Gah, no kidding...

I went into the dealer room at AX a couple years ago and made the mistake of getting between a HUGE unwashed sailor moon fan and a table of sailor moon DVDs...

While I managed to avoid getting trampled physically, I didn't manage to dodge "his aroma".

Had I been unaware of the tendancy of fanbois to wash infrequently, I would've guessed that he was using some sort of "chemical tear gas" to prevent others from purchasing the merchandise on which he was fixated.

Friends of mine had a similar run-in that's referred to as the "wafflecone incident", which consisted of being trapped in a slow-moving elevator, with fragrant fanbois slurping wafflecones.

How people can have so little regard for their own bodies, much less the people around them sort of frightens me. I think the next time it happens, I'm just gonna hollar "Man, you FARKING STINK, take a shower!" at the top of my lungs.

N.

What the heck is a "cosplayer"? It looks like a typo, but I assume it isn't since it's in the original article. I know Japanese frequently use sylables to create contractions... Costume player? Costar player? Costanza player? A room filled with Jason Alexander lookalikes?

Just did a GIS on "cosplay". Looks like a bunch of furry wannabees in Sailor Moon outfits. Does that make them Moonies?

/I made a funny

None of the five sickened after taking part in the Charadise in Fukiage Long Version Cosplay Event in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, sustained serious injuries.

Charadise in Fukiage Long Version Cosplay Event...my brain is about to asplode

from urbandictionary.com:
cosplay
Literally "Costume Play." Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character).
There are anime cosplay conventions around the world.

i had no farkin clue what it was or stood for. my curiosity once again took something completely unknown to me and made me dislike it

but if that's your thing, that's fine with me. just please bathe

cosplay.com (pops)

Japanese chicks look sexy when they do this. Americans look really retarded.

I suppose if you're a full-grown adult who watches children's cartoons, personal hygiene is not exactly on your list of life's priorities.

Cosplay is, in it's most common iteration, people dressing up as anime characters at conventions.

Personally, I find the whole anime scene more than a little frightening. Way too many obsessed people.

Ku-sai! KU-SAI!

(stinky! stinky!)

More proof anime is lame.

Since she's compulsary for every cosplay thread, here's the only not quite as disturbing/hideous/plain freaky as the rest hot (white) cosplay chick:



Generally it just makes you look like a moran:

It's hard to wash those funky costumes without destroying them!

Ick. I recall the stench emanating from the hentai room @ Fanime last year. Truly rancid.

99% of Cosplay losers are Wapanese:

Wapanese are decidedly caucasian individuals who, by means of thoroughly warped postmodern acculturation processes, have come to the decision that it is in their best interest to act as if they were denizens of the nation of Japan. The term wapanese can be accurately though of as an analog to wigger. A whitey can be classified as a Wapanese if they are in possession of two or more of the following defining traits:


1. Has an unhealthy obsession with shallow, saccharine and intellectually insulting animation shows (also refered to as anime by the nerd elite) originally tailored for young Japanese children

2. Operates under the erroneous belief that every aspect of American culture is vastly inferior to that of Japans even though 99.9% of Wapanese have never had firsthand experience of any sort with their preferred culture (in other words, theyve never set so much as one foot upon the island(s) of Japan)

3. Halfheartedly studies Japanese language and/or is a part-time practitioner of martial arts

4. Has a sword (samurai swords only, of course) collection

5. Is a Virgin
6. May be afflicted with a terminal case of yellow fever; however, they constantly fail in their quest for Japanese pootytang

7. Extreme cases may traipse around whilst wearing a costume that makes them resemble their favorite anime characters (this practice is reffered to as cosplay; cross-dressing and raging homosexuality is not an uncommon component of cosplay.


Interestingly, Wapanese are generally though of as failures and rejects within their own culture. Social scientists such as myself speculate that it was their failure to gain acceptance within their own culture than has lead many a white geek to seek out Japans culture as a surrogate; however, theyd be shattered to know that the insular and somewhat racist Japanese society would be even less accepting of them than the people of their true and native culture.

Let me point out that the reason people often smell there is because anime conventions are too fun to take time out to bathe. :P

(Has little sense of smell, but seriously... For a fanboy like myself, there's nothing better than a good convention.)

I'm a cosplayer myself, after all. ^_^

I hate cosplay with a passsion. It bugs me a lot to see obese men dressed up like my favorite video game characters. I use to like anime until I figured out what cosplay was. After that, I think I embarassed myself for enjoying something a guy in a cat suit enjoyed. I also had a friend, who always smelled like dog crap, who enjoyed dressing up like a fox with no shirt on. It bugged the living crap out of me.

I think that's one of the reasons I won't watch G4. I hate seeing people dressed up as Agent 47 or Yuna. I can't watch anything that makes me feel low for just watching it... and yes, I don't watch any Fox. I think people generally think other people in costumes is stupid, so if G4 wants its' MTV watchers, they need to stop doing that.

Bill Cosplay?

It's rare that headlines make me laugh. Great job submitter.

I applaud you Svperstar.

my first thought when i saw cosplayers was counter strike players. similar scent neverthless, with a gallon of au de geek mixed.

/is sad to know what counter strike players smell like
//slashy-slash!

reminds me of csi

Svperstar: 99% of Cosplay losers are Wapanese:


If you just wrote that list yourself, you win this thread.

birdboy2000 One day,after you have seen a grown woman naked,you will say to your self "what a tool I was".

/I never did the 'Electric Slide' for the same reason

I have managed to miss most of these people at the cons I've been to. Avoiding the LARP room(s) helps a lot.

Since I no longer know any serious geeks, I'm probably never going to smell one myself, and that's okay with me.

Alisa-chan is cool. Then you have the other end of the spectrum:

Svperstar,

1.Yup.
2. Nope. Been there, and I loved it.
3. Is a minor in Japanese half-heartedly? :)
4. Yup.
5. Nope.
6. Yes and no.
7. Nope.

Yay! I had two or more! I'm wapanese!

Well said, Svperstar! You are my new hero and I wish to dress up like you. Do you have blue hair, gigantic eyes? God, how I hate anime and its fans.

Svperstar:

I think you can win a Nobel Prize with that analysis.

birdboy2000:

Let me point out that the reason people often smell there is because anime conventions are too fun to take time out to bathe.


No they arent, full of geeks which are 90% male.

People dressed up in a bad sweater pretending to be a black doctor?

Wow, there REALLY IS something sadder than trekkies who dress up as Klingons and learn to speak imaginary languages.

Oh Felgraf, those poor persecuted Wapanese fan-boys.

Welcome to the internet.

Felgraf:

And you know, for some reason, this thread reminds me a lot of high school.

"HAH-HAH! YOU ENJOY SOMETHING OTHER THAN RUNNING INTO OTHER HOT, SWEATY MALES AND DISLIKE BEATING THE BEJESSUS OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE! AND YOU DON'T WEAR STUFF FROM SUPER-HIGH-PRICED STORES! YOU MUST BE SOME KINDA FREAK, LIKE THOSE GOTHS, AND STUFF!"

What leads me to believe that felly boy got his ass kicked regularly in high school?

I will step to Svperstar's defense. I like a little anime (in other words i own two movies, and have seen 6 more), but the "Wapanese" problem is that some people are way too into it. When adult men in the 300 pound range are dressing like Kasumi, Lulu, or some other physically impossible character they are seriously out of touch with reality.

Cosplay should be limited to hot asian women.

Minus1Kelvin:

Friendly amendment, Cosplay should be limited to HOT women.

Nah, it's from urbandictionary.com. One of the better entries...urbandictionary is polluted with 14-year-olds entering definitions about themselves and their friends and giggling about it.

Wapanese:

A non-Japanese person who has developed a severe affection for Japanese exported popular cultural items, particularly anime, snack foods, toys, video games, and other mass-produced trinkets (while caring little about Japan as a nation or as a people). Such fans are typically young white Americans, which led them to be labeled with this decidedly racially-charged nickname. Although extremely irritating, they are ultimately harmless, as few become proficient enough in the actual Japanese language to actually travel to Japan to become Janks, McSenseis, or etc. The average "Wapanese" should only be given the same weight as that of the Radiohead fan, or similar follower of middle-America strobe-flash trends.
To a Wapanese, a box of Pocky chocolate sticks is high cuisine from an alien planet that should be carried around prominiently in the webbing of their rucksacks for all the world to see, rather than a cheap box of oversweet junk food.

As one who has been a cosplayer and going to cons frequently for the last 4 years, dear god, the stench at some of these things are unbelievable.

Seriously, how hard is it to take a shower? At a con, especially if I'm changing outfits once or twice during the day, I always shower. You're in a hot costume that doesn't breathe, packed in a hot environment...and the fact that people don't bathe disgust me.

I didn't get into cosplay because I liked anime, originally. I got into it because I have a very technical mind. I love the challenge that comes with making an outfit, be it mechanically inclined like a mecha, or even something simple.

But the people involved in the hobby these days are like 99% immature little brats or kids that have never grown up...kindof like Fark in that sense :-)

And whoever said they liked anime until they heard about cosplay, you're an idiot. How many fat, sweaty guys and those that are even worse like Fark for example? If you were serious about hating something you once liked because a group you didn't like started doing it...hate to say it, but you're the one who hasn't grown up and faced reality.

Do these fanboys give the hobby a bad name? Yes. Am I going to stop doing it because a few people give it a bad name? No. If I thought like that I would have left both Fark and the Republican party long ago :-P

BigRightRear

Farkers shouldn't be talking to other farkers about virginity. :P

Besides, all the hot women have names ending in jpg.

steamingpile:

"No they arent, full of geeks which are 90% male."

Well actually, having been to a few anime cons, it's more like 40% female. Most of which are in pretty decent shape. You're probably thinking of Star Trek conventions.

Felgraf

The two people you're referring to are Manfaye and Sailor Bubba, who dressed up as Usagi.

Had the horror of seeing both of them in person.

PointyTail: Bill Cosplay?


for some reason thaat made me laugh really hard.

I like wasabi peas and watch "Noir" now and again. Big deal. :)

Is it all the vinyl and hair products, maybe?

My only exposure to anime was when I had TV and sometimes watched Adult Swim. I can take it or leave it, although Cowboy Bebop is pretty badass.

Having only been to World Waterpark Association conventions, as a child to boot, I somehow imagine smelly geeks in sweaty, voluminous clothing made from materials not found in nature, eating Dippin' Dots and riding small carousels.

jzuska:
People dressed up in a bad sweater pretending to be a black doctor?

Ha HA!

I was really into cosplay for a while, but then I got banned because I was really into my character. I pretended everyone that dressed up like me was my evil twin that I had to destroy. 26 corpses later, they asked me not to come back.

jesus. you need to die.

felgraf the above pic is my point in full. In case you are wondering i dont just single out anime fans or cosplayers; the morons that lined up in front of the wrong theater for Ep. III because it was playing at the "wrong" theater are others i think need a good slap.

this is humorous but they havent updated in forever DDAAF Pops

ok never mind they threw away the link because the url wasnt absolute or something. i guess we do this old school, cut and paste people---deal with it.

www.i-mockery.com/ddaaf/default.php

My brother showed me "Ninja Scroll: The Eight Devils of Kimon"
when I was younger, it disturbed the crap out of me. Now I kind of like the series.

2005-06-06 08:55:14 PM Svperstar

By that definition virutally every person is Wapanese at some point in time. The ten year olds who go to Karate at the Y are Wapanese according to that.

In addition, some of your traits are too general and vauge. For instance, a person who trains in Systema or Krav Maga (which are Russian and Israeli in origin, respectivly) and who owns swords relating to those martial arts would be Wapanese. This is obviously horse-s**t.

I propose the following refinement of your criteria:

------------------------------------------------------------

A person must posess three or more of the following traits:

1. Has an obsession with animated Japanese childrens shows.

2. Believes that most or all prevalent Japanese cultural traits are superior to most or all prevalent Western cultural traits.

3. Claims to study the Japanese language or claims to practice martial arts of Japanes origin and does possess much skill in the area they claim to be studying.

4. Has a Japanese sword collection and has never studied sword fighting.

5. Is a virgin.

6. Lusts after Japanese women almost exclusivly.

7. Engages in cosplay of characters with a Japanes origin without being paid to do so.

------------------------------------------------------------

Reason for changes:

1. To properly define we must remove the charged language.
2. Charged language again. Also, I dont think that just having been to Japan relieves someone from having this trait if they truely beleive that "Japan is superior"
3. "Martial arts" is too vauge. Boxing is a martial art. What needs to be said is "Japanese martial arts".
4. Someone who owns a sword collection because they practice sword fighting is not Wapanese. In addition, there are actually non-Japanese swords, but the Wapanese would only collect Japanese ones.
5. No change.
6. Making language more precise.
7. Professional cospalyers are not Wapanese, they are live performance artists, like dining room magitians or stand up comedians. Therefore, if you get paid to cosplay, you are not neccisaraly Wapanese.

Thoughts?

krovvy..thanks....now i have to gouge my eyes out....

*looks for suitable utensil...gouge, gouge, gouge*

NERDS!!!!!!!

you varmints

you must be an english major

I am 27 years old..married with 2 kids..a nice house and proba bly eight to ten good friend who my wife and I see fairly regularly. I say this to indicate my great differences from the "average" geek on the net.

I have no problem with cosplay or any other goofy thing someone wants to do. A lot of these people have a hard time meeting/making friends. If this is an activity you enjoy and you like the people you meet doing it than rock on ! If I was the type to have a lot of difficulty making friends you can be damn sure I would be at a cosplay convention before becoming a barfly or some other slightly more socially acceptable way to meet people. Don't crap on others parades.

2005-06-06 09:57:47 PM domo-kun007

Psych BSc.

I'm planning to cosplay when I go to Comic-Con this year. It's fun, sorta like dressing up for Halloween. But it isn't my life. I think there's a lot more people like me, than like the people that do give the hobby a bad name.

ZeroCorpse:

Then there's cosplay, furries, and the fact that every video store now wastes space that COULD be used for decent foreign films, classics, or cult films on cheap anime shows.

So yes, anime does affect us. Those of us who are sick of it would love to see it slip back into obscurity again. It's become a religion, and as an antidogmatist, I reject anime culture with a passion.

who are you to determine what is 'classic' or 'cult films', or even 'foriegn films' (isn't most anime foriegn?) maybe these films are considered both by these people. supply and demand should even that out over time

i don't like anime any more than you, but don't dismiss it just because you don't like it. your opinion is no more valid than theirs

Thank you, krovvy, for the fantastic image. Now I will have to go to bed in a few minutes with a fugly, hairy, pot-bellied, transsexual Faye etched into my retina.

Even worse, I will probably spend a better part of the night debating weather or not he should have at least shaved his ass first.
=Smidge=

Let me point out that it's possible to cosplay without being a loser or a smelly virgin. I just like to think of it as "halloween in may".

When we hit up the anime conventions, I make a point out of forcing everybody in my party to bathe on a daily basis. Just like everything else you consider fun, a few losers ruin it for everyone else.

Also, if you want hard proof that not everything Japan craps out is superior to everything else in recorded history, I need only utter the magical letters "DBZ."

And for the record: I was trapped in an elevator with "Sailor Bubba" once, he's a nice guy and he didn't touch me in any of my no-zones.

Enough said.

Sponsored by the: FAT-J (Fark Adopt-a-Tag for Japan) Foundation.

dr_squidd:

When we hit up the anime conventions, I make a point out of forcing everybody in my party to bathe on a daily basis. Just like everything else you consider fun, a few losers ruin it for everyone else.

the fact that you have to "force" everybody to bathe doesn't exactly help your stance

I used to be a big anime fan (Not into cosplaying or all that nonsense), but as I grew older and slightly less of a loser, I started to realize for that every one great series (Cowboy Bebop, Serial Experments Lain, Paranoia Agent), there's about 60 which are so irritating and deritive (Tenchi Muyo, Ranma 1/2) that it's hard not to commit seppuku while watching. And a large amount of anime fans are some of the most pretentous and lame people ever to exist. Makes Trekkies and the worst comic book nerds seem normal...

2005-06-06 10:16:29 PM Megain

The fact that they were willing to bathe upon (persistant) request does though...

dr_squidd:

DBZ's target market in Japan was 9-year-old boys.

I'd rather raise kids who hate japan than have them do this sort of crap, or idolize the place.

/rape of nanjing mother farkers, flame on.

I with JimDunlop, the time for a Japan fark tag is nigh!

you_varmints: The fact that they were willing to bathe upon (persistant) request does though...

because...? they're too stupid to bathe without being told? they're merely followers, unable to grasp a concept without direction?

sorry, but i have problems finding redeeming qualities in someone who has to be told to bathe, and even less respect for people who will bathe only because they're told to

I dunno, this one's kinda hot...

at least one cutie

that being said, I have no idea what compels people to do this. I'd like very much to assume it's about the joy of building the costume a lot more than "living a lifestyle" or "being the character."

mrsleep Well, when you consider that Japan probably sees more action than Florida here on Fark, and we've got at least one greenlit Japan story a day, (two so far today)... It may be just what's called for.

How about a "Create the best new Japan tag" Photoshop contest, and the winning entry gets used?

/threadjack

Now back to your regular Farking comments....

Hot until you get anywhere within 3 meters of her and the manfunk eminating from her pits washes over you, rendering you inoperable.

Krovvy

Explanation of the pictures posted as well as a sincere apology is in order while thousands of Farkers treat their eyes. (I've personally started with fuming nitric acid and am adding fuming sulfuric acid with moderate to mild success.) Where does one buy an ass toupee and why does one buy an ass toupee like that?

That stench wasn't the cosplayers, it was the gamers in the next room!



/febreeze surrenders
//non-stinky cosplayer
///been in a room stunk up by gamers at a con before

So, what gives the lives of you normal people that look down on cosplayers with age-old stereotypes meaning? ^_^

(Anime is, by and large, very good, or at least the series that make it stateside. Cosplay is fun. Especially if you cosplay as a minor digimon character. Anime fandom is very, very fun.)

Actually, the good thing about Ayumi Hamasaki is that I can't understand the lyrics to save my life. So it sounds a hell of a lot better than, say, the latest (insert American pop culture icon here) hit.

...That said, I think far too many cosplayers have fallen off the edge of reality. I remember when it started becoming popular, the whole point was to demonstrate your ability to PRODUCE a costume given the rotten materias at hand, and the choice of subjects was incidental -- these days, the availability of such horrors as mass-produced faerie wings do nothing more than increase the catgirl quotient (www.somethingpositive.net if you don't get the reference), which is all bad.

It's not just cosplay coventions this happens at. While waiting around Namco's booth at this year's E3 for my Hellgate: London appointment, I was almost knocked over by a massive, smelly fat man (whose badge said "Game Advisor" for "GameStop", certainly more important than me!) going to play Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue. Despite all of that, Hellgate: London was awesome.

I hate when conventions of that size are not stringent for attendees.

/Webmaster of RPGFan.com.
//Still not very important to most companies.

I don't cosplay, it's just too..bizarre for me to get into. But eh, to each their own. Not all anime is bad though; Hellsing, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and a few others have pretty high quality animation, actual good plots, and I don't think were ever meant for children. There's others, but I'm a casual anime watcher at best.

And I second the notion that cosplay should be restricted to attractive women.

birdboy No. by and large most anime is shiat. I have seen enough of it to back up several of the other statements in this thread. I dont care about the people that Cosplay, what bothers me are the people that worship shows like Dragon Ball Z (where nothing happens for 14 episodes), Digimon (which is an utter rip off of Pokemon, itself a huge marketing campaign for nintendo); and cant realize that if the same thing were made state-side they would call it garbage.

I also get REALLY sick of seeing catgirls on City Of Heroes. I swear every other female character on that game is a short girl with cat ears, cat tail, big boobs and big eyes

Yea, and 99.999999% of those chars are run by a guy living in his mother's basement.

Re: Anime doesn't affect people who hate it, etc...

As a fan of animated series (i.e. Dexter's Lab, Invader Zim, just about everything DC Comics from Warner Bros. animation except Teen Titans), anime has nearly destroyed American animated television.

At first, it was a helpful influence. I don't think Batman Beyond or Samurai Jack would be as awesome as they were without anime as an inspiration. However, it's now come down to where producers ask "why should we spend 400k an episode creating our own show when we can just license and dub an anime for a fraction of the cost, no matter how bad it is, and get the same ratings?"

Anime is most often culturally incongruous (especially jokes and aesthetic dialogue, which rely on specific Japanese words and phrases to be understood or not sound like a third grader with a thesaurus. Relationships between men and women are also completely alien in anime) or not terribly original. For the latter point, I offer "Ghost in the Shell," which is said to be one of the BEST anime movies out there. I watched it. The animation was good, yes, the robot designs were interesting, etc. However, the whole point of this film was "OMG! A computer program becomes sentient! Now that we've established that, THE END!" They took the premise for any number of hour-long U.S. sci-fi TV shows and stretched it into two hours by adding fight scenes and pointless monologues.

The least they could do is release anime TV shows with subtitles; the dialogue wouldn't be as brain-meltingly bad and kids might learn how to read...

http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

Cosplayers would be several rungs below writers of furry-trek fanfic. I don't believe that the person who organized the geek hierarchy could have known about cosplay or he would have put it there himself.

Rdxdave:

Watch digimon beyond the Etemon arc.

Seriously.

And please, please don't drag up crap from a bunch of flamewars that ended years ago to insult digimon.

DBZ is... I won't defend it. Pokemon is weird and needs to be watched from a very odd perspective, that of world development specifically, to work. But once you get it working, there's a more developed background setting than Middle-earth in there. And series like Fruits Basket, Rurouni Kenshin, Kare Kano, and Digimon Adventure are truly awesome.

(Yes, I listed digimon adventure in there. If you've seen far enough, you'll know why. If you haven't, stfu.)

Everyone's bashing "wapanese" for smelly cosplay...

Go to ComiCon in San Diego, there are just as many smelly folks dressed up as Klingons to Robots to Supermen/Women.

Ever walk into a university lecture hall after a computer science class has been there? Whew! Combination of unbrushed teeth and stankass.

krovvy

Hey! That's NSFPWVI (Not safe for people without visual impairment)

/I'd spoon out my eyes but I don't want Man-Faye to be the last thing I see.
//Yes, that is what it is called.

Birdboy i have watched Digimon, its a rip off of Pokemon. I have no idea what flamewar you speak of. I also dont think comparing the background setting of Pokemon to Middle Earth is anywhere even close. Pokemon is a kid's show, ive tried to watch it i think its terrible.

My first experience with this stuff was Robotech back in the 80s. It was amusing but remember i wasnt even in the double digits. I wont watch Digimon beyond any arc cause i dont like to willingly subject myself to media i think sucks.

omigod doggie you are so right about the comp classes


i am really glad i read this thread. i have a eleven year old daughter who obviously is in the gravity field of this cosplay black hole, but i think she is still beyond the event horizon, time to triple up on softball, soccer, and band camp this summer.

"Pokemon is weird and needs to be watched from a very odd perspective, that of world development specifically, to work."

Actually, you need to understand Japanese and its relationship to Chinese to make it amusing. See, Pokemon is a comedy in Japan. Many (if not most) of the gags rely on words spoken in Japanese that are similar in Chinese resulting in puns, double entendre, etc.

When translated, the guys working on it have to come up with new jokes whole cloth that are often weak attempts to match the animation. And this doesn't address Pokemon as a concept, which comes down to whether or not one digs the initial concept.

The Digimon franchise came out before Pokemon, technically. And anyway, Digimon is a much better show than Pokemon. Pokemon has better games though.

/hasn't touched any of it in years

Actually, rdxdave, Pokemon came out in Japan 2 years AFTER Digimon did - Pokemon just made it to America first and it's popularity caused Digimon to be brought over.

Discordian36

I dunno, this one's kinda hot...

I've seen men with less masculine faces than that.

You get an 'F' for the day.

I'm not so much an anime fan but I think One Piece (uncut and subbed, not that shiat that plays on kids television) owns.

I went to a con once, and it was a strange experience. I asked some random guy a question about tickets and he got all freaked out, possibly because I was a girl. Then we went inside, and every now and again we'd get a wiff of an "I got out of bed and went straight to the con" kind of stench. And I saw a fat middle-aged dude in spandex.

It's pretty amazing that people who dogmatically hate anime don't realize that it's just as pathetic as people who become crazily obsessed with anime. It's just a particular form of visual media that is currently popular in some entertainment circles. Get a grip. It's rather pathetic.

krovvy:

Welp, my work here's already been done.

GreenAdder: you're looking in the direction of fur-suiters? WTF is wrong with you? The eye bleach is right over there... I imagine you need it.

That said... I like (some) anime. Serial Experiments Lain, say. DBZ or Sailor Moon, on the other hand, is good for only one thing, and that's mocking it. I can even see cosplaying - IF you look anything like the character and do a decent job on the costume. I put it in the same class as a costume party or Halloween.

I've actually made DBZ and Japanese schoolgirl costumes, in fact (for a rather self-mocking theatre production, and I wasn't the one wearing them). I'm waiting for an assignment based on video games; if that happens, I will have retroactively never wasted time in my entire life.

Where's the pic of that chubby girl in the cosplay "cat" costume that's cut dangerously low? I have it on my HD still.

FarkinNortherner:

Heh, i see Alisa (and her BF, Derek) in Fark threads quite a bit, and i heard she was a topic on Slashdot for a while (I dont read it, im just goin by what i hear).

Shes a really nice (yes, and hot) girl. Ive known them both for a number of years, preforming Rocky Horror with em in our theatre um.. production.. as well as at conventions.

Ive also seen her not be able to hold her liquor. Its rather funny. =D

Cosplayers are no better or worse than sci-fi geeks, just a different genre. Theres a lot of em that are really cool people... and there are those that... yeah, break out the Febreeze. And a stick.

I hate yellow fever/anime/cosplay/animecons/waps and all that with all my heart. It is going to drive me to become a hermit in the alps.

i thoroughly hate anime and everything related to it, with the exception of the show Cowboy Bebop...i've just got a weakness for that whole 50s mobster and jazz thing they play in. and i farking love sushi.

I also get REALLY sick of seeing catgirls on City Of Heroes. I swear every other female character on that game is a short girl with cat ears, cat tail, big boobs and big eyes

Yea, and 99.999999% of those chars are run by a guy living in his mother's basement.

Hey! I have my own apartment, thank-you-very-much!

Er... Waitaminute.


Okay, so I did make a cat-girl when I played the beta. Though honestly, anime wasn't on my mind when I made her. She was more the campy 1960's Go-Go Girl with a little Julie Newmar thrown in.

birdboy2000
Pokemon is weird and needs to be watched from a very odd perspective, that of world development specifically, to work. But once you get it working, there's a more developed background setting than Middle-earth in there.

By uttering that stupid, ridiculous statement, you have just proven that you haven't actually read the Tolkein books. Either that or all it takes for something to be deep to you is for it to have a story that takes more than 30 seconds to explain.

Because I have some time to kill I'm going to analyze myself in the context of the Wapanese list as if it were a stupid blog survey. (Sorry, I'm bored.)

1. I have seen and enjoyed a lot of anime, and I like the visual design, but it's not a huge thing with me. And I don't think it's inherently superior to other forms of entertainment.

2. Ack, no. I like being Western. Modern Japanese culture I have little interest in, though I've had a fascination with Eastern history for as long as I can remember (I was a strange kid). To be honest, just the fact that I want a degree in Asian history probably makes me Wapanese no matter what I answer to the rest of these.

3. The Japanese language is evil. But it's required for the degree, so I study it. And I hate, hate, hate fangirl/boy Japanese. Why do they do that?! Stop doing that!!

4. If I could afford it, I'd probably own one or two Asian type swords, but I've always loved weaponry in general. When I was a girl I used to fantasize about growing up and moving into a house with guns and daggers and things hanging on all the walls as decoration. (Nerd. Yes.)

5. Er, no.

6. I embarrasingly admit that I have a fetish for Asian boys. I'm not sexually attracted to the vast majority of males, but I like the whole delicate, androgynous vibe certain Asian men give off, and I find that type of guy is relatively rarer in other ethnic groups. If I was ever going to date a guy he would probably be like that.

7. Hell no. Though my ex has been talking about cosplay a lot lately and I live in constant terror that she will drag me to a con dressed up as Sailor Whoever. Please shoot me now.

Ah, I guess I'm at least a little Wapanese. Maybe?

uhmm...errr.. Ghost in the Shell (movies and tv series), Last Exile, Scryed, Bleach, Girls Bravo, Kinos travels, Samurai Champloo, and Gankutsuou exceed anything produced in the US in every concievable way. And saddly most of the US will not beable to experience Yami to Boushiato Hon no tabibito.

Contrary to popular belief.. anime did not stop at sub par treasures like cowboy bebop and outlaw star.

As of late I've watched very little anime (save for Hellsing or Naruto, Karekano & Love Hina), since most of my favorite series (Lain, Kenshin, and Macross/Robotech, as well as others) stopped.

I do hate the fanboy/fangirl thing, in my japanese classes the fanboy/fangirl remarks and comments (done by fangirls/fanboys) are effing annoying. Sure, they might give you cheap laugh once or twice, but on a daily basis is just wrong.

Another thing I just dislike about my people (the anime fandom comunity) is the abuse of japanese words. But please take note that I never said languaje, just words (the Something Positive cartoon posted above gives a pretty good idea of it), it's annoying to no end.

Finally, what the fark is the 40 year-old bearded man in the sailor moon outfit!? Originally it was but a joke, a myth, the otaku's version of the Boogeyman, but now there's people that actually wear the stuff with pride (even getting fake beards. Jesus Christ) and honor.

It is hard to be an otaku, especially when 15 year-old scary fangirls and 40 year-old scary fanboys are taking over.

If I insulted anyone within the range, you can take one of these two options:

1.- I wasn't talking about you, you "normal (admit it, there is no 'normal' otaku. There's only us)" anime fan, just the wild uncontrolled ones.

2.- Get a grip, damn it! Evolve, do as I am, and be more moderate than anything!

I finish now my rant with the cute picture of my dog:

Old enough to know better:

Well actually, having been to a few anime cons, it's more like 40% female. Most of which are in pretty decent shape. You're probably thinking of Star Trek conventions.

Uh no, you cant count the ones that are working there numbnuts, only the ones that pay like you to get in.

I've never been into anime, but I saw Last Exile a while back. The first few episodes were a bit weird (probably partly because I'm not used to the style), but after that it got really really good. Anything that tells one story over multiple installments has a huge storytelling advantage over the usual tv series format that is designed so that order isn't crucial. You could point to annoying stuff like "Lost" as a counter example I guess, but there is definitely a place for stories more detailed and/or complex than can be told start-to-finish in 40 minutes, set in places other than current day New York. Some of the old BBC TV series like "The Tripods" is the closest thing I can think of to this, it's just not a format that's done often. (Shows like Babylon 5 are a half-hearted compromise, they're not the same thing).

I haven't been to any cosplay cons, but I've seen some costume events that had a certain degree of fan-inspired costumes, and it kind of bugs me that people dress as things they're really unsuited for, because the really really bad results lower the feel of the event as a whole. Take them out of the picture, and the event would look right out of a big budget Hollywood film scene going for "wow" factor. But instead it just looks kinda weird. I think the reason it bugs me is that there's no need for it - for the same amount of effort a person puts into a costume that is doomed to failure from the beginning, they could have done something that would be awesome because it works with the wearer. (Yeah, I know people without much imagination will be saying "Reality check: What kind of costume can make a balding overweight guy look awesome", but a quick look around will show plenty of costumes that do just that. A dude that would make an awful superman might make an awesome ghostbuster, etc. Few people identify with just one single character in all the books and movies they've ever seen, so I don't really understand much need to pick a character that will not work, except as an excuse for failure (eg, the reason some people at a costume party or halloween choose silly outfits is because it's safer to appear silly by design than risk looking silly against your will - being seen to have put genuine effort in and failing miserably.)

Heh, "I haven't ... but ...." seems to be my cliche formula for today.

I used to be a big anime fan. But not anymore. The market is saturated with the same old shiat. I mainly read/watch One Piece because it's fresh and funny, yet apparently it's not popular with anime fans because it's too cartoony looking. What a bunch of snobs.

Besides, it's easy to see that most of the new stuff coming out of Japan is for American anime geeks. I saw an ad for "Samurai Champloo" and thought "wow, this certainly can't be marketed at Japanese people." I can't exactly pinpoint what it is that annoys me about this, but maybe it's because shows like "Samurai Champloo" look gimicky.

Anyway, the best anime I've seen in the past few years are: Cowboy Bebop (possibly the only anime ever with universal appeal), One Piece, Ranma 1/2 and all those Studio Ghibli films.

Well, having seen 'Popeye sailor moon' (don't ask, for the love of sanity, don't ask.) I think I have seen all the cosplayers that I need to see (for the next three lives.)

However, I wonder if this might be a medical problem; I seem to remember something about DMSO and oxygen a few years back.

As a person who's attended Anime cons for over 8 years, I want to make the following statements:

1) The vast majority of anime congoers do not cosplay. Cosplayers are TOPS 1/4 to 1/3 of the community.
2) Every respectable convention has a rule regarding taking baths. I'm on staff on one convention and being excessively malodorous and refusing to correct the problem after a warning is grounds for bannination from the con. Fact about it, this case proves our point that regular bathing is a HEALTH ISSUE, and our medical department does not mind opening a can of whoop-ass.
3) One thing I've learned is that the majority of people who are on their 3rd+ convention aren't even going for the anime anymore. It's just the community, the chance to meet a group of people who often aren't the typical lemming on the street.
4) Is it really so different for a person who dresses up like their favorite character for a day, when you have people who show up to football games at 10 Weather with no shirt, painted up with NFL team colors being considered totally acceptable?

Yea generally if your a real anime fan, you've allready GOT the dvd's at the conventions and are generaly there to meet with friends, and see the panels and events.

I've scanned for all the mentioned anime in this thread and am dissapointed, especialy by those who claimed they used to be "hardcore" and proceed to list off the 3 common "90's" anime. Pulheaze...

Heres a subtle hint to the clubies, %99 of the GOOD anime.. aka stuff worth watching.. is NOT SHOWN ON AMERICAN TV! Hell..%50 dosnt even make it to american shelves. God bless digital fansubs.

And since I started the thread, I'll now post a GOOD cosplayer:



Non-smelly :P

N.

I'm no Alisa (she's a sweetie in real life, by the way), but I'm not Asian and I'm a cosplayer (see profile). I've also done some group stuff (Like Race Team Mascotts) with all the girls in the same outfits, and we got some serious complements as well. You can tell that we all bathe on a regular basis:

I would just like to say this article is trippy because just last week I was in this city. It's the same city (roughly) and prefecture where the EXPO 2005 is, which is basically the world's fair. Just thought I would add.

SailorNaboo
I've also done some group stuff...with all the girls in the same outfits

must...resist...innuendo...

ColdFusion:

That's great! How many other industry conventions have had to pass bylaws about the personal hygiene of attendees?

JeffMD

You're the type of anime fan that pisses me off the most. I bet you like "Azumanga Daioh" too.

You know what bugs me? When anime fans pepper otherwise completely English sentences with Japanese words like "baka" and "kawaii" and whatever other words they picked up listening to subtitles of their anime of the month.

Look, I've seen subtitled films in Italian and German. I've enjoyed films in Spanish and French. After watching these films, do I start randomly spitting out German in my daily conversation? No, because that would be STUPID. Apparently, anime has some sort of mesmerizing affect that blinds you to the inherent stupidness of this.

Of course, that's just the half-way point of the obsessed-anime-fan syndrome. The first sign of the spiral of darkness is calling people "-san" or "-chan", using ^.^ and <_< emoticons, and talking about how they're going to study Japanese and visit Japan. There's nothing wrong with studying Japanese or visiting Japan. When you're doing it based solely on the fact you watched a cartoon, without knowing anything about Japan or the culture, you're in the danger zone. Oh, but help us if we call them a cartoon! Because they're not cartoons, they're ANIME, damnit! Anime is mature and cartoons are for fat Western children!

I'm sorry if I sound bitter, but my immediate circle of friends are anime fans. Some of their devotion to Japan, a country they don't even KNOW, is creepy and unnerving. Seriously, it's as though somebody watched Superman and then decided to visit America because Superman could leap over tall buildings. -_-;

oh... oh god. it's beginning

Man, what vitriol people have, on both the anime side and the anime-hating side. It's not really my thing -- wearing a hot and uncomfortable costume in a sea of people doesn't seem all that appealing if you ask me -- but who the hell cares what other people do if it doesn't affect you? What happened to the folks on Fark who scream about government interference in peoples' lives, the criminalization of marijuana, and the legislation of morality? If you get all enraged about people trying to impose their beliefs on others, and then poke fun of how "retarded" cosplayers are, aren't you just a giant flaming hypocrite?

Cosplaying, like 99% of everything else humans do, is another way of trying to attract attention to yourself. (So is biatching about cosplaying.) If a cosplayer were being rude, smelled awful, or exposed more than I want to see (*coughcoughManFayecough*) I'd let them know. Otherwise, they can do whatever the heck they desire.

"If someone's doing it and it's not hurting you, don't be a dick."

gregly

Man, what vitriol people have, on both the anime side and the anime-hating side.

I know. I watch a bit myself (favoring RahXephon, Saiyuki, and Noir), but I don't cosplay, and I don't go blithering about how uber anime is. I don't own a single katana.

Sledgehammers are cheaper, after all. :)

God dammit I hate people who do that *stuff* and ^_^.

Like what the fark, do you have to pretend like you are performing actions on the internet? *punches you in the face and has sex with your mother*

Yeah, see, that didn't really just happen. Shut UP.

And the simple fact that they have to have 'hygiene rules' at these cons (supposedly, from a few posts up) makes them pathetic. What the fark? Wash yourself, assholes. You're in public, have some pride.

dustyeff

Like what the fark, do you have to pretend like you are performing actions on the internet?

No, but it can be fun. *meow*

You can tell that we all bathe on a regular basis:

Link? Please? Pretty Please?

Ghost

Link? Please? Pretty Please?

Shabrenigdo's balls, man, the lady already posted a pic. And a good one to boot; all of those ladies have nice legs.

all of those ladies have nice legs.

11:05 EST- hell freezes over because Poone agrees with Proggie!

Anyone ever notice the omnipresent androgenous pedophiliac and apocolyptic undertones of Japanime?

That said Cowboy Bebop is pretty good (The Pierre LaFoix episode desrved an award)

Ghost of Daniel Poone

Anyone ever notice the omnipresent androgenous pedophiliac and apocolyptic undertones of Japanime?

You'd be doing apocalyptic shiat too if you remembered or knew people who remembered the nuclear holocaust the US inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Programmer Cat

Shabranigdo

/Pedant
//nerd

FarkinNortherner

Shabranigdo

Thanks. There must have been a typo in that fansub.

"What happened to the folks on Fark who scream about government interference in peoples' lives, the criminalization of marijuana, and the legislation of morality? If you get all enraged about people trying to impose their beliefs on others, and then poke fun of how "retarded" cosplayers are, aren't you just a giant flaming hypocrite?"

Poking fun is not the same thing as passing laws. There's no law preventing, say, rich white kids from listening to rap and dressing like gang-bangers, but you can rest assured many here will poke fun.

And be careful, you sound like you're a hair away from equating dislike of anime/cosplay with racial hatred; you don't want to be lumped in with the furry nutcases, now do you?

Alisa sucks. I met her once and she totally brushed me off. What a biatch.

Besides, she's got nothing on my friend Elly.

The most surreal talk was at a bar at Dragoncon, Atlanta, with a New Jersey stormtrooper. To see what I would call a 'stereotypical' northerner talking as such while costumed was strange..

One highlight of the show was sharing an elevator with Virginia Hey.


And I was clean and bathed. She still won't return my calls.

.You'd be doing apocalyptic shiat too if you remembered or knew people who remembered the nuclear holocaust the US inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


Still doesn't explain the doe-eyed pre-tweenie Insurance agents with garter belts and ass-cleavage in Trigun. Wierd, man. And the little girl/boy in Bebop? Strange. maybe one of the rabid can explain.

Ghost:

I thought it was common knowledge that girls are seen as sexual in japan, including mainstream advertising and media, younger than is normally the case here? I mean, I've never been there, so I can't say one way or the other, but from what I hear from other people, it's not an anime thing, it's a japanese culture thing.

/wouldn't know

it's not an anime thing, it's a japanese culture thing.

I wonder if this is also the appeal among americans.

Ghost of Daniel Poone


Still doesn't explain the doe-eyed pre-tweenie Insurance agents with garter belts and ass-cleavage in Trigun. Wierd, man. And the little girl/boy in Bebop? Strange. maybe one of the rabid can explain.

No, it doesn't. But I haven't watched Trigun, and I've only seen a couple episodes of Bebop.

No, it doesn't. But I haven't watched Trigun, and I've only seen a couple episodes of Bebop.

I will admit Bebop is bona-fide art. So much anime is just still drawings with an occassional moving mouth.

Ghost of Daniel Poone

I will admit Bebop is bona-fide art. So much anime is just still drawings with an occassional moving mouth.

I know that most anime is crap. That's just Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Pop music, anime, science fiction -- most of it's garbage.

That's just Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

Except for ladies. About 60% of the ladies are just awesome. I'm surprised yer not in the BSA thread. My spook CIA buddy told me that ugder age pron is epidemic in China and that (figuratively) all the men in China dig the yungsters.

Ghost of Daniel Poone

Except for ladies. About 60% of the ladies are just awesome. I'm surprised yer not in the BSA thread. My spook CIA buddy told me that ugder age pron is epidemic in China and that (figuratively) all the men in China dig the yungsters.

I've been in the BSA thread. I disagree about your 60% figure. It's been my experience that 90% of the human race is worthless; men and women alike. I had to search long and hard for a woman I could live with. Most people are worthless, unfortunately.

/tries to be a ten percenter

It seems that the anime-haters have two basic few arguments:

A) OMG cartoons are liek for KIDZ grow up lolZZ!!

B) Some people who watch anime are over-zealous about their fandom and sometime this transfers into a misguided devotion to a culture they may know little or nothing about.

To which I must respond:

A) You are wrong. American animation(which is predominantly aimed at kids, and, especially as of late, sometimes influenced stylistically by anime) is NOT anime. Anime comes in pretty much every genre, and every combination of genres, from action to fantasy to horror to mystery to psychological thriller to sports drama to romance to comedy and back again. Go watch Perfect Blue, Serial Experiments Lain, or Paranoia Agent and tell me how childish they are. You can call them cartoons, animation, Anime, whatever, but the fact of the matter is that the entire world does not view animation as media exclusively for children.

B) This can be true of any group of fans. See previous posts that mentions zealots such as the idiots who show up shirtless with body paint in sub-freezing weather for a football game, or mentions of Trek and Star Wars fans. Unfortunately, these few are also the most visible, and can cast the less extreme fans in an unfavorable light by association.

/late to the party, as usual
//yes, it is unfair of me to paraphrase the opposition in a manner that exaggerates their idiocy and closed-mindedness. Sue me.
///slash!

I know it's way too late for anyone to see this, but what in hell does everyone have against



Sailor Moon?

I find it really interesting how the culture has changed and people just now say that Anime has invaded american culture when it's already here. The Little Mermaid was the first Disney film not to go realistic, like Disney's earlier styles. It took it's influence from anime.

Cowboy Bebop, Wolfs Rain, and Samurai Champloo kick ass. Pretty much anything by Shinichiro Watanabe and Miyazaki are amazing. The art, the storyline, and the character development far surpasses anything in American animation, especially those series.

As far as it being for kids...A good story is a good story, whether it's a movie, a comic book, a live action series, a video game, or animated.

The things in anime that are considered bad in a victorian sense are commonplace in Japan. In Naruto, for example, the move Kakashi does where he jams his fingers up someones ass (Thousand years of pain) is a take on a game that Japanese schoolchildren play called Kancho.

Most anime is so watered down when it comes to the states because companies like Fox and 4Kids pick it up. Adult Swim got it right - the Jupiter Jazz episodes of Cowboy Bebop proved it.

ITS SPREADING!!!

There's this one guy I know that purposely lives the squatter lifestyle and thinks it's cool not to bathe....gah. He'll walk u to me from behind and I know who it is even though he walks very quietly (with a really creepy, affected, panther-like walk).

*up

squishydrew: Besides, she's got nothing on my friend Elly.

tell your friend elly that her website sucks