As yours truly is a fan of the cosplay culture (and also a frustrated cosplayer), I guess it is a given that the thought of having my little daughter being a "cosplayer" at a young age is always a very welcome idea for me.
That idea became a reality when we planned on attending the 14th Edition of ToyCon last June 19-21 at SM Megamall. As part of this annual event is people strutting their cosplay costumes and skills, me and my wife decided that we will have our daughter dress up as a character for the event (we attended the 2nd day - June 20). Not a bad idea right?
The character we chose for our little princess to cosplay is Ponyo from the Studio Ghibli animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008) for the reasons that the "Ponyo" character is a child that is the same age as our daughter and that my daughter really loves the character too. I also chose the character because I never saw someone cosplayed the character in local events (I did my homework and searched the web, and there was really no local Ponyo cosplay that I can find), so why not my daughter be the "first", right?
Before the day of the event, we went ahead and have the costume made especially for her because the thing is; when it comes to cosplay, customized costumes are the way to go as the ready-made ones (if ever are available), are inferior-looking compared to tailor-made DIY/Customized ones. To complete the look a wig was bought and a small pail was painted green to match.
Here is our daughter in full costume:
To be honest, I was really anxious about how my daughter and our choice of costume for her will fare on the said event. I have to admit, although "Ponyo" is an iconic and popular character in Japan (due to the character being a Hayao Miyazaki creation and her movie being a Studio Ghibli classic), my belief is that not all "Pinoys" are fond and aware of the said character and there is that worry at the back of my head that my daughter will go unnoticed despite the effort we all exerted on making her "look" like Ponyo and worse, no one recognizes what character she is cosplaying as.
To my relief, it turned out that I underestimated the popularity of the "Ponyo" character as a lot of people at the event - spectators, photographers, and cosplayers themselves - instantly recognized that our daughter was Ponyo the moment they saw her. A lot of "kawaii" comments are given which is music to my ears (Yep!) and requests for photos with our daughter is never a bad thing. Of course, me and wife were really just proud parents at that time all of those were happening.
Our daughter, being just three years of age, is sometimes either shy or afraid when people are asking for pictures of or with her. There were also times when she does not pose a lot for the camera or looking the other way and not attentive, not to mention not even smiling. I guess that aspect needs a lot of improvement and that will be on us - her parents - to work on. Luckily, she is still young and there will be lots of time for us to get her used to it, and of course, we accept that challenge.
All in all, my daughter's first endeavor in the cosplay scene is a success and hopefully, this will be the start of more "cosplaying" to come for her. I will place my bets that she was the youngest and smallest "cosplayer" on that day, but I am really proud that my daughter handled her first cosplay event "Big Time!"
As for us, the parents, her success is also our success and we cannot be more proud with what our little "Ponyo" achieved. All I gotta say is, Hey! We introduced our daughter to cosplay at age three - I guess that is "Parenting Done Right", don't you think?
Until our daughter's next cosplay endeavor,
Ciao!
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