cosplaying Yami Yuugi from the anime and manga series Yuugiou (aka. Yu-Gi-Oh! in America). Yuugiou was my favorite series back in late elementary school and middle school, and I’m still a fan of the series today. He’s my favorite character from the series and I never really thought about cosplaying him before until the idea of doing a Yuugiou group appeared. Of course I asked myself which character I wanted to do and, hands down, I opted to be Yami Yuugi. And, lo and behold, that’s how it began~
Tell me about the process of making your outfit – was it easier or tougher than you imagine it to be ?
Making the clothes wasn’t much of a big deal in the end since I have a pretty strong background for sewing. I made the jacket, shirt, choker, and pants myself and bought the wristbands from Hot Topic. The duel disk was bought off of Ebay. I wore the shoes from another cosplay. I was mostly, if very, concerned about how to make the Millenium puzzle and hair for the cosplay. I’m not a very strong prop maker so I wasn’t sure how to begin making the puzzle. My other weak point is wigs, so there was another thing to think about… Luckily I have a very helpful and awesome cousin (Haku) who did the bulk of the work for the Millenium Puzzle (and did an amazing job at it!) and who heavily guided me through the process of putting together the wig. On the night before we were set to wear our outfits as a group, I had some friends who saved my golden bangs from becoming a disaster, so I owe them a lot for helping out.
Any interesting stories from people’s reaction to your outfit at the con ?
I was pleasantly surprised to see that, after all these years, people were still very interested in Yuugiou — I always considered the series as an old fandom of mine so I wasn’t sure what to expect when we walked out onto the con floor as a group, much less a frenzied response from the con goers. We kept getting stopped every 5 minutes to the point that we couldn’t move to our destined location without someone asking for a picture. The fun thing about groups is that if a cosplay is asked for a picture, the cosplayer usually calls out for the rest of the group to come into the picture as well, so instead of a single person taking the picture it becomes a mass mob of people instead! My friends and I did a bunch of silly things in our cosplay which included forming a line and acting like a train with the duel disks and simply being fabulous~
How did you get started cosplaying and what got you interested ?
Long, long ago, my cousin, sister, and I wanted to do Naruto cosplay together… and things went uphill from there. I’m not sure where the interest sparked, but it had something to do with the concept of “anime conventions” and “cosplay” that was introduced to use by an older cousin of ours… and the rest, as everyone says, is history.
What are the con did you first attended and what’s your favorite con that you’ve attended so far and why ?
My first convention I ever went to was Anime Expo 2004 (I didn’t cosplay for that one). My favorite convention of all time would have to be Anime Expo 2005, which was when we did Naruto cosplay. Our own group of Naruto cosplayers somehow made a snowball effect and acquainted us with other Naruto cosplayers, and those Naruto cosplayers have been and are still very good friends of mine. Lots of good memories happened at AX’05, and I’ll never forget that convention.
What does cosplay mean to you ?
I find cosplay a good way for meeting great fandom friends. If there’s someone out there who’s just as hardcore as you are to the point of dressing up as a character, then he/she has to be pretty awesome. Cosplay is also a good way to get away from stressing with school, work, etc. because you get to be someone else for a few hours, day, or weekend. I find that it’s a lot of fun to just NOT be yourself and doing something you don’t get to do on a daily basis.
If you had unlimited funds/technology/time, what is your dream cosplay ?
Hmmm… this is kind of a hard one because I’ve knocked out a bunch of my dream cosplays lately. I still want to do Suzumiya Haruhi from the anime and light novel series Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, as well as an outfit or two from Cardcaptor Sakura. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of doing Pharaoh Atem from Yuugiou and Rachel Alucard from the video game BlazBlue… but these plans are under development. There are also other cosplay I want to do for fun, but I wouldn’t call them dream cosplay. I guess this is something I should give further thought into, haha.
