How To Cosplay… Correctly.

Something of a cosplay hate group has sprung up on Facebook – disparaging people who cosplay as anime characters, if they are not Asian. You may have thought this would be a blog post about how to cosplay correctly, which it is, but it’s also an important statement.

It’s very hard to cosplay incorrectly.

But that’s not what the “Anti-Western Cosplayers” Facebook group says. No, they expect all people who cosplay to be asian. While, admittedly, there are some terrible-to-look-at western cosplayers, these can be found across any race. Here’s a picture that someone else posted to the group:

Here’s what looks like a pretty good western cosplayer on the right, and a not-as-fun-to-look-at cosplayer on the left. Whether or not the left cosplayer is actually asian, as was disputed in the group, is beyond the point. The fact that not all characters represented in anime are intended to be Asian (Edward Elric and FMA is set in a Germany like setting) is not the point either. The point is: Both people are probably having fun. And that’s what really matters.

And that’s where I get to telling you how to cosplay. The first step: remember that cosplaying is about having fun, enjoying acting as another character, and making friends with people who like the same things. You might not have a ton of time and money to make the perfect outfit. But that doesn’t matter so long as you enjoy doing it. You can cosplay Cid Highwind and look awesome, but even if you don’t look that perfect, it doesn’t matter – it’s still fun.

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