By Kelly Lee
Staff Writer
The auditorium filled with applause as freshman Emily Guan stepped on stage. She striked a pose alongside her partner, embodying the complicated dynamics of Genshin Impact characters Kaveh and Alhaitham. Her costume of a white blouse and red sash decorated with dozens of golden ornaments was the result of meticulous planning and coordination that paid off as she placed second place in the Pop Umai Cosplay Contest.
Cosplaying is the practice of dressing up as characters and has been a hobby for Guan since 2018, who finds it a great way to express herself. Guan became interested in cosplaying after discovering Genshin Impact, an open-world RPG, where players explore an expansive map.Now, she has amassed over 16,000 followers on her TikTok page: @insectpilller and over 2,000 followers on her Instagram: @windykazuha.
“What got me interested in cosplaying was seeing other cosplayers on TikTok and my For You page,” Guan said. “I wanted to start because I thought, ‘isn’t that kind of cool? Dressing up as your favorite character?’”
She started out her content creation career by posting anime edits and gradually transitioned to cosplay content, regularly sharing new costumes and events. Since then, Guan has cosplayed more characters from anime, shows and video games such as Final Fantasy, Spy x Family and Demon Slayer.
Guan attended cosplay events and anime conventions where cosplayers meet up with and interact with each other. These conventions are a great opportunity to buy merchandise, take pictures and show off their costumes. Going to these conventions introduced Guan to a community of cosplayers, many of whom she befriended and began group cosplays with.
“I’ve known Emily since the start of our eighth grade year and I’m happy seeing her enjoy cosplaying,” freshman Natalie Hakimian said. “Since finding out about Guan, I have become inspired to start cosplaying myself and would like to try it. I think it’d be fun to know what it’s like and learn more about it.”
Guan also faces struggles with her costumes. Cosplaying is an expensive hobby and oftentimes, hard to keep up with. Some of her more expensive costumes, like Black Butler’s Ciel, have upward costs of $200. Guan saves money she receives from holidays, birthdays and gifts, using it to help purchase props and costumes for her cosplaying. Guan now makes her own props to save more money. Her latest creation is Amos’ Bow from Genshin Impact.
Guan recommends purchasing costumes from websites like Doki Doki and Aliexpress instead of Amazon for cheaper and better quality costumes. She recommends beginners start with basic costumes instead of complex ones.
“My goal for cosplaying is to make people happy and inspired to get out of their comfort zone to try something new,” said Guan. “Some people are quite judgey about how we look in this community. You always have to overcome and push all the negativity away. Most importantly, listen to your heart and never take the negativity from others.”