Thursday 31 May 2012

As a Cosplayer

At one point in my life I used to try and cater what I say to everyone, that had me crash and burn out because there's just no pleasing everyone. So I thought I'd just cater to the intelligent folk.

[Quick note before I launch into this; for you pricks who thought I was complaining in my last post, go suck a dick. That was a review, an observation, written in the way I write. If I ever complain I do so to the relevant persons so I don't waste my efforts. All of this is a form of journalism and blogging, you morons.]


This post is about hostility between cosplayers. It is not about what constitutes good/bad cosplay, nor is it a rant telling people what they should and shouldn't do. The fact I have to spell this out makes me not want to live on this planet anymore because some cretin will come along, get butthurt and completely miss the point.


Staying "middle of the road" does nothing to convey one's message, it's simply directionless waffle. I chose to play the Devil's Advocate or to be more concise; be vocal about being the Devil's Advocate. Many of you have thought about the things I say already, I know this because it's started more internet arguements than Religion, Drugs, Animeleague, and Goku vs Superman.* This proves that many people have thought about what I say.

*For the record Batman would fuckin' kick everyone's ass. He's the Goddamn Batman. He'd absorb Goku's energy attacks with his relay gauntlets, use the energy to pull a meteor out of orbit with a network of WayneTech Sattellites and plough that 72megaton space nugget into Goku's nutsack after having him chase ghosts and shadows on the dark side of the motherfuckin' moon. Don't even get me started on how he'd bend Superboy over and Leeroy Jenkins his internal organs with the Batfists.

I'll try to explain as much as I can because I've never actually seen anyone articulate enough to take the time and spell it out for everyone to understand. You see I'm a cosplayer, holy crapola no shit son. I don't claim to be the best, I have my strengths and weaknesses much like anyone else and I have my own reasons. I'm the kind who works to his strengths and has fun with what he does. However I see many who make it sound like they're not really having fun at all, and this confuses me. Why would you go do something to bitch and whine about it afterwards? Oh yeah, internets! Oh you!

In my last post I mentioned something about random fucknuts in certain accessories who claim they're cosplayers, many seen at Expo. There are no rules on cosplaying, but a couple of themes and I'll explain;

 - Have fun in what you do. It's about having fun, because the only other reasons you should be doing it is because it's a favour to a friend, or you're getting paid to do it. If you're doing it for attention, you're pretty much an attention whore, superficial, shallow, uninteresting and knowing you is more of a chore than a friendship.

 - Love the character, love the costume, or both. I'll not claim you should know the character, some of us properly fall in love with the outfit before we know anything about the character. Hell, the Japanese make a pasttime about getting into hobbies and knowing nothing about it (case in point is Gunpla, you get hobbyists who've never watched one episode of Gundam, yet love the mechs, models and putting the kits together. They don't even intend to watch an episode.) Again, reasons why you wouldn't do it for these two reasons fall into a favour, or getting paid. If you're doing it for the sake of having people take pictures and swoon over you, then you fall into the catagory I like to call the "Jeremy Kyle Guestlist".

Those two pretty much cover it, and it's not limited to Anime/Manga. Some people I know do it for movies, Sci Fi, TV, Internet etc etc. It's a massive spread of media.

But understand this; there are many who put more effort into these costumes than you could imagine. They may not be the grand elite, they just love what they do. Imagine how they feel when they see obvious n00bs at an event who've half-assed a cosplay. Sure these faggots are new to the game, but we're not talking novice mistakes, we're talking "I'm pretty sure Captain Hitsugaya has white hair, not a brown ponytail.." or "Hey, I know I don't read Kuroshitsuji, but did that kid with the eyepatch wear converse?". Seeing individuals who half-ass it, throw on a random wig, dress up in faux-lolita dresses and end up looking like teenie whores who've magnetised themselves and rolled around in Claire's Accessories, all of that is a bit insulting to many cosplayers. All this hard work we put in gets trampled on.

I know many cosplayers who go as far as changing their body type to be able to cosplay certain characters. I'm not saying everyone should do it, I'm saying be aware of the level of dedication some people put in. We can tell how much effort someone has put in, trust us, you don't wanna know how hardcore some of us get in this hobby.

Those who are blatantly out for attention/social acceptance I perceive in the same light as free huggers/douchebags who hold up signs to explain their cosplays/that school bully who couldn't read/assbagels who only stick to their own little cliques/hardcore AL'ers/alcoholics or people who like to be known as an alcoholic*. Basically, it's stupid, unintelligent, unoriginal, immature and just sad.

*Real Alcoholism is horrific, and I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. It's an addiction and destroys families and people in the same way that using bad Japanese in your sentences destroys any shred of respect I have for you as a person, human, lifeform, mass of protoplasm, worm fuel. To brag that you are an alcoholic is stating you simply enjoy alcohol, you douchebag poser.

Excuses don't wash either. Such as "I'm Naruto when he's at his Bah Mitzvah" or "I'm cosplaying Guy Shishio if he was at the sexual health clinic" or "This is my Master Asia when he's at the beach".. Shit like that makes me wanna tear a weeb apart with a clawhammer, it's just excuses. Especially when it's so out of character. Maybe.. MAYBE you'll get away with something like "This is Ichigo cosplaying Zangetsu"; in fact I saw two truly inspired ones last Kitacon: Garrus Vakarian and Thane Krios from Mass Effect as Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. Both characters are badass, and it's just makes sense, hats off to Manticore and Manjou. They nailed that harder than Thor with itchy hammer arm.

We've seen adaptations, some good, some bad. Some we can't help such as the gender transitions, and gijinkas. However I'm pretty sure than a pikachu gijinka wouldn't show underboob. Pikachu just isn't a "sexy" pokémon, unless that's just my personal tastes.

If you do find pikachu a sexy little bastard, then follow me on Twitter and read my brain farts since you're already a sick bastard it's not gonna do any more damage.

~Warai Otoko

Monday 28 May 2012

MCM London Expo May 2012 - "No shit, son"

Coming to my blog and asking for a good review of the Expo is a bit like going to a Halal Butcher's and asking for a pork chop and a pepperami, you may as well be eating a bacon sandwich at the time.

So what are you here for? Ah yes, the inevitable grilling of a meatgrinder for logic that is MCM Expo. Bear in mind, you douches, that certain things here are fact, and certain things here are my opinion. Learn to distinguish the two, or do one.

Now, for all I've said about free huggers, I must say I'm actually impressed that I barely saw any. Sure I saw the shitty signs they made which looked like it was made in the special class with the broken crayons, but for me it felt like a significant decrease. So well done you plebs, your ranking in my books is less negative than usual. I did get glomped, by one little girl but I'll let her off. That level of joy for my character I was cosplaying was genuine, I just wish she could have used words and sentences but when you're a glomper I guess many neural connections are fused solid with stupidity. I'm kicking myself because I never got a picture of her friend's despair face when I turned her down for a hug. Bugger.

I had plans, and actual passion for stuff for expo once. I even had it prior to this expo, but as I got there it faded fast and I found myself pinned under the gravity of apathy. I just wanted to get out, and you know when you get that mini-sick in your throat?

Getting the tickets was okay, but a pointless queue after I got my ticket was just.. wtf.. I feel like asking for that time back. Literally queuing for nothing, I may be delicious with hot sauce but I am not livestock. But let's gloss over that.

Entering expo hall, holy crap I almost facepalmed so hard I tickled my brainstem with my elbow; Yaoi Guy RIGHT THERE. After all the complains about this dude, and they call ME a troll. I am, but I gotta hand it to the organisers for Trolling me and the other 10,000 attendees back. Placing a vile douche who screams and shouts about non-hetero sexual cartoons as the first stall on entering? A family event where you hear "GLORIOUS MAN SEX" Either this really is a troll or someone's getting the world's best reach-around.

The hall itself got packed, ridiculously packed. Wall to wall stupid meat shuffling around, I kinda think that the pointless queuing beforehand was a gentle way of grooming us into being livestock. It was actually interesting to see people walk in, take 5 steps then turn right and head immediately for the exit with a "FUCK THIS SHIT" expression. The Irish guy behind me said, and I quote "Feck me sideways Gary, ye said this was about anime not a clusterfuck. Shall I take me clothes off now, because I know someone's getting shagged in this feckerama."

Feckerama. Irish Guy, where ever you are, you sir are a Legend.

I don't see this problem of volume ever getting solved, it's gonna get packed in harder than that storm trooper and his armour with the 18 stone swagger.

Some other shit happened and some shit didn't happen, nothing really interesting about that. I can say that Security for the swim event, and the swimmers themselves were very pleasant and straight forward. They did have a point for moving the sitting Expo attendees for blocking a through-fare, we can't argue against that.

What did happen that I've just heard about is a little bit more serious than free hugs and that faggot who called my cosplay a Slenderman, lurk moar newfag, is that an attendee of the Expo went home with a broken leg. Put your pocky down, and read that again. Many of you may know a douche who drinks petrol called Crimson (nevermind the fact that he gets his alcohol from me). As they were walking his friend suddenly faceplanted the floor and let out a yell that pretty much told everyone in the 7 mile radius he wasn't fucking around. An open unmarked deep drain, took a couple of hours for the ambulance to arrive and the nearby hotel staff came out, looked at the drain, herpaderped and then covered it up/put signs up/stuffed the yaoi guy in it and cemented it over [/Ifuckingwish.]

Also this from Crimson:
Hotel Douche Staff: Yeah, that's dangerous.
*Geoff is screaming in pain*
Me: NO SHIT ASSHOLE.

Now, I hear this is the jurisdiction of the ExCel, NOT Expo for giving this guy a shattered knee and a bad Skyrim meme for the rest of the term of his injury. We wish him all the best and hope he gets better soon, and that the douchebagel who left the drain open gets a honeybadger to the crotch.

Well done ExCel. Well done.

Something else that hounded me all weekend was that I didn't see many stunning cosplays, sure there were tons of knobheads in wigs, but no amazing individuals milling around in the crowds. I didn't want to stick around for the masquarade, I wanted to go talk to someone about their freakin' awesome costume and all I saw was the same carbon cutout mass produced monkeys that were kicked through Tokyopop. I know for a fact that there are amazing cosplayers at the Expo, yet they choose not to be in the crowds or go round the expo hall much. Instead they have photoshoots away from the event itself. As these individuals create a void, the uneducated masses and have-a-go cosplayers take over the event.

For a moment, think about what just happened in the past 5 years. Anime and Manga got a hell of a lot more accessible, the younger crowd got involved and to those of us who have been in it for a while or from the start it all looks so superficial. That's how elitism begins. It's also how that undying urge to sock an L cosplayer right in the kidneys starts off.

MCM Expo is the event that caters for the masses, from the novice to the intermediate. The hardcore, veterans etc will find it annoying and a pain in the arse. The heavyweight God-Tier cosplayers go to showcase their works of art due to the size of the event.

This is where conventions come in, for those of us that have gone past Expo and need something else. I don't want to promote hatred or incite mob mentality for anyone who works really hard and it's clear that the  Expo staff work pretty hard, even if some of them are arsebagels. However they have a target audience, and if you didn't like the expo then you fall into a minority for them which is outside that target audience.

What I'm saying is support your conventions, and go all out at those events. They give you so much more and they're always a hell of a time. It makes me sad that Kitacon won't run till 2014, as that is by far my favourite. Where else could I get drunk, do a front flip, ruin a game, and win a pony all in 10 minutes?

(Ranzatsu, please do another Con! Hell I'll even do that satirical panel I said I'd do on how to deal with weebs. I'll make it so funny I'll get sued for multiple internal organ rupture from making the audience laugh so hard they have to sign non-disclosure forms and wear mandatory catheters as they'll fucking piss themselves senseless.)

There's so much more love for cosplay, anime, manga, games and the whole culture at a convention that makes Expo feel heavily watered down, drawn out and stuffed with so many idiots that I feel if I stick around any longer than 3 hours I need to get to the bar to kill my braincells with beer before the ambient stupidity does it for me- I'm looking you twats dancing at the exit to the ticket hall, picked a more inconvenient spot to dance? Yes? Go die in a fire, you make me want to tear my spine out through my mouth and beat you to death with it.

Now, if you ever used the line "Expo was like kicking away horseshit with a fine pair of Italian loafers to get to a bar of gold at the bottom, and by that I mean I only endured the feckarama to see my wonderful friends" or similar, then link this blog to your facebook and for the love of David Hasselhoff's glorious chest hair use the word "feckarama" in your daily vocabulary.

~Warai Otoko


Thursday 24 May 2012

Expo Hax

I won't be buying much, if anything at the Expo. I find the notion of paying for overpriced plastic as appealing as buying an ex girlfriend more lingerie she'll wear for someone else, again.

So I'll tell you how I haggle.

Know what you want and how much it costs. Then approach the seller with how much you want to pay in your hand 20% less is usually fair (take into account their mark-up) and an extra £5 or £10 in your pocket. Smile, and be geniunely interested in what you're buying, make it sound like "it's going to a good home". Ask how much it is, or if it's a lot of things, ask how much they are altogether. Then what deal the seller can do for you, this is important, make it sound like he WILL do you a deal; You're not asking for a deal, you're asking him the price of a deal he hasn't agreed to. As soon as he tells you a price, BAM there's your agreement he'll do a deal. With the money you have, say "I've got this much £, and that's me done for today" (Again, assume he'll do it at that price). If you're lucky, you'll have closed the deal there. If they go "Mmmmmm.. I can't let it go for that price" fumble about and get out your emergency £5 or £10 and then go "Okay I really want these" and see if you close it. If you STILL don't get that deal, walk away. You tried, there's no point in paying full price for that now.
Good lines to use:
"It'll save you packing it away and the petrol needed to take it back with you unsold"
"That stall over there sells it cheaper, but it's not as nice as yours"
"What's your best price for me to take them all right now?"
"I'm not coming back to hassle you for the offer if I turn it down, I'll buy it or walk away, so what can you do for me right now?"
"You'd totally make my weekend, and I'll be the only one asking for it"


Should save you buggerlugs some pocky money.

~Warai Otoko

Wednesday 16 May 2012

A Fun Game For All!

This May MCM Expo I can't say for definite if I am to attend, however I'd like you all to play a game for me.

If you like Schadenfreude then this is right up your street.

If you are approached by a free hugger or anyone that insists they hug you as if pressing their sweaty body upon you will grant them the strength to plough through another box of pocky, say No and take a picture of their rejection face.

Upload, or e-mail them to me (click here you silly moo) and I'll go ahead and display my favourites. Winner recieves a drawn picture of them beating up a weeb in whatever manner they wish, runners up win a cola, or something.

Extra points if you manage to get one of the following out of them, or anything else that's mega awkward
 - Non-contact hi5
 - Praying hands and bow with "Namaste" (Hindu style greeting)
 - Make them do 5 pressups before a hug (Walk off before they get up)
 - Elbow to elbow touch
 - E.T. Style finger tip touch
 - Russian Cossack dance

Follow my twitter on
For updates and such, along with general douchery and information on what kind of cats I like best.

~Warai Otoko

Tuesday 8 May 2012

I'm actually quite a pleasant chap, so slam it.

Okay so that's me blowing my own horn again, but I do mean it. You'd think that being a cantankerous cynical bastard (with as much faith in the human race as I have with the BNP's plans for social ethnic integration) would leave me friendless, hated, and chased out of many settlements with pitchforks, fire and the likes. But I do have a bunch of crazies who genuinely like me and I can't say I'm not surprised at times.

Maybe it's my absolute intolerance for stupidity which filters out the idiots from my life, I can't say it's black and white since I'm still seeing some pretty dumb-ass shit on my FB feed right now. I try as hard as I can to understand things from other points of view, some just aren't possible because I don't really feel like lowering my IQ to single digits with the help of a nasal pickaxe to understand what some of these plebeians I flame hard think about.

I've been doing "this" gig for quite a while now, about 7, 8 years now. Although this hasn't been as long as some people, I think I've experienced enough to write about it with such conviction. The Cosplay/Anime/Manga events I've been to over the few years have been fun, some were just lame beyond reason, some were plain epic and some I should have taken a depleted uranium tank shell to for all the faggotry that I saw/heard. 

I don't claim to be a veteran, to be honest I'd rather not be since many have forgotten what fun is, and just sit in the corner nursing a snakebite/pisswaterapplejuice-aka-Strongbow whilst sharing housewife gossip and then claiming that their little group had the most fun and were the bestest best group in the history of groups at that event. Go fuck a duck, maybe that way you may register as interesting on the grand scale of things.

However sometimes you think maybe the new ones should be told that they're being annoying little faggots by regurgitating/pumping old memes and funnies with plasticy formaldehyde and making the corpses of dead jokes dance in a twisted revolting fashion. I'm talking to you, girl stood smoking outside Nemacon 2011 with a paper sign saying "the game", trying not to make eye contact with anyone. How do you like throat cancer? Because you're gonna get a face full of it bumming that ciggy with little stupid breaths. Maybe you averted your eyes because you didn't want to see the faces of everyone thinking how stupid you look, maybe you thought you'd substitute reality with imagination, either way I now think you love the American rap artist; The Game. 

Regardless, stupidity is stupidity. If no-one calls it out we'll be knee deep in a vomit coloured constituent of pocky, yaoi paddles, bad fanfiction and cosplays that is a wig and nothing more. Buying the wig does not make you that character, it makes you a douche in a wig.

~Warai Otoko