The funny thing about Cosplay is that characters from popular series and movies that usually get cosplayed aren't realistic looking to begin with.

So true. Who has a 12 inch waist? No person is going to look exactly like the body of the character they are imitating because most anime characters do not have real human body structures.

Cosplaying looks like it'd be fun, although, as MisaMisa mentioned, it's best to go with something that suits your body type or whatever. Personally, I'd love to pull off a Lulu cosplay. I always liked her outfit, but, there really aren't too many things a person like me could pull off. I'm overweight and African American. Not too many "blacks" in most anime/manga series, I've noticed, so probably no matter who I dress up as, I'll get teased no matter what.:p I remember one year, me and two friends were planning on dressing up as school girls and treat the convention as a "school festival", but decided against it a few years ago.

That aside, I don't think that people cosplay as much as the OP is proposing and that only a small amount of people do so outside of a convention setting in probably places like Harajuku like once a week or something.

Wow, a lot of mixed opinion. As a photographer, i look at cosplay as a subject myself, I mean, to me, I was in heaven when I was in Harajuku and Akiba, simply because there are so many "things" that I can take a picture of. Its a real challenge to take good picture of cosplayer.

But outside of photography, as suggested by some, I look at it as almost something ridiculous

MMM, if I am remember correctly and according to relatives in Japan, the Otakus are somewhat a target of discrimination in Japan am I right?

You don't necessarily have to cosplay as a character that looks exactly like you.
I don't see why you'd be teased.
There's just as many black people dressed up as white characrers as there are white people at the conventions near my house.
My brother does it all the time and no one says anything to him
Hell he even did it with his fro.
Lol.
People loved it.

By " suit" you.
It means find a character that's not going to make you look like shit or a hooker.
Or, modify a character's costume.

This wouldn't had been any less cool,
If she had worn something over her popping out boobs and made the part where the skirt splits, not at her vagina.



It's really simple the modifications that could be done to some cosplays.

Well I didn't want to say anime because some people cosplay things that aren't in animes but from other series. Either way it's true though.It makes it hard to look at someone's effort as a whole. Like the poor girl above. It's a great costume and great detail but what I think really throws it off is the expression on her face, it really looks sad.

That goes back to what I brought up. Because cosplay and anime's subject mater mainly s derived from games and anime you're basically saying large people shouldn't cosplay because for every character that suits (I'll use por Yuna again as my example) her body type that's a desirable character to cosplay there are thousands more that look like what she'll probably never look like.

Well, I guess that was a bit harsh, but, seems that no matter what an overweight person dresses as, whether it's perfect or not, that person will get ridiculed or mocked for it. Look at the pic of Yuna. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she got ridiculed in some way for her size, even if the outfit was good (imo). This world still isn't the nicest where overweight people are concerned.

That aside, I pretty much agree with what EveV said, which was pretty much closer to what I originally meant as far as "suiting" goes, "It means find a character that's not going to make you look like shit or a hooker.
Or, modify a character's costume."

I have a friend who does it occasionally... I think it's just a past time. I mean, a lot of people enjoy making the costumes and then wearing them... I guess it could be an escape from reality, but I think for many people, it's just a past time.

"Target of discrimination" might be a little wordy, but anime and manga otaku are not made fun of because they like manga and anime (that would be like making fun of someone for reading the newspaper) but because they tend to be socially inept, obsessive and not always very hygienic.

YouTube - Cartoon KAT-TUN Ep.80/20081015[1]

Go about two minutes into this video and you can see the two guys on the left are dictionary-definitions of manga OTAKU in Japan.

I agree that it's such a nice target for photography :) Love Harajuku on sundays (and well, other days too).

Otherwise, I don't see it as being "ridicilous" AT ALL. Some people are interested in doing it. They have fun doing it. That's all that anyone should have to say about it.

Judging and saying that it's worse than other hobbies/interests or whatever is just lame IMHO.