All About the Cosplay at Sakura-Con 2012

My “Best in Show” pick is Steven (27) from Everett, cosplaying as Ryuk from Death Note. This is his second Sakura-Con. He loves the Death Note series and thought no one was pulling off the character well, in his opinion, at the last Con. Costume took about a week. He purchased the iconic black spiky hair. Everything else, the feathers, the rest of the costume, he put together himself. The apple makes it.

Abby (17), Lauren (17) and Jennifer (18) from Portland were cosplaying as Ulquiorra Cifer, Orihime Inoue, and Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez (respectively) from the Bleach series. They are here cosplaying as these characters because, as Lauren puts it, “These are really fun costumes to do.” She’s the seamstress of the group and sewed all the costumes herself, and even made the shoes. Lauren says that the hardest part of sewing these costumes is that there isn’t a pattern available; it’s more trial and error. This is something I heard quite a bit from others who make their own costumes.

Abi (27) from Lynnwood was cosplaying as Sylvanas Windrunner from the World of Warcraft game. This is her fourth Sakura-Con. When I asked why she chose this costume, she said she used to play WoW and “wanted a challenge.” Asked how she got into anime, she said her brothers were all anime fans, and she got pulled in. She leans more towards games than anime, and she thinks that the increase in cosplaying girls and women at Sakura-Con is related to the fact that game companies are starting to cater games more to girls. “Now,” she says, “there are games where the girls are leads instead of just pretty.” This was a common theme when I asked how women and girls found their passion for cosplay: many of them discover it through gaming.

Abby pulls anime, cosplay, and gaming together in her involvement with a group called the D20 Girls (where she is the editor of the group’s magazine). It’s a business that combines social networking, talent management, event services, and independent publications to promote the positive image of female gamers in the gaming industry.

Robert (25) and Kim (24) from Seattle had two of the most elaborate costumes at the Con, cosplaying as Dark Paladin and Magician’s Valkyria from the Yu-Gi-Oh! series. Why did they choose these characters? Robert sums it up with: “I thought they looked awesome.” It took about four months to make these costumes, with ¼-in. foam and craft foam. Robert works as a software engineer, and spent his time after work crafting this remarkably detailed costume. He even cast the green jewels on his gloves out of epoxy resin, finishing them off with nail polish.

Denzel (19) is Sazh Katzroy from Final Fantasy 13. He is one of the few African American cosplayers I saw at the Con. “Sometimes it’s hard with people of…darker skin…to cosplay,” he said. Then he saw FF13, with “this guy who had these two guns and this big afro and this bird in his hair, and it’s just like ‘I’m gonna do that.’” What is notable about cosplay, though, is how the race--or even gender--of the cosplayers relative to the character just really isn’t an issue. There were more girl Luffys than boy Luffys running around, girl Grimmjows, it doesn’t seem to matter.

Sometimes you also get random non-anime or game-based characters that show up. Like Jesus. Or bacon. Or even Tom Servo and Crow from MST3K. Totally worth spending a sunny Saturday indoors.