AstroBoy Online Forums

Yesterday I stumbled upon a short documentary on YouTube called "Cosplayers: The movie". This documentary is under 45 min and it talks about cosplay and anime.

I wanted to bring this up because I thought that you guys would find this interesting. There is an important section that does talk about the dangers of piracy and how it is affecting the Japanese market. It also does mention that fansubbing is a danger which in my opinion is debatable.

To my knowledge this documentary was cheap and is not copyrighted. It doesn't have any licensing, or even credits so I'm pretty sure that it's safe to post this.

But anyway, if you guys have the time please give this a look and share your thoughts on this or the subjects that it talks about.

As I said, it's not very long as it's only 43 minutes.

Anway, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvD1wzIOJtA

EDIT: I forget to mention that early in the video someone compared cosplaying to Woodstock. I really don't understand how the two are similar. Does anyone get that comparison?

Thanks, Ghost - this was a great find! I've often wondered what one of these anime conventions were like. I've seen forum members cosplay outfits online here, but couldn't imagine what the atmosphere at the event would be like.

I think I get the Woodstock reference (my generation :whistling - it's a gathering of like-minded people who feel like "outsiders" most of the time. But here, for one weekend, they've traveled to meet up and enjoy a few precious days of being surrounded by others who "get" anime, and their favorite characters.

I don't think I'd ever cosplay (maybe if I were young:cool but I would definitely consider attending one of these now.

BTW - one fellow they keep interviewing (not in costume) LOOKS LIKE OCHANOMIZU!! Check out his NOSE!!! It's incredible!! Just put him in a suit, and give him those white hair puffs, and he's good to go!

Thanks, Ghost. This was a pretty good documentary.

Having only been to one anime convention in my life, I have to agree that cosplayers and voice actors in general are some of the friendliest people you'll meet. I met Kyle Hebert at the convention I went to and got his autograph from that convention. Very nice guy.

I'll have to agree with you Ghost that the danger of fan-subbing is debatable. I do agree that people who only watch anime through fan-subs are a danger to the anime industry. The same goes for people that only read manga through scanlations.

However, there is the fact that Funimation actually has free, streaming anime on their site. They have this service specifically to combat fan-subbing and to (hopefully) get people that watch these anime to actually go and purchase said anime. Anime News Network has the same service. I mean, free, official subs aren't bad, right?

Anyway, like AprilSeven, I don't think I would ever cosplay. Too much time and money.

Also, I think I know which guy you're talking about, April. Are you talking about this guy?:

Now I wanna cosplay! I'm accually making a costume already incase a convention ever comes near me

I think it brought up on buying animes actually hit me, because it's made me realize how bad it's gotten that these company are having to shut down because of it. =(

Although after seeing I really wanna cosplay so badly, ;o; oh it only a convention and costumes tools were in my reaaaaach!

Thanks for posting this Ghost. Looks like a great find that I can't wait to check out. Cheers.