Cosplay Gen #6

     Reading Cosplay Gen over the last few years, I came to realize that cosplay could be revolving around discoveries. Or it may just be a grand, exciting discovery in itself. It shows that passion and dedication, which may give birth to motivation (or the other way around), are what people need to have, to follow, in order to be truly happy. In the end, seen from the eyes of just a fan like me, cosplay becomes one original and fun way to strieve for happiness. But what makes it so special is the colorful, complicated and challenging ways it leads to acomplishment, to happiness. The new number of one of my favorite magazines brings to light, yet again the wonders of cosplay, from the mindwrecking aspects of the creation of a costume to the marvellous feeling of creating and sharing a huge palette of experiences.

     What am I saying, Cosplay Gen is like the only magazine I read. That in itself should tell a lot.
     Yesterday I was starting to really worry that my package wasn't ariving already. What came in the mail today made my day so much better, brightend it up and made it more colorful.

     The cardboard box that the magazine came with was unfortunately sorta damaged but the magazine itself was just fine. Opened the thing up, saw Reika on the cover and my heart skipped a bit, saw the double sided poster with her and my day became perfect. I'll ofc have to mention I pretty much love Reika. Skimmed through the magazine, got the feels from seeing that huge article with her and made myself an overall picture of how the magazine feels.

     First of all, I'd like to mention that the editor-in-chief, Ruxandra Târcă, is Romanian, just like me. Half of the magazine feels like it's produces by Romanians, and here in Romania (at least I think the whole thing was printed here). That thing makes me truly proud, since I find this magazine to be one of very high quality (duh I'm taking the time to actually sort of review it). The other half seems to be a nice array of collaborations with people involved with cosplay from all around the world.

     As I mentioned, I'm just a fan and I don't really plan to get involved into actual cosplay in the future, but I'm really enjoying this magazine because I mainly enjoy seeing cosplay. It's this thing filled with hope and strong emotions, all bound by fun. So I'll try to get over my favorite sections/articles in the magazine.

      "The Complicated Art of Keeping It Simple" is what I think of first, other than the obvious Reika feature, when I remind myself of this issue of Cosplay Gen. It was truly an interesting an entertaining article to read, concentrating on the "play" part in cosplay. This is actually one aspect I truly love about cosplay, that it needs a bit of acting mixed in, that it tries to transmit certain feelings through interpretations. I somehow find this side, the one that requires the cosplayer to actually understand the character and bring his/her personality out, much more fun. Also it happened to feature three characters I really like, cosplayed stunningly. 

      The Reika feature/cover story/thing that made my heart go crazy was enjoying in a sorta different way. I can't say I met her, but I attended a convention at which she was a guest (that Otaku Festival 2013 that's also mentioned in the magazine) and pretty much stalked her followed her as closely as possible and mainly become accustomed to at least the part of her personality she showed at that con. So the image of her actually speaking and being herself came to mind when I read the article. The same with Julia Laurant since she also was a guest at that con I mentioned.

      Speaking of Julia, there's this possibility she wrote the review for Japan Expo Paris 2013. The review itself was really great but in the end it let me with this kind of feeling "imma be one day there i must be!" (I guess this is what can be called a truly good review, since it actually made me want to buy the product/service/whatever). As for Julia's feature in itself, it was much more interesting than expected because I had no idea she was also involved in event organising. 

      All the material displayed in the magazine is actually of very high quality, from the cosplayers themselves, to the diversity of the questions in interviews and subjects for articles. Also the printing is really well done - they are calling it a magazine create to be collected. I recommend it to anyone who has at least a little bit of interest in cosplay, because this colorful world is surely going to drag a lot of people in. 

      Now i wanna cry cuz im missing two older issues and they're basically impossible to find. The only complaint I have is this - reprint older issues!

Here for a short preview (aka better pics).

まあぁ、無理ならしょうがないっか。

Rollin'!