HERO WORSHIP
Cosplay helps fanboy win his girl and top prize
November 23, 2009
ANIME FESTIVAL ASIA
THEY met at a cosplay conference seven years ago. Today, Mr Clive Lee, 30, and Miss Caroline Chua, 27, are engaged.
And yesterday, they won a cosplay competition.
Mr Lee dressed up as a giant space robot and his fiancee, as a princess. The characters are the hero and heroine from the hit anime series Gundam Mobile Suit00.
The couple beat one other team from Singapore and four teams from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to win both the special prize for outstanding costume as well as the grand prize for best performance at the Anime Festival Asia Regional Cosplay Championship ’09 held at Suntec City.
Their reward: a trip for two to Tokyo, Japan.
The couple did not expect to win.
Mr Lee, who owns a game development company, said: ‘The win took me completely by surprise because my outfit is actually a compromised one.
‘We had some problems yesterday when the outfit was caught in the rain and certain parts got damaged.
‘To make matters worse, I even dropped the costume down a flight of stairs. It’s probably about 70 per cent of what I intended.’
Still, the outfit was impressive enough to win both the approving roars of the audience and the acclaim of the judges, who included Japanese celebrity cosplayer Kaname.
The crowd at competition was an eclectic mix of fairies, princesses, ninjas and storm-troopers.
But Mr Lee’s imposingly realistic mecha outfit literally stood head and shoulders above the rest, thanks to the 35cm platform shoes, which added to his 1.7m-tall frame. Not an 18m-tall robot, but close enough.
The outfit, which took Mr Lee three months to complete and cost about $300, was so elaborate that two people had to help him put it on.
Miss Chua, who works in the medical industry, said she met Mr Lee at a cosplay conference about seven years ago. ‘I was dressed up as a vampire princess and he was in a Gundam outfit. We got to chatting and realised that we had very similar interests.’
Mr Lee said with a smile: ‘That was when we fell in love.’
Filipino blogger-celebrities and sisters Alodia and Ashley Gosiengfiao were also in yesterday’s competition.
Dressed up as sexy characters from the anime series Witchblade, the pair nearly stole the show with an acrobatic fight show that drew wolf whistles from the men.
‘We were really surprised by the reaction,’ said Ashley, 19. ‘Earlier on, when the emcees tried to get the crowd to cheer for the Philipines, there wasn’t much response.’
Older sister Alodia, 21, added: ‘After we went on, though, I think their opinion of us changed.’
So were their body-hugging, cleavage-revealing outfits responsible for the collective about-face?
‘Perhaps,’ the two said.
The Anime Festival Asia ends today.
Samuel Wee, newsroom intern
The NewPaper