Italian cosplay girl Naccho accepts our interview today. It’s a pleasure for us :D. Welcome, Naccho!
Q: Please introduce yourself first.
Hello, everyone! I’m Naccho (my real name is Ilaria) and I’m 20. I live in Lecce, Italy and I’m currently studying foreign languages (English-Japanese contingent) in university. I’m lazy, very lazy. I love to eat, a lot. That’s why I don’t have a proper thin figure, but who cares! 😀 I love to draw, sing, play, write, Korean/Japanese dramas and cosplay, manga and anime, of course~
Q: What does cosplay mean to you?
Cosplay to me is a form of art. I just love all kind of arts since I love to draw, sing, play… and cosplay is just a kind of mixture of the things I love to do. The first thing I love about cosplay is to play the character. Understand him/her and playing the role perfectly, indentify myself with it. It’s something really gratifying, being able to play the characters you love and act like them with people who understand you and don’t think you’re hopelessly crazy :D!
Q: What and when was your first cosplay?
My very very first cosplay was Mifuyu Mizukagami from CLAMP gakuen kaikigenshou kenkyoukai jiken file, I only wore it in my house. I made it with a blouse and a shirt my mom had and I was of course without wig. This character has a looong and big braid and of course my hair weren’t long enough! But the first cosplay I wore at a convention was Nana, from Nana, at Romics 2005. I was again without wig and I was more fat than I am now, it was a really cosplay-fail! In fact I was uncomfortable all day. This restrained me doing any cosplay up to 2007.
Q: What is your most memorable cosplay experience?
Every time I do a cosplay group with my friend is a memorable experience. I don’t really like doing cosplay all alone because every series has a lot of characters and cosplaying it alone makes me lonely. But, now you make me think of it, my most memorable experience was when I first met the one is my best friend now.
It was Naples Comicon 2009 and it was on a strangely VERY HOT day of April. I was on my Deidara from Naruto cosplay, me and my friends arrived near the Comicon entrance gate but the people in charge of the tickets closed the gates because there were too many people and cosplayer inside the convention (it was a castle and most of the people couldn’t fit in it). It was most likely 3pm and I was DYING from heat. Everyone was disappointed and angry, me too. But then, one of my friends said: “Look! It’s a Kaito (from Vocaloid) cosplayer!”
I was so tired, hot, annoyed and pissed off. We travelled from Bari all the morning to be there and not being able to enter just made me more pissed. So pissed that I shouted “WHO THE HECK (I used a more colorful expression than this) CARES ABOUT KAITO! I’m hot, I’m tired, I JUST WANT TO GO IN!”
That Kaito was the one who is my best friend XDD I meet her again later and we found we lived in the same region (I was from Bari, she was from Lecce, in Puglia.) And we became friends. Later, when I started university, I moved to Lecce all by myself and now we live in the same apartment block. We always (and I mean, ALWAYS) do cosplay together. She can sew and we both can style wigs, I’m trying to learn how to do arms and accessories. We always support each other! I’m very glad my other friends noticed her cosplay. If it wasn’t for it I would have never met my precious friend!
Q: What’s your favorite photo shoot?
My favorite photo shoot? I don’t often do photo shoot but my favorite is absolutely the one we made with our Fresh Pretty Cure group! We were so cheerful that day, we also won the best group award with our performance~ I was so happy that day, and my friend really made good photos. You can see all photos here.
Q: What’s your favorite anime/manga/game character to cosplay as?
We can say my favorite character to cosplay as is Sora from Kingdom Hearts. It’s my cosplay dream, I always wanted to do his cosplay but I always gave it up because I was too fat. I lose some kgs and now I’m confident I can cosplay him without ridicule the character I love so much. I want to do every version of him, I can’t wait for the new KH3D game to come out *w* I already made the KHII valor form costume, though the most difficult task is to find a style a good wig for him. My first Sora wig was a really fail, I want to cosplay him nearly perfectly.
The same goes for Rei Kong from Beyblade. It was one of my first anime crush when I was in middle school. I and my best friend (cosplaying Max) are planning to do it just on march 2012. Can’t wait for it!
Q: Any cosplay plan in future?
Aw, I have a LOT of plans. I have all the 2012 year already occupied! The next cosplays I’m going to do till the end of 2011 are Yukina Kou from Sekaiichi Hatsukoi and Nezumi from No.6 (LOL. only BL series XD)
My plans for 2012 are: Cain from Starfighter, Rei Kong from Beyblade, Sora -base form- from Kingdom Hearts II, Lina Inverse from Slayers, Cure Melody from Suite Pretty Cure, Ittoki Ootoya from Uta no Prince-sama, Kanba Takakura from Mawaru Penguindrum, Karina Lyle from Tiger & Bunny, Kaito cantarella version, Sakura Kinomoto from Card Captor Sakura, Prince Crescendo from Eternal Sonata (THE CHALLENGE OF MY LIFE) and Misha from Pita Ten. Too many? I know. But with my best friend help, we’re going to make them all!
Q: Do you make your costumes yourself or buy them?
I can’t sew and I don’t have the time/will to learn it. I just don’t want! I have more interesting things to do such as drawing, singing, writing, playing piano and STUDYING XD I often buy them or get the help of my best friend to make them.
I just don’t get why people are so obsessive about sewing their cosplay. If you can’t play the character you choose well, even if you have the best costume made by yourself you lost the sense and meaning of cosplay.
I don’t know in other countries but here in Italy there’s this kind of belief: if you don’t sew the cosplay yourself you’re not a real cosplayer. Well, I’m sorry if I’m not a real cosplayer! I don’t really care, I have most interesting things to do in my life and I only want to have fun with my friends. I also want to do a good cosplay, but I just can’t/don’t want to sew. My best friend can sew and she NEVER looked down on me because I can’t sew or I don’t want to learn. Quite the contract, she often helps me finding on ebay the things I need, or she offers to sew the cosplays I want to do herself.
Q: Any other cosplayers you like?
I don’t know many Italian and foreign well-known cosplayers. I think my best friend is one of the best cosplayers I ever saw. I like Yuriko Tiger a lot, Mana Saya Takagi and Federica Chiantini, I think the cosplay they do are nearly perfect and I admire them a lot. For the foreign ones the only one I know is Haruhi Nazakura who is one of my Japanese friends who did some of the most beautiful Hetalia cosplay I saw.
Q: Do some changes happen to you after cosplay?
It depends. Sometimes I just want to cosplay more, sometimes I just want to give up because, in Italy, the cosplay world is starting to be unbearable. Hate, rancour, hostility, heated competition on which cosplay is better than another, people just could sell their soul in order to win even a small competition in even smallest conventions. And if they don’t win they start to bashing the cosplayers who won, the judges, the organization… It’s really something I can’t stand and when I see these things I want to quit and don’t ever do cosplay anymore, because I happen to organize some of the events we have in Puglia. I just want to take away the small events we have here, in order to make them understand they don’t have to kill themselves to win a contest. That’s not the meaning of cosplay!
Q: Any advice you wanna share with cosplay newbies?
The same as before: you don’t do cosplay in order to win contests. If you started cosplay because you want to win or being famous, you better end your career here. You do cosplay because you WANT it, because you want to play that character(s) you love so much, because you want to be with your friends and have fun, going to convention, buying everything your-favorite-anime-related you could, share it with your friends, make photos. You just have to HAVE FUN. You don’t have to eat your heart out because you can’t win on a convention, you can’t mortify yourself because you want to be a well-known cosplayer at all costs. Can’t you see yourself in the mirror? Don’t you are feared of what you’ve become or what you’re going to become? Please, just do cosplay for yourself and your friends, not for showing everyone else you’re good. It’s better showing you’re having fun than showing you’re dying for that prize on that competition.
