Disturbing the Normies
Cosplay: The Awesomeness That's taking the World by Storm
As of last year, I discovered the amazing, fabulous and kooky world of Cosplay. At first, I figured that Cosplay was what couples did for each other as a form of foreplay or something and stayed far from the topic. I never knew or even dreamed that it would be a phenomenal group of people who would gather a couple times a year to celebrate various genres of entertainment that they adored.
In layman's terms, Cosplay is the act of dressing up as a favourite TV show, movie, anime, manga or video game character and competing against other cosplayers for a prize. All cosplayers are judged by professional cosplayers, designers and sometimes even celeberities! The cosplayers also have to go on stage and mimic the behaviour of the character they are dressed as. Before or after the presentation the judges inspect each cosplayer and judge them based on how accurately they cosplay the characters. The person who portrayed the character the best and who has the most accurate and realistic costume wins the prize (most of the time it's cash).
It's believed that Cosplay started off in Japan but whether or not this is true, parts of the world have now embraced this strange hobby as its own. So far, the United States hosts the most popular event around called the San Diego Comic-con which generates a lot of cosplayers and is held once a year. What makes it so big is that it isn't only a forum for cosplayers. The event usually has panels for popular TV shows and movies where renowned actors come and talk about their roles in the show and reveal snippets of spoilers. Sometimes even newly released video games are showcased. Going to the San Diego Comic-con is definitely on my bucketlist!
While I wait for the opportunity to arise, I take part in amazing Cosplay events right here in Trinidad! The thing is, Cosplay is recognized among a particular group of Trinidadians but the rest of the society doesn't know about or consider Cosplay to be a "weird" activity. The first time I cosplayed, the idea of just doing it made every nerve in my body feel like unstable atoms. I was so excited I couldn't decide on a character that I wanted to cosplay (in the end I went with Fionna from Adventure Time). However, when it came to the day I felt a different kind of nervous. My thoughts centered around how people on the streets would react to a girl in a strange outfit, winter hat and a long purple foam sword. I got so self-conscious that I tried to hide my sword under the maxi seats so that people wouldn't stare so much.
But what is so peculiar is that when I reached to the Cosplay event, other people were dressed in odd costumes like myself and I immediately became comfortable enough. I even got the courage to go and perform on the stage! It's always amazing to witness the power of groups. Still, I felt a little insecure because my costume wasn't as awesome as the others. However, I still enjoyed my first encounter with Cosplay.
This year, ALIAS Entertainment Expo held the largest Comic-con/Cosplay event Trinidad and Tobago has ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get to attend but my friends did and their costumes were just impeccable! One of them went as Fang from Final Fantasy and the other went as Wednesday from the Addams Family. ALIAS even hosted a march where cosplayers walked through the streets of downtown Port-of-Spain in their costumes. If you want to check out ALIAS you can visit their website here.
In November, there will be a Cosplay event called Arcadia Cosplayer's Ball and I'm definitely not gonna miss out on it. If you've suddenly become interested in the world of Cosplay you can click this link to check out their Facebook page.
There are so many more ridiculously awesome aspects of Cosplay that I could elaborate on in this post but I'm more of a visual person so you can check out my Gallery page to see the different costumes.
