Mini survey: How good cosplays are in your country?

[Deoxys]

Hello everyone again, it's been a long time since the last time I posted here...

I would like to ask you for a little help. You see, some friends of mine and me were talking about cosplay, and eventually we started ranting about how much it sucks in our country (Spain), because the people here (There are exceptions, but they are 5 or 10 in a convention with a 15k - 20k people attendance) uses to dress whatever they find and call it cosplay, and how cool are the pictures we see from the london expo, the Japan expo in Paris and couple of similar events around the world.

I personally think all the cons around the world are very similar, that only the good photos go to the internet and that they are bad/horrible cosplayers everywhere (I'm not talking about those poorly-made-but-funny cosplays, just about the BAD ones. When they are so bad you want to punch the 'cosplayer' in the face), but I would like to ask someone else, and this looked like a good place since they are anime fans and probably convention attendants from all over the world.

So, this is quite simple. Just tell me (tell us) how is cosplay done in your country. How does 'non-otaku' people there see it? Are they usually neat or poorly done? does people like to prepare good stuff and, mainly, PLAY the character they are cosplaying (which is a very, very important part of a cosplay for me and which sadly looks like no one ever does)?

Thanks everyone, and I hope a good discussion will come out from here. Also excuse my terrible english, I know it sucks.

[Deoxys]

I'll coment something here and we'll see where all this goes.

I'm not going to deny it, they are couple of good, very good 'costumers' in Spain. But they all fail in the same thing: They are costumers, not cosplayers. They just put on a good looking costume (VERY good looking costumes indeed) and pose for the camera as good as they can. Cosplay for me is just like acting: Is taking a character and being him or her, like representing a theater play during all day with that character. I see almost no one in this country thinks like this, so I already have resigned looking for that.

Ignoring that 'little' fact (Little because the camera can't catch the play and looks good even if it's not really that good for me), and as I have already said, there are a bunch of very good cosplayers. Those who choose their characters carefully, prepare their costumes with care, patience and lots of time and whose work is really appreciated in the cosplay contests. But sadly, they are a very, very, very little group between the convention attendants.

Most of them just grab whatever they catch in the closet and call it cosplay. You know, things like using a tracksuit and saying you are 'GTO' or 'That guy from initial D' (They don't even know the names, lol), wearing a shirt and normal trousers and saying you are Kira, and lots, LOTS, FUCKING TONS of stuff like that. Not to mention those as***les who go to the cons with the airsoft uniform and weapons saying they are swats or some **** like that. That is NOT cosplaying in any damn way any human can imagine. But usually one day you have free entry if you are cosplayer (to encourage people to go to the contests), and everyone does stuff like that just to save 3 bucks from the entry. I'm not going to judge them, of course they are free to do whatever they want, but that's really, really sad in my opinion.

And last but not least, we can't forget about those who try without too much enthusiasm. Guys like this couple:


(For those who can't tell what are they doing... They are yoko and kamina from gurren lagann)

Dudes, I know you just discovered a 6 year old anime and you are crazy with it, but come on, you can do better than that. Most of the cosplayers (As I said before, those just wearing a tracksuit or a shirt or stuff like that are not cosplayers for me) here have good intentions, but i don't know if they lack crafting skills or they just don't feel like doing something good.

They are potential contest winners, but a very important part of them just get stuck doing low-quality costumes with the first thing they find at home. It's sad, because with just a little more work they could do great things... But no one ever does, except those few who take it seriously (Very seriously indeed)

Oh god, I think I wrote too much... Anyway, that's basically the situation of Cosplay in Spain (In my opinion)... It would help me reading what you have to say

Edit: oh, and I didn't even mentioned the whole army of 'narutards' (No offending intentions here, it's just that everyone calls them that way), who were an absolute plague just 3 years ago, the soul eater mass 2 years ago... Well, basically those who discover an old anime at the same time and go alike everywhere during a whole year. Some of them had really awesome stuff, but... ¿Are they even following the general anime panorama or are they waiting for them to be licensed in our country? XD

I admit I don't follow more than two animes every season, but it's weird how you have to wait like 4-5 years to see people interested in an anime here.

[Julia]

Hmm well I haven't seen very many cosplayers since going to Ushicon 5 many years back (you can see some of the cosplays I photographed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27343796@N ... 376558781/) but it seemed similar to your situation: there are some good ones and some bad ones. I didn't see a whole lot of people doing the whole "act like you're actually the character" thing. Well there was the one Professor Snape guy who was kind of acting Snape-ish. That was a relatively small convention though, I dunno how many people there were but the activities were only on the first couple floors of the hotel it was in and it wasn't crowded.

I know I personally would never do a cosplay unless I could do it really well.

As for people finding "old" animes and being crazy about them, a lot of people don't watch fansubs so they only see them when they are licensed which can take years. So to them it is not that old.