Review; Cosplay; Fashion; Video Games; Soul Calibur IV
I haven't been around the last few days. I've been playing Soul Calibur IV. Yeah, I'm a weak-willed little guy with a filthy gaming habit, but I told you that I would get it, and I did. I accept this.
The last time I mentioned the Soul Calibur series, I was on a tirade about the horrible, horrible costumes. It's true, there are many crimes against fashion, my eyes, and humanity in general to be found betwixt the straps of Ivy's getup alone, but luckily, I can personally edit each character to look however the hell I want them to, so it's all well and good.
I haven't done a cosplay review in a while, and at this point, it's about damn time. "What?!" You must be thinking. "But Tatchi, this game came out less than a week ago, who the hell has had time to see the game and the new characters/costumes and make an entire cosplay of it and attend a convention?! Surely, you cannot be serious."
Oh, but I am quite serious. We've already gone over the fact that girls who cosplay as video game characters have no fucking idea who they are cosplaying, nor what the character is like, nor why guys would like this character, or how they should act/look, or anything at all about being attractive and speaking to a man in general. This is only to be expected. But the addition of "Oh, well these girls are super duper sexy and boys like them and the game isn't even OUT yet, so I can cosplay them and they will think I am 'uber cool' and way in the know about fighting games." Yeah, bitch, I only just purchased Tira, so I haven't yet had the chance to see what her panties look like when she does the Glass Slippers move, and you're all up in my face being ugly and asking me what I mean when I name the fucking main character of the series at you. Yes, it's not just the one game, it's a series, get the hell out of my way.
So a few of life's personal rejects have set out to ruin my day by uglifying some characters nobody's played as yet, so here I am to ruin your day, and hopefully theirs, too. Don't be an elitist cunt and let this happen to you.
Fighting games. I feel the need to re-hash the fact that guys who play video games love to play fighting games. We spend more time customizing a character and perfecting thousands of moves across a multitude of platforms just for the sole reason that we feel like it and it's fun, what. We have memories of growing up and discovering our sexuality just by learning how to do that super awesome combo with Mai (or Iori, if you're going that route...). The characters are closer to us than our own family. We watch their story modes as if they are opening up to us over beers watching TV. I can tell you that I too was surprised when I learned that HEIHACHI MISHIMA.... WAS DEAD.
Then some fat girls show up pretending to be my beloved Aoi Umenokouji and wonder why I look at them like I want to punch them in the face. It's because I do. Aoi is a girl, so there is no "fem version", wear her fucking pants and get on a treadmill.
So here are a few select cosplayers who decided it would be okay to look like shit dressing as arguably the most sexual characters of a single series, who drive it all home by having the gall to pretend it's because "we're just so much alike". Really? You're a demon hunting kunoichi from medieval times? Teach me how to live forever?
But growing a personality of your own instead of assuring others that you're just so similar to a character you didn't create from an anime you don't understand is another rant entirely. Today is a day for some light-hearted fun. Let's commence, shall we?
Cassandra is pretty beautiful. In a normal, universal, decently clothed sort of way. She is young, naive, cute, not an overtly sexual mother of two like some other members of her family... I like her. She's capable without being an irritatingly overcompensating "tough chick", or being pathetically weak and carrying a weapon, 'happening' across victory in battle. No, Cassandra is pretty... normal. Wow.
Normality does not entail pretending to be interested in a form of entertainment to be able to dress like a slut in order to get some acne-faced losers to look at you and tell you you're hot and look like said character you know nothing about, in order to ask you for a dance at some shitty anime convention and pop a boner when you step on their feet and then lumber off to go watch Squidbillies with your cousin before falling asleep.
This girl is not normal. She's one of those special anime-fan breeds of women who, if not being large enough to warrant their own car on a train, will be so mousy and forgettable, that you won't even hear their squeaky, suspiciously manly voice calling after you, "Now which one was Nightmare, again?"
Let's break it down. A wash of blue eyeshadow smudged across her face with all the skill and care of a legless man competing in a tap dancing competition? Check. Unfortunate lip ring surely purchased while drunk amidst the thoughts of "This will make me look like Miyavi, who is sexy, which will make me sexy!"? Check. Gangly girl posing in an innocent, coy way by definition of one who doesn't know the meaning of the words 'innocent' and 'coy'? Check, check and check!
She's one of the plainest girls I've ever seen. I will give you an mp3 or something if you can look at this photo, and be able to describe some key elements of her look and general appearance the next day.
Her breasts just look like they're crying. I've never seen a woman's tits look so much like they just don't want to be there. The straps hang limp in defeat across her mammaries as gravity or an ill-fated escape attempt bring them ever-closer to the ground. It's not like she's an ugly girl. She's no Cassandra, but she's not outright ugly. She's just nowhere near as attractive as the character she is portraying or that smug, "Yeah I'm a girl cosplaying in pink panties, check me out" sense of sexuality she is unfortunately exuding suggest that she thinks she is. That's the problem with cosplay chicks. They think they are just so much hotter and more unique than they are, which ends up making them desperate, pathetic and laughable. Luckily for them, some guys who don't know what breasts in real life look like will mistake their lust for sexy computer-generated Cassandra and the memories of her brought forth by any random girl claiming to be or slightly resembling said character, with the actual girl in the costume. No, you're not really special. But you think you're way cooler and hotter and more deserving than these losers oggling you. Someday you may grow up, or realise that they are the best you and your over-entitled, overcompensating, overconfident, mousy self will ever get, and that certainly won't be my fault, so no need to take it out on me for how ugly I find you on the inside. See you at the next con!
This girl also is cosplaying Cassandra. I'm sure you'll instantly see the resemblance. "Welp, here I am!" Yeah, I know that's the best you can do. Here she is again, showing the same "I'm a bad girl" stare that she uses in every other photo in the set, which may just be a longing for ham. Cassandra is totally into posting on her myspace, I forgot! Remember that one week when she took Athena off of her top and everybody was freaking out until she posted an April Fool's! bulletin!? Oh man, that shit was hilarious, I put her in my "cool online friends" tagged photo gallery after that!!!
No, fuck this girl. She lists the character as "Cassandra Alexander" four seperate times. It's Alexandra, she's on the internet, why wouldn't you just correct that? Maybe I'm being a bastard. Maybe was an innocent, accidental, repetitive error. Her huge sausage fingers on the keyboard easily could have mashed several wrong buttons at once. Maybe she's really into the Soul Calibur series and grasped how huge it was when Cassandra was introduced, or she loves playing as her, or someone noticed that they both were blonde and suggested that after losing those first hundred pounds, she deserved to dress up as someone she liked so much. Let's see what she has to say about the costume:
Caitlin-I'm doing Ivy from Soul Calibur!
Me-Sweet! I wonder if any of those girls are not-naked and cosplayable.
Caitlin-Try Sophitia
Me-Nah, Mark (Icky guy I know) is in total love with her... Oooh what about her sister?!
This is the most awkward conversation I've ever heard.
So 'Caitlin"'was going as bondage horror queen that no woman resembles, let alone Jabba's friend, and she wondered aloud whether there were any other female characters in the series. Excuse me, "non-naked and cosplayable". So that rules out, say... Ivy? You just insulted Caitlin's choice which just seconds ago you thought was "sweet". Caitlin suggests Sophitia. Oh, she of the metal bra and see-through shirt used as a dress? The one who is naked throughout the entire opening of the series? I'd say Caitlin was being a bitch by suggesting this, but obviously Caitlin knows jack shit about the series, or she never would think to expose the world to herself and her fat friend dressed like that. Then the other girl is instantly reminded of some guy she doesn't like (which obviously she does like since she thinks of him and mentions him on the internet), and suggests to herself to cosplay as Sophitia's sister. Which obviously she just found out online while retrospectively learning about the character with the exception of her last name.
She went on to state:
I. Love. This. Costume. Now I just need a wig so I can wear it whenever.
So, the one thing on her that almost resembles the character, she wants to replace with a wig so that she can wear that outfit out in public at any time.
I hate these people.
Speaking of Sophitia...
She's looking pretty good in the new game. Sure, she has breasts like torpedoes and is wearing nothing and orgasmically moans when hit while her clothes come off and expose her entire body, but that's just how she is. Her hair is longer, and the graphics are better, as well as the customization option. She's also gone crazy because of Tira, which is pretty hot. That's something. Meanwhile, this picture is hilarious and will haunt me until I die. Maybe she should have gone as Yoda, or something. I don't know, I can't help her at this point.
This is Amy. Amy is the potentially demonic sex doll/daughter/servant/lover of one of my best characters, Raphael. Think Gackt: Renaissance vampire with comical fashions and a horrid, fabricated personality and potential little-girl habit. Amy's move set is fun, and, even though her personality is one of those "Oh, did li'l old me just perform that massive KO on Zasalamel?" types, her outfit is attractive and well-put together, and her added insanity makes her mysteriously alluring to people like me and Gackt.
And, I guess, this awful woman. Ma'am, you're all sweaty and haggard, please stop doing that. Also, you're like my mom's age, so you need to not be dressed like a sad little gothic lolita from a video game. Also, I assume you are out in public next to the gondalas, and some people may just want to get across the water without being subjected to a troll well past her prime clinging to her distant youth which, by the lamentable pose and awkward shape of her hefty body, has left her a long time ago. She needs to cover up, wear normal clothes, go home, and raise her damned kids.
Lastly, we have Tira. Tira is crazy and schizophrenic and bisexual with herself, now, but I can't help but find her very interesting. She's fun as hell to play as, and the costume this time around is definitely an enormous improvement from her debut. We've seen the horrors that her intricately confusing costume has violently given birth to, but even I was not prepared for... for...
this.
Holy god, that top, that hoodie, that weapon, the Freddy Krueger claws she just recycled. It's like... it's like she didn't even try.
I'm stalling.
Dear Tira cosplay girl:
Hello. Your costume was kind of sad, but if you are reading this, I mean no offense. I will admit that I have fallen for your devious little ploy. You're pretty attractive, Miss. By convention cosplay standards, you are a goddess. Why did you go as A SNOW WHITE GERMAN GIRL?!!? There are many Asian characters in the series with less challenging outfits. Did you just not want to take the tried-and-true "Check out my AZN" route? Are you just a really big fan of Tira? I can't figure out whether or not I should cry at the waste of how awesome you could have been, or awkwardly ask you for a dance and tell you how cool I think Tira is. I am a huge hypocrite. I am sorry.
Love,
tamamushi
Well, that's it for now. I'm going to go play Soul Calibur IV some more. I'll be back soon, when convention season once again is upon us, and horrible people have had more time to put together their Shura and Ivy costumes. And one girl, who is in the process of making new character Hilde because, "she just looks so much like me!". I don't see it.
The last time I mentioned the Soul Calibur series, I was on a tirade about the horrible, horrible costumes. It's true, there are many crimes against fashion, my eyes, and humanity in general to be found betwixt the straps of Ivy's getup alone, but luckily, I can personally edit each character to look however the hell I want them to, so it's all well and good.
I haven't done a cosplay review in a while, and at this point, it's about damn time. "What?!" You must be thinking. "But Tatchi, this game came out less than a week ago, who the hell has had time to see the game and the new characters/costumes and make an entire cosplay of it and attend a convention?! Surely, you cannot be serious."
Oh, but I am quite serious. We've already gone over the fact that girls who cosplay as video game characters have no fucking idea who they are cosplaying, nor what the character is like, nor why guys would like this character, or how they should act/look, or anything at all about being attractive and speaking to a man in general. This is only to be expected. But the addition of "Oh, well these girls are super duper sexy and boys like them and the game isn't even OUT yet, so I can cosplay them and they will think I am 'uber cool' and way in the know about fighting games." Yeah, bitch, I only just purchased Tira, so I haven't yet had the chance to see what her panties look like when she does the Glass Slippers move, and you're all up in my face being ugly and asking me what I mean when I name the fucking main character of the series at you. Yes, it's not just the one game, it's a series, get the hell out of my way.
So a few of life's personal rejects have set out to ruin my day by uglifying some characters nobody's played as yet, so here I am to ruin your day, and hopefully theirs, too. Don't be an elitist cunt and let this happen to you.
Fighting games. I feel the need to re-hash the fact that guys who play video games love to play fighting games. We spend more time customizing a character and perfecting thousands of moves across a multitude of platforms just for the sole reason that we feel like it and it's fun, what. We have memories of growing up and discovering our sexuality just by learning how to do that super awesome combo with Mai (or Iori, if you're going that route...). The characters are closer to us than our own family. We watch their story modes as if they are opening up to us over beers watching TV. I can tell you that I too was surprised when I learned that HEIHACHI MISHIMA.... WAS DEAD.
Then some fat girls show up pretending to be my beloved Aoi Umenokouji and wonder why I look at them like I want to punch them in the face. It's because I do. Aoi is a girl, so there is no "fem version", wear her fucking pants and get on a treadmill.
So here are a few select cosplayers who decided it would be okay to look like shit dressing as arguably the most sexual characters of a single series, who drive it all home by having the gall to pretend it's because "we're just so much alike". Really? You're a demon hunting kunoichi from medieval times? Teach me how to live forever?
But growing a personality of your own instead of assuring others that you're just so similar to a character you didn't create from an anime you don't understand is another rant entirely. Today is a day for some light-hearted fun. Let's commence, shall we?
Cassandra is pretty beautiful. In a normal, universal, decently clothed sort of way. She is young, naive, cute, not an overtly sexual mother of two like some other members of her family... I like her. She's capable without being an irritatingly overcompensating "tough chick", or being pathetically weak and carrying a weapon, 'happening' across victory in battle. No, Cassandra is pretty... normal. Wow.
Normality does not entail pretending to be interested in a form of entertainment to be able to dress like a slut in order to get some acne-faced losers to look at you and tell you you're hot and look like said character you know nothing about, in order to ask you for a dance at some shitty anime convention and pop a boner when you step on their feet and then lumber off to go watch Squidbillies with your cousin before falling asleep.
This girl is not normal. She's one of those special anime-fan breeds of women who, if not being large enough to warrant their own car on a train, will be so mousy and forgettable, that you won't even hear their squeaky, suspiciously manly voice calling after you, "Now which one was Nightmare, again?"
Let's break it down. A wash of blue eyeshadow smudged across her face with all the skill and care of a legless man competing in a tap dancing competition? Check. Unfortunate lip ring surely purchased while drunk amidst the thoughts of "This will make me look like Miyavi, who is sexy, which will make me sexy!"? Check. Gangly girl posing in an innocent, coy way by definition of one who doesn't know the meaning of the words 'innocent' and 'coy'? Check, check and check!
She's one of the plainest girls I've ever seen. I will give you an mp3 or something if you can look at this photo, and be able to describe some key elements of her look and general appearance the next day.
Her breasts just look like they're crying. I've never seen a woman's tits look so much like they just don't want to be there. The straps hang limp in defeat across her mammaries as gravity or an ill-fated escape attempt bring them ever-closer to the ground. It's not like she's an ugly girl. She's no Cassandra, but she's not outright ugly. She's just nowhere near as attractive as the character she is portraying or that smug, "Yeah I'm a girl cosplaying in pink panties, check me out" sense of sexuality she is unfortunately exuding suggest that she thinks she is. That's the problem with cosplay chicks. They think they are just so much hotter and more unique than they are, which ends up making them desperate, pathetic and laughable. Luckily for them, some guys who don't know what breasts in real life look like will mistake their lust for sexy computer-generated Cassandra and the memories of her brought forth by any random girl claiming to be or slightly resembling said character, with the actual girl in the costume. No, you're not really special. But you think you're way cooler and hotter and more deserving than these losers oggling you. Someday you may grow up, or realise that they are the best you and your over-entitled, overcompensating, overconfident, mousy self will ever get, and that certainly won't be my fault, so no need to take it out on me for how ugly I find you on the inside. See you at the next con!
This girl also is cosplaying Cassandra. I'm sure you'll instantly see the resemblance. "Welp, here I am!" Yeah, I know that's the best you can do. Here she is again, showing the same "I'm a bad girl" stare that she uses in every other photo in the set, which may just be a longing for ham. Cassandra is totally into posting on her myspace, I forgot! Remember that one week when she took Athena off of her top and everybody was freaking out until she posted an April Fool's! bulletin!? Oh man, that shit was hilarious, I put her in my "cool online friends" tagged photo gallery after that!!!
No, fuck this girl. She lists the character as "Cassandra Alexander" four seperate times. It's Alexandra, she's on the internet, why wouldn't you just correct that? Maybe I'm being a bastard. Maybe was an innocent, accidental, repetitive error. Her huge sausage fingers on the keyboard easily could have mashed several wrong buttons at once. Maybe she's really into the Soul Calibur series and grasped how huge it was when Cassandra was introduced, or she loves playing as her, or someone noticed that they both were blonde and suggested that after losing those first hundred pounds, she deserved to dress up as someone she liked so much. Let's see what she has to say about the costume:
Caitlin-I'm doing Ivy from Soul Calibur!
Me-Sweet! I wonder if any of those girls are not-naked and cosplayable.
Caitlin-Try Sophitia
Me-Nah, Mark (Icky guy I know) is in total love with her... Oooh what about her sister?!
This is the most awkward conversation I've ever heard.
So 'Caitlin"'was going as bondage horror queen that no woman resembles, let alone Jabba's friend, and she wondered aloud whether there were any other female characters in the series. Excuse me, "non-naked and cosplayable". So that rules out, say... Ivy? You just insulted Caitlin's choice which just seconds ago you thought was "sweet". Caitlin suggests Sophitia. Oh, she of the metal bra and see-through shirt used as a dress? The one who is naked throughout the entire opening of the series? I'd say Caitlin was being a bitch by suggesting this, but obviously Caitlin knows jack shit about the series, or she never would think to expose the world to herself and her fat friend dressed like that. Then the other girl is instantly reminded of some guy she doesn't like (which obviously she does like since she thinks of him and mentions him on the internet), and suggests to herself to cosplay as Sophitia's sister. Which obviously she just found out online while retrospectively learning about the character with the exception of her last name.
She went on to state:
I. Love. This. Costume. Now I just need a wig so I can wear it whenever.
So, the one thing on her that almost resembles the character, she wants to replace with a wig so that she can wear that outfit out in public at any time.
I hate these people.
Speaking of Sophitia...
She's looking pretty good in the new game. Sure, she has breasts like torpedoes and is wearing nothing and orgasmically moans when hit while her clothes come off and expose her entire body, but that's just how she is. Her hair is longer, and the graphics are better, as well as the customization option. She's also gone crazy because of Tira, which is pretty hot. That's something. Meanwhile, this picture is hilarious and will haunt me until I die. Maybe she should have gone as Yoda, or something. I don't know, I can't help her at this point.
This is Amy. Amy is the potentially demonic sex doll/daughter/servant/lover of one of my best characters, Raphael. Think Gackt: Renaissance vampire with comical fashions and a horrid, fabricated personality and potential little-girl habit. Amy's move set is fun, and, even though her personality is one of those "Oh, did li'l old me just perform that massive KO on Zasalamel?" types, her outfit is attractive and well-put together, and her added insanity makes her mysteriously alluring to people like me and Gackt.
And, I guess, this awful woman. Ma'am, you're all sweaty and haggard, please stop doing that. Also, you're like my mom's age, so you need to not be dressed like a sad little gothic lolita from a video game. Also, I assume you are out in public next to the gondalas, and some people may just want to get across the water without being subjected to a troll well past her prime clinging to her distant youth which, by the lamentable pose and awkward shape of her hefty body, has left her a long time ago. She needs to cover up, wear normal clothes, go home, and raise her damned kids.
Lastly, we have Tira. Tira is crazy and schizophrenic and bisexual with herself, now, but I can't help but find her very interesting. She's fun as hell to play as, and the costume this time around is definitely an enormous improvement from her debut. We've seen the horrors that her intricately confusing costume has violently given birth to, but even I was not prepared for... for...
this.
Holy god, that top, that hoodie, that weapon, the Freddy Krueger claws she just recycled. It's like... it's like she didn't even try.
I'm stalling.
Dear Tira cosplay girl:
Hello. Your costume was kind of sad, but if you are reading this, I mean no offense. I will admit that I have fallen for your devious little ploy. You're pretty attractive, Miss. By convention cosplay standards, you are a goddess. Why did you go as A SNOW WHITE GERMAN GIRL?!!? There are many Asian characters in the series with less challenging outfits. Did you just not want to take the tried-and-true "Check out my AZN" route? Are you just a really big fan of Tira? I can't figure out whether or not I should cry at the waste of how awesome you could have been, or awkwardly ask you for a dance and tell you how cool I think Tira is. I am a huge hypocrite. I am sorry.
Love,
tamamushi
Well, that's it for now. I'm going to go play Soul Calibur IV some more. I'll be back soon, when convention season once again is upon us, and horrible people have had more time to put together their Shura and Ivy costumes. And one girl, who is in the process of making new character Hilde because, "she just looks so much like me!". I don't see it.
