Balancing Morals with the Characters You Play [A Cosplay of Tohru Honda]

Miss Tohru Honda was a bit of a difficult one to do. I'd like to share my experience with you, playing a character that meant absolutely nothing no me whatsoever. I even developed a hatred for this character. This may not be as extreme as some of the inappropriate cosplays by some racist ignorant or not cosplayers, but this certainly challenged me in a similar way. This is why I do not like anime. It keeps the image of a suppressed woman alive. Anime displays very old values, making it difficult for me to make it ok. Yet, it is the most popular way to cosplay in our younger generations. At some point, I need to be able to see past it, but how? I was in the middle of purging my wardrobe of feminity and any reminder of my suppressed feminine self. 

When I cosplay a character, I life, breath, eat, and sleep with that character in the forefront of my mind. When a friend asked me to play Tohru Honda from the anime Fruits Basket for him, I felt a few things beyond my resistance. As a professional cosplayer, I should understand that I would be asked to play roles I am not comfortable with. I do like the challenge of being stretched beyond what I believe are my capabilities to play a character... or do I? I began to quesion that. While this character is extremely popular and an anime classic, due to her sweet loving shy giving nature, she is also the standoard of feminine nature and simple cute Japanese girl that is expected of not just women, but of people, who cosplay anime characters in general. At least, that is my experience with the anime community. It is very shallow and there is little wiggle room for creativity in the cosplay community sometimes. To play this character, I had to find this feminine energy from within. I do not believe in cutting corners and I do not believe a cosplay can be considered a good cosplay, if there is no love in it. 

When I cosplay a character, I usually start thinking about doing things like they would, eating similar foods they would, especially if there is an icon favorite, and watching the anime as I sleep, so that the character remains with me on an unconscious level. Now I know this is something I do not have to do. That is something expected of me in an acting career, but this particular cosplay was challenging for me, so I pushed myself even harder than I normally do and with good reason. Every time I played Tohru, my anger would take over and the only thing that would come out was my Making Fun of Cheerleaders Voice, which was not even close to who or what Tohru is. I would shut down, black out, and feel as small as a mouse in the corner, confronting a cat, desperately looking for a hole in the wall to crawl through and hide. I watch the anime in both English and Japanese. I can not read subtitles, so spoilers and talking with others about the anime is the best way to accommodate myself here. The next phase was finding the return of my old people pleasing self. I thought she would never return, and perhaps this was good. I was able to shut her back down and remove her from my unconscious mind, once and for all. 

Cosplay accuracy is deadly. It can be used against you, unknowingly. My friend begged me to wear the store-bought school uniform, even though the skirt was obviously too short. It was so short, even with the smallest of tiny steps, my under-ware would show. It was also going to be raining and storming, possibly even flooding at the only Convention he wanted me to join him in, SacAnime Winter 2022. I suggested a gender bending version of her, I picked up shorts, and finally, fleece lined skin toned tights, but that wasn't even good enough for him. I wasn't allowed to make my own hair ribbons either. Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated by then and I was about ready to quit. After I broke to him the news, and cut him off as a friend, I took a few pictures in my cosplay. I bought it with my own money, invested so much time, and given her so much power. I might as well use it. Hell, I ven annointed it with a strawberr fragrance. 

This is what happened. Tohru came alive for me in ways I did not expect. I put on my homemade hair ribbons with my cosplay and did a photo shoot. I began to play, laugh, giggle, and even have conversations with her back and forth. She let me know she did not appreciate being invoked when there was no real love behind the act, and she wanted me to feel her at least once, before we parted. She understood this was hard for me and parted very swiftly after I got rid of the cosplay. However, in this state of happiness, taking a few great pictures, I realized one very important thing about Tohru. My resistance in cosplaying her was not so much her feminine nature. There was a deeper feeling. sometimes, she is judged in the anime, called stupid, because she is often distracted by thinking about what's going on wih the rest of the world she lives in, other people, and past traumas. She is also unapologetically dreamy. The last thing a person with a disability, needs is to become an image like that. I pride myself in the decent intelligent reputation I have been able to build of myself. I am not an intellectual by any means. I work hard at being strong too. Suddenly, this cosplay comes in to my life, putting all my vulnerabilities on display. The most important thing that I was missing about Tohru is, she makes all of that ok. Whatever I am feeling, being, doing, it is still all ok.

After the experience I spoke to two or three cosplayers I highly respect about this experience. I showed them the pictures. They were difficult to do, because my skirt kept riding up, but I was able to push it back down and set it in place for each picture. They all told me very clearly, "You should never have to play a character you are uncomfortable with." Relief, and even anger hit me, because I had worked so hard on this. They reminded me that actors are often underground self-employed and can still refuse a role, especially if it compromises any of their morals. however, I also needed to make Tohru ok. It was just a cosplay and half the time, no one knows who is who at the conventions anyway. I spoke to more people and heard just about the same results. This is when I began to realize how deep my channeling is when I cosplay. I decided to work on this skill, channeling only the beautiful parts of chracters, and sometimes, channeling absolutely nothing that I aam uncomfortable with. 

The months of being with Tohru taught me a lot of very useful things, both about myself and my channeling abilities. The reason I can not watch anime is that I feel too much of the sadness in it. I find at times it overwhelms me and distresses me. That mixed with lots of internet time is dissasterous for me. This helped me understand a few things about my relationship with the character Izumi. Although, I never went in to theatre, I did lose my sense of identity in channeling her, as well. Even sitting with our past lives too long can be damaging. she also played a similar role. I think the difference between the two for me was a matter of feeling like me. Izumi felt so right to play, whereas Tohru did not. Our personalities were just too different. Izumi, on the other hand was at least a tomboy ninja. Although, she was displayed in such a feminine package, in my mind, that made her ok to play. There is something else here too. I was not as distressed about feeling her sadness as I was with Tohru. Although, I believed it to be partially myu sadness, and I felt more myself, I also didn't feel as though I was the best version of myself. That's something I plan to watch for future cosplays as Izumi. That is why I have decided to take a break from Cosplay for a while. 

With Covid, crazies, new stricter rules, issues being able to travel with no help, Conventions are just not in my reality right now. It doesn't mean they can't be. I need to make sure this is still fun for me and not work. The website will still be kept up to back up my pictures. I did make sure to post all the good ones here. I hope this becomes a guide for you if you ever were asked to play a character that felt like nails on a chalkboard to you. Perhaps this post can give you some insight as to what is bothering you, and how to find the source of the struggle. Then it might be easier to find ways through it.. Thanks for reading all of this. 

Blessed Be