With a pink wig to match, 23-year-old Madhu Gudi dressed up as Luka, a Japanese virtual singer from Vocaloids. Vocaloids are characters from various softwares that allow a user to produce music in the voice of artists they like. The reason to dress up that way or called 'cosplay' was the recently culminated Cool Japan Festival where other members of the Mumbai Anime Club turned up as their favourite character from Japanese Anime and Manga comics.
With a pink wig to match, 23-year-old Madhu Gudi dressed up as Luka, a Japanese virtual singer from Vocaloids. Vocaloids are characters from various softwares that allow a user to produce music in the voice of artists they like. The reason to dress up that way or called 'cosplay' was the recently culminated Cool Japan Festival where other members of the Mumbai Anime Club turned up as their favourite character from Japanese Anime and Manga comics.
Mumbai Anime Club (MAC) has around 3000 members on their facebook group and more than 100 of them usually meet once in a month to discuss new releases, plan their next cosplay, exchange DVDs, read Manga, comics, play games, sing, participate in quizzes and contests, have screening of Anime and even share japanese food. "it began in 2010 with five people. We started inviting more people who shared our interests and made plan for a larger meet. The group has been a lucky success because at the first meeting we expected around 20 people but 50 showed up. We had a facebook group of more than 8000 members which got deleted as the account operating was reported. We began from scratch and have now reached around 2000 to 3000 online members," said Akshay Ghag, one of the founder members of MAC.
You may have heard of Pokemon, DragonBall Z, Doraemon and Shin Chan which usually dominate the Indian Cartoon channels and meant for children. They belong to the Anime and Manga comics of Japan that churns out more than just children's cartoons with themes based in romance, science fiction, adventure, fantasy and even animated pornography. There are genres like Shojo and Shonen where Shojo is meant for girls and the anime are perceived as girly, romantic and cheesy whereas Shonen is meant for teenage boys and has mostly adventure, sports and the like.
"If anyone wants to start watching Anime we suggest that they begin with Death Note. Its a story of man with the god complex who kills people by writing their names in a book and the whole series is a question on morality. Anime usually comes from manga comics and people usually read the manga comics to know what happened further into the story where the anime left off," said Gudi who joined MAC after she came to know of the cool japan festival. Gudi has been watching anime as a child and didn't know the difference until later. When her local cable provider stopped screening it she went online and found there were unlimited choices and extensive genres she could access. The one she follows right now is Gintama which is set in the Samurai era of japan in an alternate Universe. Gudi also dos cosplay couple of times in a year. "by becoming a cosplay you try to become a part of that universe. I buy wigs online and buy costumes or get them tailored. It does get difficult to explain the costume to the tailor. If the character requires a particular eye colour I buy coloured contacts and fancy boots too," said Gudi who spent around Rs10000 on her Luka costume.
Known as the 1st cosplayer of India, Niha Novocaine (stage name) has made a profession out of cosplaying. She had a college anime club called Uchi Otaku: Genshiken which merged with MAC. She did a fashion design course just so that she could design and make her own cosplay outfit. "I used to create my own costumes from paper when I was younger. Today, my most loved cosplay is Lust from the anime Full Metal Alchemist which got me a large male fan following. I am preparing a cosplay which I will unveil at the DOTA 2 international tournament being held in Seattle USA," said Niha who has apparently spent Rs 1.5Lakh on this cosplay costume and has hit the gym to get the abs like the character. "I will unveil it when I have developed the abs of my character. She is ripped,"said the 22-year-old.
"Initially our meets were more frequent where we would rent a public space and do our activities like performing skits that we wrote based around Anime and Manga, have cosplays and even music performances," said 27-year-old Reetam majumdar who doesnt miss a single cosplay event in Mumbai and Bangalore and works as a senior analyst at a market research firm. "It is a creative outlet for me unlike most members who are still in college. These days we have 13-year-olds joining our group which is a new trend and there is surprising number of them. Anime and manga can be enjoyed by all age groups because there is something for everybody. Anybody can join MAC by joining our facebook group and turning up for meets," said Majumdar who dressed up as the antagonist Jin'e from Rurouni Kenshin also known as Samurai X at the last cool japan festival.
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