Large collection of Cosplay

At the two previous Expos, Cosplayers were abundant, but still in the minority. Apparently they’re breeding, as just about everyone was wearing some sort of fancy dress.

Of course with cos-players, comes the opportunity to play Cliché Cosplay Bingo, and within minutes of entering the hall I’d spotted several Jokers, a Crow, a Hit Girl, Captain Jack Sparrow and about four hundred Narutos. Alongside the standard Cosplay fayre were some spectacular and stunning efforts, including one chap in a full Iron Man suit. If he didn’t win the best costume competition I’m calling ‘shenanigans’.

Quite where they hide in the mean time is beyond me, but every six months, without fail, they pop up to taunt horny geeks, before disappearing into the ether.

Cosplay Unleash your inner nerd!!!!!!

Cosplay Unleash your inner nerd!!!!!!

This year, Teppawan will again be dressing up as Mana to attend the fifth annual Florida Supercon in Miami. Its Web site describes the three-day event as “a festival dedicated to comic books, cosplay Costumes, animation, video games, fantasy and sci-fi.”

cosplay

“I think being able to see that there is a large community of otaku, nerds [and] people with these similar interests here in South Florida is really cool,” Teppawan said.

Mike Broder, convention chairman for Florida Supercon, mentioned that big guests such as Bruce Campbell of USA Network’s Burn Notice and several Harry Potter cast members drew the biggest
crowds in 2009 and 2008, respectively.

“This year we have a number of really great guests … such as Richard ‘Shaft’ Roundtree, Troy Baker [of Cartoon Network’s Naruto and Adult Swim’s Bleach, Richard ‘Invader Zim’ Horvitz, Lloyd ‘Troma’ Kaufman, Ariel Olivetti, Less Than Jake [and] The Ghost Hunters.”

Broder said that the gender makeup of attendees is “probably 50/50.” He noted, however, that “there are generally more comic book fans that are men … and more anime fans that are women.”

Florida Supercon also features events like the Super Live Action Hyper Extreme Smash Brothers 3000 Super Show, which is a performance based on the video game series of the same name.

“It just wows me every time. The jokes are cool, the dances are great and the show is awesome,” gushed junior multimedia journalism major Paul Cohen.

“I guess you can … liken it to people going to a sports event or a football game, a bunch of people coming together because of a similar interest and being able to enjoy it together, except less American mainstream,” Teppawan described. “Another thing, at football games, you’ve got the … real enthusiastic fans that will paint up their bodies or whatever to show support for their team. Kinda got the same thing going on with cosplayers, except they are expressing their love of a character/concept/series through their costumes and cosplaying.”