Monday, June 13, 2011

Otakuism

No, I'm not. Not yet.

Though I did drop by the Cosplay Summit Asia thing at Orchard Central this weekend. It wasn't very spectacular, though the Sepiroth guy looked quite cool (with LED lights too, wow). I wasn't really looking at the costumes, but more of the people who were there. It was kind of a big, unintentional social experiment.

Obviously there were random normal people who happened to walk by and chance on this eccentric group of people who would spend money, time and energy to dress up as fictional characters, and most of their reactions were "Lol these people are so pathetic" or "WTF is that guy wearing" and etcetera. There were some who were definitely not into the whole anime thing but joined in anyway; to these people, I salute you for daring to try something out of the ordinary. And then of course there were the people who wanted to be there for the event, which weren't that many. The host was vainly trying to rouse the crowd; believe me, I know what it's like to have an uncooperative audience.

There was this performance by the waitresses from the maid café, and they were really not excited about their job. There was one girl though who was really enthusiastic with the dancing, which was nice to see. Oh and there was this creepy old man with grey hair and an overcomb and a huge DSLR taking pictures of EVERYTHING.

It's always so interesting to see people committed to something so willingly and unconditionally. There were one or two really good cosplayers there (especially the two Transformers, they were awesome), and when you see the kind of skill and dedication they put into their work, it's more of an art form than anything.

Speaking about anime, I realise I'm not the kind of person who falls in love with the characters (unlike a number of people I know). Even in novels, comic books, movies, TV shows; it has never been the character which has brought me through. (WITH ONE BIG EXCEPTION: CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW. WHO IS AWESOME. YEAH.) I haven't become a raving fan of a single anime character, even the girls who are always, y'know, really pretty and stuff. But it's more of the story that captures my attention, that leads me through the entire series of unfortuante events and makes me like the show as a whole. Pirates of the Caribbean has pretty good stories too, by the way.

Nothing much else, just wanted to write some stuff.

Kawaii,
The Edna Man