CosIowa, a cosplay club at the University of Iowa, drove to Overland Park, Kansas, recently to participate in Naka-Kon, a local anime convention.
Katie Goodale
“Cons” — or conventions — inspire participants to escape reality and become someone else for a day. They can become superheroes, fairies, animals, and other Japanese characters at the events.
University of Iowa students are involved in the scene, and over spring break, they dressed proudly in costumes that took six months to make with precision and creativity. Most of the costumes look as though they were store-bought, not sewn in a university classroom.
From March 16-18, the 12 UI CosIowa members traveled to Overland Park, Kansas, to join something larger, an event they had worked toward — a chance to live through their imaginations.
At the event, Naka-Kon, the air was saturated with soy sauce and fried foods as small stalls make chicken teriyaki to purchase on the first floor of the Overland Park Convention Center. Families maneuvered strollers through the crowd, as their children sported Pokémon beanies and older couples strolled arm in arm.
Deadpool stood in line at Starbucks, being accosted on occasion by eager fans who waited to take pictures with him. Overhead, light jazz whispered over the Starbucks speakers, which was drowned out by personal speakers strapped to cosplayers’ backpacks. The louder music was more aggressively techno, with a singer who shouted in Japanese.
Cosplayers from all over the Midwest loudly discussed what paraphernalia they just purchased from the dealers’ hall as they ran past in a flurry of activity. Names seemed indiscriminately thrown into the wind, most in Japanese, in order to get the attention of different cosplayers dressed as their favorite characters. All around, there was an air of normality, despite the running and shouting, and people were happy.
Naka-Kon began in 2005 as a single-day event at the University of Kansas; it has since grown to a booming celebration with up to 10,000 attendees in recent years. Naka-Kon gives a fully Japanese experience to its guests with authentic foods, music, and anime. Like most conventions, it offered events such as costume competitions, celebrity panels, merchandise sales, game rooms, dance parties, photo shoots, among many others.
CosIowa has also steadily grown since its establishment in 2015. Beginning with only a few members, CosIowa now attends at least one con a year and has two meetings per week, all school-year long. On Sundays, the members work on designing their costumes, and on Mondays, they present on costume-design techniques.
Students who participate in the club dedicate countless hours and around $600 from the completion of their costumes to the conclusion of the con.
Participants usually come as characters from their favorite video games or anime series, such as Overwatch and Voltron. A number of Disney princesses, Jedi Knights, and Marvel heroes can be seen as well.
For UI junior Leah Carlson, a dedicated member of the organization, she could spend a few hours, or a few months, on a single costume.
“I did a costume where I did 40 hours of hand-beading,” Carlson said. “I sewed hundreds of beads onto it. Individually, like each individual bead. It took so long and so much effort … I put my time and energy into something, and I have something to show for it, and it looks good …”
Club members and self-designers create their costumes in different ways.
Some make their costume from scratch, costing a minimum of $100; others might find clothes from a second-hand store and modify them; or they may choose to buy a costume already made.
For those with minimum sewing or design skills, being part of CosIowa allows members to work toward a shared goal and learn the basics.
“I had learned [sewing skills] before, but I did have to kind of relearn them as I worked on my cosplays,” CosIowa President and UI senior Ellie Burke said. “I knew generally how to hold a needle and how to sew and stuff. I had to relearn how to use a sewing machine and relearn how to use patterns …”
Conventions are generally the culmination of the challenging work, the time for members to put on their costumes and show them to other like-minded individuals.
Cosplay is often misrepresented in media as an activity for pariahs or as a sexual experience, but Burke said this is often not the case.
“I think the biggest misconception is that it’s only the people who are like unhealthily obsessed with something that cosplay … [the] type of nerds who are total social shutouts when really it’s just … at its core, it’s social,” she said. “It’s finding the people who are interested in the same things you’re interested in.”
CosIowa Vice President and UI senior Kelly Hogan, said cosplayers are often looked at like Sheldon from the “Big Bang.”
“There’s always like, ‘It’s kind of weird’ or like you have the ‘Big Bang Theory’ kind of thing, ‘Oh, they’re just really nerdy.’ It’s either taken in a really weird way or … just [portrayed as] super-nerds.”
CosIowa members work tirelessly toward the goal of showing off their trade. For Burke, Hogan, and Carlson, cons are a chance to participate fully in a world that most of the world remains unaware of. At Naka-Kon two weeks ago, they were joined with others for one eclectic event. Now, the group will prepare for next spring.
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