A Plus Sized Cosplayer’s Story

 

By. Marjorie Morningstar of Cosplay +Sz

  This is the story of Kawaii Princess, a plus sized girl who loves manga, anime and video games.  She has been a loyal attendee to the local comic book and anime convention for a few years now, but this is the first time she will be attending in cosplay.  She has spent so many hours re-watching that anime, and re-playing that game, researching online for references to make the costume as close to the original as possible.  She selected that character because of the clumsy and shy traits they have in common.  She is so proud of her costume and she is satisfied with all the practice she has done to resemble that character.

  At last the day has come.  As soon as she enters the convention hall she feels like that character, without even noticing it she is walking and talking like that character.  She is so excited when people start noticing her.  As she walks around, people look at her and start to whisper and point. Suddenly one girl ask for a picture and after taking it says: “Your fat version of that character is real cute”.  Then she realizes that the people weren’t praising her; they were mocking her, saying mean things about her weight.  She realizes that the whispers and remarks were not positive. People were not smiling at her, but rather they were laughing and making fun of her.

  Feeling terrible Princess ended up crying in the bathroom.  Suddenly she heard a sweet voice asking if she was ok.  The sweet voice introduces herself as Night Kitty and she had witnessed the whole situation.  Night Kitty was a cosplayer with some experience and awards under her belt.  They talked for a while and Night Kitty gave her the best advice anyone can give: “Be yourself, respect yourself, and embrace yourself.  Once you have accepted you for who you are, you will be free from the chains of discrimination.”

  The cosplay world is precious, but at the same time it’s real tough.  Most of the people in our community have being victims of bullying and discrimination, just for our hobbies or interests.  I, as a full grown woman, have being criticized for this hobby at work many times, but I do it because I love it and they have learned to accept me as I am.  I believe in myself and only I can set my limits on what I can or cannot do.

  I know that all of us put so much effort and tears into every costume we make.  The cosplay world is filled with wonderful things and many unique, creative and talented people.  We cosplay because we love the process, the characters and we are honored to portray that character in real life.  Let’s work together to break free from unrealistic beauty standards and enjoy what truly matters: YOU!

La imaginación toma vida en el desfile de disfraces que llegará al Puerto Rico Comic Con 2014

   Halloween en mayo. Para el espectador común así es como ha lucido el Puerto Rico Comic Con, el principal evento deentretenimiento en la región, durante los pasados años. En cada edición del evento miles de fans arriban al Centro de Convenciones de Puerto Rico disfrazados de sus personajes favoritos del mundo de cómics, cine, televisión, videojuego, animación japonesa (animé, manga), fantasía y otros géneros.

   Y para la edición 2014 del PRCC, la expectativa es que la creatividad y sofisticación de los disfraces alcanzará un nuevo nivel. Se trata de un fenómeno conocido como cosplay, palabra que viene del inglés ‘Costume Play’ (traducido literalmentecomo Juego de Disfraces).

   Según Ricardo Carrión, productor ejecutivo del Puerto Rico Comic Con, “el hacer cosplay en el evento surgió de manera natural y orgánica. Nunca se emitió una notificación para que la gente llegara disfrazada. Pero como es una práctica común que se da en convenciones en otros mercados, la gente vio la oportunidad en nuestro evento para importar dicha costumbre. Es algo que nuestros fans hacen para enriquecer su experiencia durante el evento y le da mucho color a la velada”.

   Carrión estima que tres de cada cinco personas que van al Puerto Rico Comic Con van de cosplay, incluyendo familias enteras. El fenómeno es tan fuerte que uno de los invitados especiales del Puerto Rico Comic Con este año es Riddle’sMessy Wardrobe (nombre verdadero Riki LeCotey), unacosplayer profesional que viaja el mundo asistiendo a diversas convenciones. La gran variedad de personajes a quienes les da vida a través del cosplay ha convertido a Riddle en una de lascosplayers más populares en la industria, con sobre 300,000 seguidores en las redes sociales.

   Carrión atribuye el auge del cosplay a que es una manera sana y creativa de rendirle homenaje a alguna figura de la cultura popular con quien la persona se identifica. Es una modalidad en donde nadie juzga a nadie por ser diferente y, todo lo contrario, se crea una comunidad de admiradores unidos por una misma pasión.

   “En el Puerto Rico Comic Con hemos visto de todo, desdeOptimus Prime (Transformers) y Spider-Man hasta la clase graduanda de Hogwarts (de la serie de filmes de Harry Potter),Master Chief (del videojuego Halo) y más. Lo que nunca deja de sorprender es la creatividad, el tiempo y el cariño que loscosplayers le dedican a sus disfraces. Es un verdaderocompromiso con su arte”.

   El fenómeno del cosplay surgió alrededor de la década del 1970 en tiendas de comics de Japón. Hoy se practica en todo el mundo por personas de todas las edades y está cada día más arraigada, especialmente en Puerto Rico como así lo demuestra el Puerto Rico Comic Con.

   La próxima edición del Puerto Rico Comic Con se celebrará el 24 y 25 de mayo en el Centro de Convenciones. Fiel a su legado de brindar una experiencia de entretenimiento sin igual, PRCC 2014 contará con la participación de importantes exponentes de la industria, incluyendo talento local e internacional (actores de Hollywood, artistas de cómics, diseñadores de videojuegos, celebridades, etc.) que llegan para interactuar con sus fans y también presentar sus nuevas propuestas.

   Para más información sobre taquillas, oportunidades para exhibidores/vendedores, y auspicio:www.facebook.com/prcomiccon, www.prcomiccon.com, ywww.ticketpop.com.

10 Movies on Netflix You Probably Haven’t Seen but You Definitely Should (Part II, 5-1)

By.Hemlock

  We haven’t even begun to scrape the surface of the iceberg of weird yet! You may notice that many of the weird films on Netflix aren’t on this list. Off the top of my head I can name stuff like The Beast with a 1,000,000 Eyes, The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, The ABC’s of Death, and all the great MST3K stuff (of which there is plenty). This is only a top 10 though and it mostly adheres to the kind of things I watch… Here are 5 more oddball films as stated, even if I can’t guarantee you’ll love them, I can guarantee you won’t see many films like these at your local theater these days.

5) Yoga: The Movie

                You ever wanted to do Yoga? Well you better not watch this movie. This is one of those Korean horror films that even the poster looks unsettling and scary. If you like the scare tactics in movies like The Ring and The Grudge, you’ll probably get a good kick out of this one. Korean horror films don’t normally get the recognition they deserve, they usually get overshadowed by their Japanese counterparts, so it’s good to see one of them get a spot on an American-centered market. Witchcraft, great scares, and some acting that’s better than this kind of horror movie actually deserves, Yoga will have you running away from people doing stretching exercises for a month.

                                                       

4) FDR: American Badass

                The story-I’m-pretty-much-sure-is-based-on-real-events of how president FDR fights nazi werewolves in order to stop the spread of polio using his machine gun wheelchair. Read that last sentence again. If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will. I’m not going to tell you that this movie is always funny, or that it’s better than the studio’s predecessor, Poolboy: Drowning out the Fury, but if you liked Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and thought “I can do with more of American presidents killing monsters”, then this is absolutely for you. (Also Abe Lincoln Vampire slayer has an asylum spoof that’s basically the same thing but with zombies and it is way better than the original. It has a line where Honest Abe is about to chop a zombie’s head off and he shouts “EMANCIPATE THIS!”. Great little exploitation film.)

 

3) Chasing the Kidneystone

                If your grandma ever gets a kidney stone remember: Shrink down and team up with her immune system to fight the kidney stone with your bare hands. Doctors don’t know shit. Punch that thing and be hilarious in the process. I’m serious, that’s what this movie is about. Let’s go through this: someone wrote, green-lighted, casted, shot, edited, promoted, and screened this film somewhere and no one ever thought “Huh, does this sound a bit…silly to you?”

 

2) Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

                I’m not going to lie, I love this movie. It is fun, above everything it doesn’t just depend on the weird premise to be funny; Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is actually trying to be a good film. Well, as good as something like this could be. This movie is so bizarre even when I re-watch it; I’m still surprised by how baffled I am during some parts. Is it something on the level of Night of the Lepus? No, not really, it’s not funny because it’s bad or fun because it’s weird. It’s just enjoyable beyond any right it has to be. But it is weird, in a great way.

1) Dogtooth

                I actually have no idea if this film is still on Netflix. I saw it once and I’ve never searched for it again. I can safely say that Dogtooth is one of the most disturbing and oddly original films I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because no one would ever do what this movie does onscreen. I am a very desensitized person, I play Happy Wheels for fun and the first time I watched Human Centipede I didn’t even blink. This movie got to me and shook my soul. It’s the story of a family in Greece with a very authoritarian father and… Look, this movie isn’t for the squeamish. It’s not disgusting, just wrong on so many levels. I try not to give much away when I talk about films just why you should watch it, but saying anything about this movie besides “you will hate yourself for having sat through all of it but you need to sit through all of it” would be a sin and should be enough to get all those curious enough a go at this… thing. This beautifully-wrong and hateful and terrible and captivating… occurrence in your life.

Studio Ghibli

By.  Lil Leia

   Hi guys! It's all about Studio Ghibli this time! Studio Ghibli is a film studio based in Tokyo that’s recognized for its amazing animated films. After the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and Yasuyoshi Tokuma founded the studio in 1985. Studio Ghibli has since made 19 movies, the most successful of them being Spirited Away, which grossed more than $274 million worldwide and won Studio Ghibli's first and only Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Here are five facts you didn't know about Studio Ghibli:

1. Studio Ghibli enacted a no-cuts/editing policy when distributing their films internationally, introduced after producers heavily edited Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for its U.S. release. When U.S. producers were considering editing Princess Mononoke, a Studio Ghibli producer sent them an authentic katana with a note that said, “No cuts".

2. In 2001, the studio opened the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, dedicated to exhibits based on their films, as well as a theater within the museum that showcases short films made by Studio Ghibli exclusively for the museum..

3. At his retirement press conference, Miyazaki announced that his son, Gorō, would take his place and continue his works.

4. One of its most recent movies, and Miyazaki's last film, The Wind Rises, was based on the true story of Jiro Horikoshi, a plane designer who designed two of Japan's most successful planes during World War 2.

5. In My Neighbor Totoro, one of its most famous films and one of my favorites, (spoiler ahead!) Satsuki and Mei's mother suffered from tuberculosis, but managed to recover in the end. The story is loosely based on Miyazaki's life, who once said that had the movie starred two boys instead of two girls, it would've been too painful to make.

So, what do you think? Surprised? Here's a list of all the movies Studio Ghibli has made and their year of release in Japan. Either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata has directed most of these films:

1. Castle in the Sky - 1986

2. Grave of the Fireflies - 1988

3. My Neighbor Totoro - 1988

4. Kiki's Delivery Service - 1989

5. Only Yesterday - 1991

6. Porco Rosso - 1992

7. Pom Poko - 1994

8. Whisper of the Heart - 1995

9. Princess Mononoke - 1997

10. My Neighbors the Yamadas - 1999

11. Spirited Away - 2001

12. The Cat Returns - 2002

13. Howl's Moving Castle - 2004

14. Tales from Earthsea - 2006

15. Ponyo - 2008

16. The Secret World of Arietty - 2010

17. From Up on Poppy Hill - 2011

18. The Wind Rises - 2013

19. The Tale of Princess Kaguya - 2013

   In my opinion, Studio Ghibli will forever rule anime movies. Some of their films speak to me a little, making me feel happy, or sad, or maybe both at the same time. Ghibli is awesome!

Kill la Kill Complete Anime Review

 By. Seito

  If I were to sum up this whole series in a sentence it would go like this: “A group of over-developed students with family issues who cannot decide if they should dress or not” (Those who watched it might catch on). Of course the show’s plot goes way deeper than just that. Let’s start off with the main character, Ryuko Matoi. 

   Ryuko is an exchange student who transferred into the Honnouji Academy where she meets her one and only friend throughout the series, Mako Mankanshoku, and the student council president Satsuki Kiryuin, alongside with many other school club presidents. Matoi has recently lost her father to an unknown murderer’s action leaving behind Matoi’s future weapon, half of the scissor blade longsword embedded in his body, and she suspects the Academy’s faculty is involved. This school functions under special uniforms called Goku Uniforms made from “Life Fibers” which end up being the main cause for most of the conflict. Because on the Rims of the Academy there’s a secret force called the Nudist Beach who is completely opposed to the mass production of the Goku Uniforms since the school principal, Ragyo Kiryuin, seeks to dominate the world by manipulating Life Fibers. So Ryuko’s purpose is to avenge her father’s death by defeating the other scissor blade half’s owner who may possibly be associated with Ragyo. And did I forget to mention Ryuko finds a talking sailor uniform under her house that feeds on her blood? Don’t worry, they become really good friends. 

   The series kept me glued to the screen 24/7. I’ve never watched a whole series so quickly, running in at 24 episodes. One of the best factors I enjoyed was the continuous action and plot twists the show offers you. Though, I also focused on three really important aspects that I personally consider flaws. The plot and character development seemed too vast for 24 episodes, but the producers at Trigger had to fit it in. Also, most characters encountered themselves in dead-end situations but they were constantly granted with power-ups, one after another. And although the anime itself had plausible reasons to why they showed so much skin, there’s enough fan service to make some watchers uncomfortable. I personally believe two of these flaws could’ve never even a problem if the production would have gotten the possibility to extend the run time.

But overall, it’s an anime you have to experience on your own and draw your own personal conclusion. Every viewer has different opinion about it but the intense moments in the story and amazing fight scenes complemented with a range of colors and decent camera angles are details that kept me watching and made finally give this series a strong 6/10.