Kevin Dresses as Neku

Kevin is 16 years old and attends Summer Camp through Imagine!. Over the years, he has developed a strong interest in gaming and anime, and the conventions highlighting them. Kevin had a successful summer attending both Comic-Con and NDK in Denver.

What is a cosplay and tell me about yours:
A cosplay is a better costume. It’s a full out costume length rather than the random costumes you see in the store. Better texture. Like a cosplay of a Storm Trooper has the full armor, helmet, and all the pads. It’s more authentic. This year, I am Neku Sakurama from World Ends With You. The game came out 6-7 years ago and so when I brought him back, people liked it. It took me about a day to put that cosplay together. I bought his headset and added some duct tape and other decorations. The tricky part is finding the props and weapons for the character. Some people take about two weeks to make their cosplay, like for Game of Thrones or Star Wars.

How were the conventions this year?
I like Comic-Con because it has more to do with gaming and has panels with speakers and presentations about the games.

NDK is full of people walking around in their cosplay. I walked up to Jack Sparrow and he asked me if I have a key to unlock Davy Jone’s lock. (Laughs), I said no, but you can try this one (in a British accent) and handed him an imaginary key.

I took A LOT of pictures of people in their cosplays, they posed for me. Deadpool was a fun one to see, I told him Spider-Man was looking for him and he said ‘What? Where?’ And frantically crawled away.

You meet more friends, meet people and make best friends in seconds. I saw some people I met last year. You talk about the same specific thing that artists, or actors, or studios, or a publication talks about. You meet people with same interests. (Kevin’s mother shared, “It’s so nice for him to be at an activity where EVERYBODY knows what he’s talking about and is interested in the same thing.”)

The gift shops are cool. It’s like a bigger version of Gamestop, only for each game they have movies, magazines, posters, action figures as well. For food, we had to cross the street from the convention and it was funny, everyone in their cosplays in public. People in their cars looking at us and taking pictures of us.