Size doesn't matter

“But in reality, the cosplay that looks closest to the character wins: physical outlooks, characteristics, material of outfit, etc.”

This comment was made on my facebook page recently and I’ve decided to address it.

Yes I agree, to some extent, the cosplay needs to look like the character…otherwise what’s the point?

But why do those kinds of things matter, unless you’re in competition.

A while ago, I found a picture of a rather large cosplayer, posing in her Rini (Sailor Moon) costume for an online competition. She received so much scrutiny such as “you shouldn’t be cosplaying her!” “youre too big to be her!”

By what people failed to realize is, she was portraying the character perfectly.

The cheeky, innocent attitude she showed in the photo along with the perfect replication of the costume, made her a perfect replica of the character, but no one saw past her size.

Another point is, who is to decide what cosplays are accurate and what cosplays aren’t?

On the topic of books that have been turned into movies…many characters are portrayed inaccurately on the big screen…but no one tends to bat an eyelid.

Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games trilogy for example. The main trait that has always been brought up is the character’s olive skin…a skin tone which the actress portraying her, Jennifer Lawrence, does not have. But everyone got over it.

Comic book characters are redrawn all the time.

These versions of Wonder Woman are all different, but they are all still Wonder Woman, none of them are “wrong”. So why should we be allowed to go to a convention and judge people’s costumes as wrong because of how they look.

Then we move on to original designs of characters. Many people design their own costumes for characters while still keeping to the personality and look of the original.

These are two portrayals of the character Velma Dinkley from Scooby Doo. When you look at the second picture, could you ever imagine the character, actually posing for a photo like this? Velma is a conservative, intelligent “geek girl” who would never pose in such a way. Why go so far away from the original character and change their personality, when the original is perfect.

Not really sure if this post made much sense but back to the first comment...unless you're in an accuracy competition, why does cosplaying have to be about winning? why does it matter your size, ethnicity, etc...as long as you stay true to the character, you should be able to cosplay who ever you want.