A Mayor’s Guide To Video Game Cosplay

Well, hello again. It’s been quite a while since my last visit. But I thought as I was in the area I would pop by for a quick visit to show you my new guide!

For those of you who STILL don’t know me, I’m that rather rotund and sensual thing (love handles in all the right places) from Super Mario Sunshine with the hot air balloon exterior and Turnip like appearance.

I used to write guides on video game seasons, but unfortunately they never sold very well. After selling one book the entire weekend of a major convention that I had a stall at, I knew things were not working out. But whilst I was there, I was struck by an idea, a magnificent idea, a painful idea… it turned out I was struck by a Cloud Buster sword, so a passer-by told me (I thought clouds are supposed to be soft and fluffy, not concussion inducing).

Either way, this very hard and heavy object was the start of something amazing! To be honest, I had never heard about cosplay before, though it does explain a lot of things. After having a very long conversation with someone I thought to have been Princess Peach, I knew something wasn’t right. She didn’t know where Mario was, or if the Ice Flower I gave her for her birthday was doing well, and my god, it was her who ate all the pies! After staring for ages at her hairy biceps it turns out that this Princess Peach was a feller!! Ok so it took my a while to realise that he was a Cosplayer or Crossplayer (as the ones that prefer to cross dress are called)… but do please keep this quiet, as it’s rather embarrassing, and I wouldn’t like her royal highness to find out I called her a fat heffer.

So I decided to explore cosplay, and bring my explorations to you. And the fact that I got to look at lots of ladies exposing various parts of their flesh is neither here or there.

This wouldn’t be much of a guide about cosplay if I didn’t tell you where the word came from, would it? Cosplay – コスプレ- kosupure – is short for ‘costume play’.  The word was created by Nobuyuki Takahashi, businessman for a Japanese studio called Studio Hard. He was exceedingly impressed by all the people dressed up in Western and Japanese costumes while attending the 1984 Los Angeles Science Fiction convention WorldCon and the word has stuck ever since.

Cosplayers come in all different shapes and sizes… and species. You have the regular chaps who just cosplay as characters from TV, film, anime and games, then you have the crossplayers, who are the guys who prefer to dress up as girl characters and the girls who prefer to dress up as guy characters… this can get rather confusing, so be careful who you start chatting up!

Then you have the slightly more frightening folk called Animegao or “dollers” – thank god it’s a niche part of cosplay, as these creatures, who are often male, dress up as female anime abominations!! Big scary over-sized eyes and tiny mouths all stuck on a massive manga girl plastic face mask! Absolutely hideous and the more I think about it the more I know I’ll have nightmares…

To be a cosplayer, you need a costume. Store bought costumes seem to be the most reliable in the cosplay world because they are always sewing machine stitched which means they are not going to fall apart when being worn. I know, disappointing. Most cosplayers buy their costumes off of eBay and they are a very convenient option for some first getting into cosplay or for someone, like myself, who wouldn’t know what to do with a needle and thread. Although, it’s very hard to find a costume with my particular measurements.  I tried to get a circular Lara Croft costume but no where seemed to sell it off the peg.

Still, if there’s a character you like, and you can find it on eBay – then send the seller your measurements. Mine are 12, 96, 12, with an inside leg of 6 inches. The material quality of the costumes isn’t as great as if you were able to choose the material yourself, and I need mine stretchy. Also, even when you give the eBay store your exact measurements, I guarantee that it will always come back to you the wrong colour or too big or too small. I thought I’d buy an outfit for this years masquerade ball at the palace. And I thought that it would be rather amusing if I went dressed as Mario. Unfortunately the eBay seller that I bought the garment from sent me outfit in the wrong colour, green of all things!! The last thing I want is to look like is, errr, Leslie, umm, Loogie, err, whatever… (I heard he was a bit of a loser anyway). Fortunately, the costume was so bad everyone though I’d come as Bowser Jr.Hand made costumes are quite frankly something that I will epically fail at, as my hands are really just big circles with a thumb. There do seem to be a lot of cosplayers who actually enjoy sewing stuff together! To be honest sewing has never been my cup of tea, and brings back horrific memories of when my dear father, bless his soul, forced me to darn holey socks and other such garments for my siblings when I was a whippersnapper… uuuurgh!!! All those needles, all that thread, all that duct tape attaching them to my circular hands!!!All that being said,  people who make their own costumes are high up in the book of cosplayers. Mostly because of the things they have to put up with. Not only do they make their own costumes, but they have to constantly fix them, and put up with them falling apart whilst you wear them.  You may think it’s fun seeing a piece of a ladies’ underwear poking through their costume, but it’s not that fun if the ladies can see your greying underpants through your lovingly crafted Pac Man ensemble (now there’s a costume for my body shape).  Also, the costumes are far more elaborate than the store bought ones even if they are destroyed by the end of the day. And you end up in just your underpants.  As there are many game and anime characters you just cannot buy from eBay, so you often see people dressed as character from more obscure games and TV shows. And, believe me – once you’ve spent one day walking around a convention centre when people can see your underwear – you make sure you sew (or for lazy people, ‘Bostick’), a strong costume for next time.

I wonder if after this guide to video game cosplay, someone might choose to cosplay as my rather lovely self! I am pretty much on par with Mario in popularity, and far better looking than Link. You get to wear a novelty moustache and the leaf skirt is just soooo breezy! And I am pretty sure my body shape will flatter even the most tractor tyre-esque bodies! So at this years conventions, you have no excuse not to cosplay!

Oh, and if you do go to this years conventions be on the look out for this chap! I believe it’s Sir Arthur!

I don’t not know if he is the real Arthur as I can not identify him from this picture due to non underpant revealage. But I need to know about the more unobtainable parts of the ‘Great Demon World’. Since my contact was brutally dismembered, arm used for a back scratcher, head used for the Demon Utd football team’s ball, you know the type of thing. So I have no one to help me anymore and I am hoping that this fine chap can cure my curiosity and TELL ME WHERE THOSE DAMN SWIMMING BATHS ARE!!!