(Originally published on Deremoe on September 29, 2014.)
I have been in Cosplay competitions well enough for me to say that “Cosplay is SRS BSNS.” That’s our belief, and that’s what Deremoe shall believe.
I’ve noticed a lot of Cosplay skits and I can tell you how I’m happy (or unhappy) I am even if the skit has just played for a measly 15 seconds… I guess the elders in the community know better than me, but that doesn’t mean that I can tolerate a specific set of skits. After all, I’m biased.
I’m happy for Cosplayers who can do a full skit that impress the audience. I can tolerate Cosplayers doing a full three-minute skit. I can tolerate a Cosplayer doing those fighting poses and martial arts on stage. I can tolerate cute Cosplayers posing for the camera.
But not Cosplayers doing their skit well at first but screws it up with a novelty song in the end. “The Fox,” “Gamgnam Style,” “Gentlemen,” “Talk Dirty to Me.” As a Cosplay hipster myself, that is definitely unacceptable.
I can expound more on this — as you gain momentum with the skit that is so in-character and so impressive, you are gaining a fan out of me. Mix that with a novelty song and that’d be a disaster, with my reactions ranging from “No. No. No, no, no, no, no…,” to “No, dammit!,” to that Italian hand gesture hinting the three letters “WTF”. As a believer of the competitive edge, I would like to affirm that you need to up the ante when you’re on the stage — and by upping the ante I mean that you need to have fun at the same time impress the audience. Always attain for a win-win situation.
This is what happens to that War Machine Cosplayer. As much as I’d like to be pissed off by how many times he did the same skit everytime I see him on stage (in which I’d like to inform you that he’s going to have a new skit come Cosplay Mania — and I’m eager to see that); he does justice with the character that he’s doing by simply getting to the basics — an audio excerpt from Iron Man, alongside the sound effects that accompany the skit well. No fuss, no wuss, no novelty songs. That’s it. Yet, he still gives a great impression to the audience.
To sum this up, I’m basically advising every Cosplayer to stop using novelty songs during their skits. It doesn’t add up to the realness of the character that you’re Cosplaying, at the same time it can pave a way for negative reactions.