On Cosplay

I'll make this short, quick, and hopefully painless. That last one goes for me especially, as I'm probably gonna be flamed by some people.

While I do respect cosplayers, and it is true that there are many good cosplayer out there, I do not believe that cosplay will reach a believable level. The best imitations we can produce are only believable (at most) on the surface level: costume, hairstyles, surface mannerisms. That, I believe, is the peak, if we can perfectly personify a character physically. And I do salute the very few who can make this happen.

What makes character successful in anime in particular is that they are made to be perfect. Those who are not conventionally perfect have the storyline to make up for what they lack. The story then makes the character perfect, because revolving the storyline around the character is like spoon-feeding: one only waits for the character to react to it.

The funny thing about all of this--and this is what I'm really trying to say--is that humans try to 'imitate' the 'imitations'. Writers, intentionally or not, make their characters as human-like as perfection allows to relate to the audience, but it is those which are most 'non-human' that people imitate, and it's funny. Come on, what's the challenge in cosplaying, say, Hideki of Chobits? We see people like him everyday, so we don't need to pretend to be him. He wears the clothes that an average teen does, has genetically-possible hair color, blah blah. It is the thrill of being, for a moment, close to perfection that gives cosplay its allure. It is sort of escapist and real at the same time, because I believe that we all strive to be more than human, even for a short while.