Thoughts: First Interscholastic Cosplay Competition

The first Interscholastic Cosplay Competition (ISCC), according to Obedoza-Bairan, is not the first cosplay competition held at a school – it is, however, the first cosplay competition to explicitly encourage students from other schools (as well as “young adult” cosplayers) to compete and participate in the program. The ISCC is one of the many activities backed by the Cosplay Museum aimed towards the support of the creativity, passion, and ingenuity of the youth.

The moment that I stepped into the gymnasium where the competition was to be held, it was like going back in time. The bleachers were mostly occupied by students who are either from the elementary or high school levels. But no matter the age all the faces I saw shone with the same innocent glee, the same one I remember from my own days as a teen going crazy over Gundam Wing and Fushigi Yuugi (yeah, shut up). The atmosphere wasn’t electric: it was warm, like a huge group hug. Even through the din, I could hear some debates over the characters they’d like to see onstage. It was obvious that cosplay is something that captured the imagination of young people, cutting across boundaries of gender, cliques, and tastes. The people there came less out of school pride and more out of a shared fan pride.

The competition proper, if compared to some cosplay competitions that are held in tandem with large-scale geek events here in the Philippines (there’s at least one practically every time we have a vacation season), would be unimpressive to those who have gotten used to the bigger competitions. But it’s that lack of pompousness that made it so refreshing. In many of the larger events, cosplay has become a staple used to draw in as many people as possible – a marketing ploy that encourages grandstanding, self-promotion and (ultimately) clique-inspired conflicts. It’s not rare to find at least one group of people who look down upon another group of people (if not the event organizers) simply for having different tastes.

This was not the case at the ISCC.

Interviewing the participants, I asked them the basic question: why were they there? And their almost-universal answer was that they simply love cosplaying. They love the characters because they connected with them. They love the shows because they can be pretty damn inspiring. They love the fact that they can be heroes, even for a little while. They love the fact that they could express themselves without judgement in a cosplay event – in Japan, people are generally unfazed at people who are dressed differently. They love the kind of social interaction they have with other cosplayers because they affirm an interest others find plain weird. This modestly-organized competition with its handful of contestants was brimming not with attitude or any poseurish politics but with genuine affection for something that they found profound or enjoyable, nothing more and nothing less. Why is it that in large conventions, the love comes second to the photo-op?

One student loves Bleach so much that he travelled to Quezon City all the way from Laguna just so he could cosplay Ichigo. I counted three people in the Young Adult category who love the craft of cosplay so much that they created incredibly realistic costumes, with detailing that could take your breath away. Even some of the contestants whose costumes could be considered inaccurate by the average competitive cosplayer, displayed such an obvious passion for the characters in their skits.

It was the kind of small event that could only be appreciated by the young (or at least young at heart) and the dedicated. There were no malicious or snide comments about how inaccurate the costume was, or how inappropriate it was for that person to cosplay that character given his or her body type. The competition’s standards cannot be held up to the standards of cosplay in other countries in which not having made your own costume disqualifies you. But the same kind of dedication was there – you can’t say that the boy who travelled for miles just to participate wasn’t passionate about cosplay, or that the girl with the inaccurate (as well as) store-bought Sailor Mars costume loved the character any less; you can’t even say that getting up onstage in costume despite being a shy person doesn’t reflect strong feelings of favor. The whole thing was akin to proposing to your girlfriend via a jumbotron.

It was so uncool that you’re just compelled to laugh and say yes. (What’s so great about cool anyway?)

By the time the winners were announced, much of the audience had already left the venue; to them, the interesting part was over (either that, or they wanted to get home early to catch more anime on television). At the end of the day, the awarding ceremony only served as recognition for the participants who really did do well – either in their costumes or in their performance. Those who didn’t win were having too much fun doing silly dances to care about the prizes they didn’t get. Call it quaint, call it small, but it was one of the best cosplay events I’ve ever been to because it felt so Filipino.

At our very core, we are expansive, accepting, and in it for the fun. Why shouldn’t our cosplay culture be the same way?

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