![]() ![]() "I feel like cosplay is about bringing my favourite character to life," she began. While cosplay is an outlet for her love for anime, it's also a hobby that means much more for Xiaoyu. "I really feel I still have a long way to go… there's a lot to learn from everyone, not just cosplayers who are more senpai (senior in Japanese) than me, but also some of the younger cosplayers too." Cosplay and community While she poses in front of cameras with ease, Xiaoyu however still feels nervous on stage. "It tells me that I've been working towards the goal of making my cosplay better, from the way I style my wig to my makeup and my poses. COSPLAYER improved a lot since back then, and that makes me very happy.In particular, her favourite character to cosplay is Ganyu from popular MiHoYo game Genshin Impact. Looking back at her past, she also shared how she felt knowing that her cosplay's improved by leaps and bounds since 2016. Xiaoyu, who lives in Singapore, didn't need to take gaokao, which she's extremely thankful for. However, her sister had to put her passion for anime on the backburner in order to maintain her grades, especially since her sister was living in China and had to deal with the notoriously stressful gaokao, the Chinese university entrance examination. Xiaoyu had gotten into anime through her sister, who drew art when she was younger. I'm just going to do what I'm going to do, I'm not affecting you, so I just do what I've got to do and just be myself." ![]() "Because it was the first time I went out with a costume and people were staring at me. Her first attempt at cosplay was for Anime Festival Asia back in 2016, where she dressed up as Kuriyama Mirai from Beyond the Boundary (2013), an anime series by Kyoto Animation.Īlthough she was cosplaying with secondary school friends, Xiaoyu wasn't too comfortable with getting attention at the time. ![]() She added: "I feel cosplay and anime have become more and more mainstream, so more people are joining this hobby, and this in turn actually makes cosplay more widely accepted." Starting out cosplayĪlthough she's at home in front of cameras now, Xiaoyu wasn't always so confident while cosplaying. Public perception of cosplay is also gradually changing to become more accepting of those who share the same hobby as her, Xiaoyu said.Īttributing this shifting paradigm to social media and TikTok, she also said that attitudes towards anime have also been improving. "That's when they really started to understand my hobby," she said. "They felt it was weird, but as time went on I explained to them what cosplay is about, and why I like some anime series a lot."įor example, anime that really touches her heart makes her want to cosplay as those characters, and she communicated that emotion to her family. They asked, 'Why are you wearing a weird costume and putting on a wig?' Xiaoyu said: "They didn't know about cosplay when I started. Taking a more serious tone, she also shared that the public perception of cosplay has historically been relatively negative, with people viewing cosplay as a "weird hobby" and questioning why anyone would want to get into it. Laughing, she said that this has caused some people to become 'traumatised' and doubtful about the gender of some cosplayers. These guys are known as "traps", a common trope in anime culture where a male crossdresser can be dressed so convincingly that he's easily mistaken for a female, Xiaoyu added. "I think it's very funny, it's a common thing in cosplay, because it's not just girls cosplaying as girls, but also guys as well - and sometimes these guys really look like girls," she explained. She was born in China and moved to Singapore as a child.Īlthough some members of the public raised doubts about her gender, Xiaoyu laughed it off. The Singapore permanent resident, who's been cosplaying for almost six years, is most certainly female. "I had this video of me going about online and people were questioning, 'Is she really a girl?'" "I was at this cosplay event as a guest, and we had a photo shoot where all the photographers were welcome to take a photo," the full-time cosplayer - also known as Xiaoyu - shared. XiaoYukiko, 23, shared her experience cosplaying in public eye in an interview with AsiaOne at the Anime Festival Asia (AFA) Creators Super Fest on Sunday (July 23). Cosplay brings fiction into reality - and sometimes that's not easy for some to accept. ![]()
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