Comments on: Interview With HezaChan – Cosplay as a Lifestyle

By: cosplay

cosplay — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:06:10 +0000

i’ve never cosplayed before. I don’t think I ever will, either. After seeing those Japanese cosplayers, I’m pretty sure I’d just embarrass myself with any semblance of an attempt, so I won’t run that risk. Plus, I don’t like doing things half-assed and if I couldn’t spent hundreds of dollars putting together a costume, then I definitely wouldn’t do it. And personally, I can think of a lot of other things I could use hundreds of dollars on right now that aren’t costume materials.

I do love seeing cosplayers though, especially the really good and the really bad ones.

By: elastor niwa

elastor niwa — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:17:51 +0000

….well, i think having a cosplay is good

By: Manga

Manga — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:01:08 +0000

This is never easy.

By: Alvador

Alvador — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:48:46 +0000

Appreciate the info guys, thanks

By: Bera

Bera — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:20:00 +0000

I’ve never given this a try, but I think it’s about time I do.

By: June K. Williams

June K. Williams — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:16:42 +0000

But would you portray those characters as they were written of would you “reimagine” them?

By: Mary M

Mary M — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:46:19 +0000

I thought this was an interesting interview and sounds like a fun and creative thing to do. Heather must have a great deal of ingenuity to bring anime characters and costumes to life. I suppose one must have both a dramatic bent and a gift for costume-making. But the expense! If I could afford to do this, I would lean toward recreating Jane Austin or Charles Dickens characters, rather than the radical HezaChan!

By: Lomax Lamat

Lomax Lamat — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:00:49 +0000

I suppose that what happened is that I did not realize that Cosplay was anything more than fans dressing up at cons.

I had no idea that it was what it is. I had less idea that HezaChan was a celebrity in the Cosplay world, a person who is recognized and respected for who she is and what she does.

My gripe was that these were things that should have been covered in the beginning of the interview for knobs like me so that I would understand.

By: June K. Williams

June K. Williams — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:50:58 +0000

From my perspective this was an interview not an article defining what cosplay is exactly. As the word cosplay wasn’t created till 1984 and because the person who invented it was using it to describe hall and masquerade costuming at World Con it is fair to use convention hall and masquerade costuming as a baseline meaning. As the man who coined the term was the head of a Japanese film studio that produces Anime it is also pretty safe to say that it was targeted first at Anime. It has taken on the additional meaning of performance art and in Japan it has broken out of the confines of Anime and Science Fiction conventions and can be found in public gathering places much as we see street musicians in places around Manhattan. I think this may be a case of the subculture making its own definition. I would exclude any group or persons who don’t associate themselves with the term or define themselves as cosplayers i.e. Renfaire actors and patrons, ancient priests,The Pythia of Delphi, kids who dress up for Halloween, play doctor or cowboys and Indians etc,. If you don’t think you are a Trekkie will tuning into Star Trek mean you are a Trekkie? I don’t think so.

I was really interested in what HezaCan had to say about what it is she does and her advice to noobies. Having been to many a convention and watched youngsters traipsing around with giant paper mache swords and swaddled in everything from silks to tissue paper I wanted to hear about how that translates into a subculture

By: John Winn

John Winn — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:57:54 +0000

Lomax:

You’re right, cosplaying (as you and I and just about anyone born after, say, 1960 would know) has been going on for years–in fact, that late Forrest Ackerman used to dress up in a lizard suit to promote his fan zines in 1949 or ’50, I can’t remember which date. The problem arises in defining what exactly cosplaying is. Most people who watch TV or read the blogs associate cosplay with anime and comic books. But ask people to go beyond that, and they’ll have different takes on the same subject.
Is it a hobby? Is it performance art? Would renaissance fairs count as cosplay? Therein lies the rub. The problem is compounded by the fact that it is a little known subject (from the MSM’s point of view) and that the few articles sluggedrarely gives treats cosplay as anything other than a freak hobby–one article was entitled “What would Godzilla say? (which is a ridiculus headline, since Godzilla is a _fictional character_). Don’t even get me started on the guy who entitled his book on the subject “Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand”…
Maybe in 30 years this will be fleshed out. At the moment though…