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Welcome back to Geek Time. This is Geek time Advanced.

We were talking about cosplay, LuLu, and you mentioned that you've cosplayed before, any chances you're going to tell us what you did before?

Are we still on that?

OK. I’m not going to be very specific because I actually did multiple characters. Maybe in the future, as I’m doing more videos now, maybe in the future I will do more, but usually it's this kind of really dark femme fatale characters and with some animalistic elements, but that's all I’m going to say now. Just wait for my future videos.

Alright, look forward to that.

So anyhow, let's get into more cosplay talk.

Mhm.

In the basic episode, we talked more about the costumes; but it's not just the costume, it’s a lot of props like weapons, other items like accessories...all of these.

For sure. Especially nowadays with like some people are getting into like old style blacksmithing and everything like that. They're like building like realistic versions of weapons.

But a lot of times people just use foam and plastic and things like that to make their weapons look realistic. People are adding like LED lights to make their weapons light up and things like that.

Yeah. There's a lot of different variation people are using like realistic weapons and some of them…

Actually, I don't know about YouTube, but on Bilibili, recently, there are few people who are just like you said there. I’m not sure if they're blacksmith, but they are these craftsmen. They're really into this and they are trying to make these very realistic looking like katanas or like sword from specific anime.

And some of them not just light up, they can, for example, they can when you pull it out, it has it like there's fire coming out. It's really cool.

I’ve seen something like that. There's a particular YouTuber that does a lot of videos like that. He's made an actual version of Mjolnir which is Thor's Hammer. He put a magnet on it, and so if he puts the hammer down on something metallic, it will magnetize to it and people won't be able to lift it. But he's got a special ring that when he puts his hand on, Mjolnir, disengage the magnet and he can lift it up.

So people are really like what's going on?

Wow. That is really smart. I love that, it is really smart. And also the light saber is one of those that has been made over and over again.

Yeah, they haven't like done like the actual representation of like the ones we see in the movies. But they've done ones with like battery packs that you get kind of like in the extended Star Wars universe.

But they have like all these things. There's an anime called Attack on Titan. And they have these swords that the blades can come off, because the blades often get stuck in things. And so you have like a pack of like seven different swords, but you have to use the same handle over and over again. And someone made like swords that can do that. And so if you carry like a pack of these sword blades. You can just cut something and then retract the handle and get a new blade.

I see. I mean there's so much creativity and so much like craftsmanship in this. I’m thoroughly amazed, but that brings actually one question.

Remember last time we said a lot of people would dress up and the whole gear and they would go to like a Comic-con, wouldn't that be really dangerous if everyone's like wielding real sword and katana?

Some people do bring real weapons and it depends on the policy of the location that they’re holding the convention in, but they often do something called peace bonding and that means you like put something on the sword. So you can’t like unsheathe your sword or if it’s an airsoft gun, for example, that looks like a real gun, you put something around the trigger, so you can’t pull the trigger and things like that, but they have peace bonding and things like that.

But people are bringing weapons that are fairly realistic to these conventions.

I see, I imagine apart from Comic-cons and just like normal cosplay meet-ups, I’m sure there are some other wackier ideas of how cosplay can be carried out. I know that you can do it in LARPing. So you can dress up and actually act out of the entire storyline even make it into a full long game.

Yeah, in the US, there's LARPing, people will meet every weekend and they play a particular character and they have battles and fights and things like that. But they'll have things like you play D&D your character levels up.

But and the same thing with LARPing like as you're playing this character more and more, you get more experience and then you get more weapons or magic or something like that.

But it's just part of the game, but people will dress up.

When cosplay isn't just dressing up in a costume, there's other things involved, you can do like competitions they have cosplay competitions where people will dress up, not just dress up but they'll do like a sketch.

So like people who are characters from the same anime will come together as a group and put on a sketch.

Yeah.

And then like they'll be graded…

That's very popular now.

…on how will they do. In the US we have a lot of like cosplay ball dancing where people will just do like ball dancing but as cosplay characters.

Like ballroom dancing?

Ballroom dancing, it's quite popular.

Really I’m already imagining the characters. I’m sorry but some characters have parts that's going to be very difficult to sort of move around in traditional ballroom dancing.

But there's also like karaoke where like you dress up and you sing at like the theme song from your enemy as the enemy character.

Sounds like things that a lot of Tick Talkers or YouTubers would do.

Yeah.

You know that, we talk about dressed up in costumes, there's a specific, I don't know if it's like a sub-genre or sub category of this whole costume play. It's people dressed up like animals, right? They're called furries.

Actually, furries. The first time I saw the word, I thought it was furies, and I was like, what's the fury? And I was thinking kind of like a monster from a like Dungeons and Dragons kind of something like that, a fury. And I was like, what's this? And I then someone said, no, it's not fury. It's furry. And I was like, oh, what's that? And then the rabbit hole began.

For those of you don't really know what furries are, basically, I would say anthropomorphized or people who dressed up in anthropomorphized animal costumes. So they are animal costumes, but they're not realistic animal. They're more like anime animals.

Yeah, like something from like a, like a mascot almost, if you look at the costumes often times they kind of look like mascot costumes.

But this is a bit different, a mascot you can dress up like a cartoon character. But furries are usually a representation of who you are inside.

For example, if I feel like I’m a cat, then I can be in a cat furry costume and then say that is my true identity. I think that's pretty cool. I know somewhere already losing some of our audience.

Yeah, there's dogs, cats, just about any type of animal. There are other kin which are things like demons or dragons.

Like mythical things.

People will make costumes, but like they also have their own conventions. It's kind of… it’s separate from like anime or comic conventions. They actually have like furry convention.

Furry convention.

Yeah, but then we digress. I think some people would probably think furries are not really cosplay because they're not necessarily based on any specific characters that already exist in certain… fictional work.

Right.

But let's and today's episode with a little bit of discussion over some of the controversy and perhaps the more… the heavier side of it.

First of all is this cosplay although it sounds fun innocent but there's still certain level of social stigma towards it, right?

If you people see you in cosplay like costume. Would they judge you in English speaking world? Like in the States, do they?

For sure. In Seattle, they have the comic or they have comic con and then they have Sakura-Con which is the anime convention.

It's every year in April the same time and so all the people who work or live in that area of Seattle, they know this is coming and so they're kind of used to it.

But the people who are going to downtown Seattle for the weekend and aren't ready for this, are in for a big shock, and they're just like what is going on?

And they're like it's really confusing to them because here there are thousands of people outside the convention square in costumes like running around and doing crazy things. And people are just like what is this? And it's so confusing to them.

But they're not hurting anyone. I mean what's life without any wonder, right?

Yeah.

This is I would love to be in that environment. I mean it's not really like they're doing it everyday. It was a convention I can totally get on board with it.

The other thing I’m not sure if it's the same in United States or in Japan, I think probably more in Japan. It's the over sexualized imageries of certain characters. So most of the time you hear cosplay, people are just there dressing up as their favorite characters.

But you do have certain people who would go, but they're not really necessarily into the characters or comic books or animation. They are there to just use this as an opportunity to dress up in really provocative clothes and to attract attention or this sort of attention that I’m talking about.

Yeah, they make their costumes a little bit more revealing than they probably should.

Yeah, and there's also the underage issue in it. It's okay if you're an adult and you can do whatever you want. However, if you're like a young kid, say a very young girl dressed up in the perhaps had over revealing type of costume or playing a character that is overly sexualized. I find that to be a little bit iffy.

Wearing a costume is one thing, at the convention during like daylight hours there are kids who go there with their parents. They have to be accompanied by a parent when they go to the conventions.

Mhm.

At least in the US, but they're wearing costumes as well. And like sometimes it is a thing where young kids might be wearing costumes that they probably shouldn't or someone might try to take photos of them and things like that. It gets a little bit… it's a little bit too much.

Yeah, OK. I think on that note, we're going to wrap up here.

If you had any experience or any run-ins with cosplay, leave as a comment in the comment section or with furries. Actually, no furries are really popular on social media right now at a moment.

Okay. Thank you, Brad, for coming to the studio and thank you for humoring me with this subject.

No problem. I’ll let you choose the subject every now and then.

Thank you. We'll see you next time.

See you next time, Lulu, Bye everyone.

Bye.