Monday, January 16, 2023

I'm a Legend!

This is one post that I've saved for a long time - precisely since August 2017, the very first year of this blog - and had been intending to make only if a very, very, and I stress very special circumstance came up. Since the topic that I deal with in this post involves the subject of recognition, I wanted to wait until that recognition came about by way of that extremely special circumstance. And... it still hasn't come to that, but there's a recent circumstance that does warrant this post, and since the post is long overdue, I've gone ahead and made it.

Frequent readers will know that I'm very much involved in Pokémon cosplay (in IC parlance, "sending characters") and have been so for a very long time - in about a month's time, things will become very clear. Within that time, I've made a name for myself, even if that's mostly in my local area. But it's a very good name, and it warrants a very special status to go along with that. And so it is that a good deal of people refer to me by an identifier that also applies to a class of Pokémon species: "legend". The recent circumstance does actually deal with that recognition in a way (and this is why I said the topic would be important), but even before then, the status has been recognized as such.

The caption for this photo on the original post actually does say "the legend".
Also of note is that this is my Lucario prince costume.
Credits to Ramy Dhia for the photo.

As early as 2015, two years before I started this blog and three years after I started cosplaying, the status had been conferred as such by an observer of local Japanese events or conventions, which can be read as such on the observer's blog, and the photo above is also taken from there (or sadly, used to be, though an archive link persists). The rationale for conferring the status is, just like as it is in the present, my frequent appearances in them with my Pokémon cosplay, mostly involving Ash. I thought about discussing this topic early on in my blog, but I also thought it would be too pompous of me doing so at that point, so I decided to wait for the special circumstance. As explained above, it has yet to come, but a different one did come that almost does what I considered it would need to do.

Last month (actually just slightly before that), I was invited to participate in a T-shirt project by a clothing designer who is also involved with a national cosplay affair; astute readers ought to be able to figure it out, as I've discussed it on various occasions, and it's been a part of various conventions. The reason I was asked to participate was in part because I needed to give my approval for it, as the shirt contains a likeness of me, albeit in the character I am known as when I cosplay - which is understandably so as above. So, the approval was given, the design was finalized (I even assisted with another part of it), the shirt was made, and I received one made for me with compliments.

The shirt, with associated memorabilia...
...and three Pokémon looking at it.

It can be seen above that I am not the only one on the shirt; it is made in honor of three other people - cosplayers, to be more precise - who have effectively achieved the same status as I have achieved and in much the same ways as I have, but with the characters (and fandoms) of their own choosing and in different parts of the country. Such is the circumstance of the recognition; on the "very scale" as suggested in the beginning, it's somewhere between a 2 and a 3, the latter being the one I wanted to wait for. That latter circumstance may still happen (if it does, it may be worth returning to this topic again), but this circumstance is close enough, particularly as the shirt above will be sold nationally, carrying the recognition at the same level.

Recognition may be something that is hard to come by for cosplayers, especially those on a more casual level, but it can and does happen, as with me and my Pokémon cosplay. It takes dedication, persistence, and consistency - all of which have been said about me - and it may not take a special circumstance for that to occur. In any case, personally I'm both proud and humbled by the status that have been conferred to me, and in turn, I feel the same way and thankful for Pokémon, which has a "legend" status in more ways than one, including as a guide to my foray in cosplay.
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