Cosplay Team Projects, Revisited

The theme event from yesterday was a neat one to go to year after year. It was also significant in another way: it was the first time that I was able to execute a Pokémon cosplay team project with several friends. As I've noted in my earlier post about this kind of project, a team project would make things more interesting and spectacular, rather than just incidentally meeting others that cosplay from the same thing. This is also in consideration that Pokémon (and therefore Pokémon cosplay) is my primary attraction.

This one had actually been planned for quite some time. When I met the one who cosplayed Misty at my "home turf" event last year - which was incidentally one year ago (see below) - and another cosplayer friend of mine, we did talk about the possibilities of a Pokémon team project; the suggestion for my friend to do May actually partly came about from me. Since the project was heading in the direction of Hoenn and the third generation, I drafted two of my other cosplayer friends who I thought would be fitting to cosplay Brock and Max... and they happened to be part of the team who won second place last year with another friend of mine who had once desired to cosplay Iris. My friend then drafted another one of his friends so that he could cosplay as Norman. After much discussion, a few meetups to decide some hanging things, and even a trial run for May at a major convention nearly three months ago, we decided that this event would be the one where we would all cosplay.

Of course, there were a few hitches. As indicated above and suggested in the "review" the other day, Max was supposed to appear, but a few things got in his way, and he couldn't make it. Part of the not-so-delicious story about that is detailed courtesy of Brock (actually the one who cosplayed Brock) in the comment section for the post, and for a good reason: the one who was to cosplay Max is his younger brother. Yes, that means this team project has slightly gone in the direction of a "family affair" as well. Then there was the slight issue of Misty forgetting Togepi (that is, her Togepi doll), but then this was rectified slightly by the surprise appearance of Psyduck; for the record, none of us knew about this - this was a separate project by yet another one of my cosplay friends that just happened to complement ours. Despite these, the project turned out to be rather successful, which should make all of us somewhat glad.

As for the continuance of this project, I'd like to see the project with the current composition be realized again, this time with a possible team performance to go along with it. Brock has expressed the same ideals, and I agree. This is also primarily to accommodate Max, who missed us this time. The only thing to be considered is the availability of the people concerned; my friends have suggested that they may or may not be available in two months, two months being the time before the next possible local convention or theme event - more on this soon enough. Then there's the possibility of drafting new people to cosplay other Pokémon characters, which may be useful for the performance or in general. Everything is up for consideration.

For now, this initial Pokémon cosplay team project has shown that things can actually work out, even if my friends are mostly into other things and not so much Pokémon. It's a possibility that has been realized, even if things were slightly restrained. What would be next is to improve the rough edges, see if anyone else can or want to join in, and get a performance going, which would take much effort from all of us. It has been quite wondrous... and next time, it has to be even more so.

One year ago: Cosplay: Isshoni Tanoshimimashou 13
Two years ago: Cosplay: ComiCamp 2, Day 1