Miyazawa Yukino (宮沢 雪野)
About the character : Miyazawa Yukino (宮沢 雪野) is the main female character of the manga and anime series Kareshi Kanojyo no Jijyo (彼氏彼女の事情), which roughly translates to "His and Her Circumstances/Stories/Happenings". She appears to be a well-bred, kind, clever, pretty, good-at-everything class representative type of superhuman student, but is actually putting up a front in order to gain people's praises and recognition. A delightful and refreshing twist on the angsty troubled talented girl-stereotype found in a lot of shoujo anime and manga, Yukino delights in her supposed-hypocrisy and is really an amusing character to watch.
The anime is produced by Gainax and contains lots of delightful quirky animation tricks (which could just be the usual Gainax-run-out-of-money-tricks) as well as hilarious Evangelion spoofs. The manga, although with inconsistent art and very typical shoujo plotline in the beginning, soon matured into a well-developed story with lots of interesting side characters and a unique art style, as well as a very good ending and conclusion which the anime never gave.
Why her? : KareKano is one of my favourite anime back in 2001, and still is one of my favourites even now. I really loved the story and the comedic nature of the show, and Yukino as a character was a very "real" character with all her hypocrisy and petty thoughts sometimes. Back in 2001, I was still studying for my GCE O'levels, but a bunch of my friends told me about this thing called "cosplay" where you get to dress up as your favourite anime or manga character. It took me a while to figure out which character to cosplay, I was a total beginner at that point, but I remember distinctly choosing Yukino because she was one of my favourite characters at that time. It was only years after the cosplay that my friends told me that my boyfriend at that time and I reminded them of Arima and Yukino from the series.
About the costume : I had decided to do the most definitive Yukino costume, which is her winter uniform. It consists of a black blazer, white long-sleeved buttoned shirt, light blue tie, a short light blue pleated skirt with white lines to form checks, long black socks, mary jane shoes, and red short hair with hairclips. Being a total beginner, this should have been an easy costume to do, with most of it available off the shelves. But I didn't have money for a blazer, and last minute without the blazer and running out of time I did the summer uniform instead, which has a short-sleeved shirt instead.
First Appearance
Event : Miyuki Animation Club (MAC) Cosplay, December 2001.
About the cosplay : This was my very first cosplay, and yet I can still remember it as if it happened yesterday. To say the least, I was hooked from then on. ^_^ The bunch of friends that I went to the cosplay event with were all friends from an online fiction-writing group revolving around Rurouni Kenshin, with all of us cosplaying different characters from different animes. Hsin, my ex-boyfriend, cosplayed as a very impressive police-uniform Saitoh Hajime from Rurouni Kenshin, a character that he fitted very well, and a costume that I helped put together. To this day I still remember pinning on fake bangs onto his very short hair! *laugh* It was a truly memorable event, meeting all these people who had the same interests as me, and it was at this cosplay that I got to meet the bunch of friends that would be my cosplaying buddies and second family till now: they were a group of Rurouni Kenshin cosplayers that were so good they blew my mind! If I hadn't met them at that cosplay, I wonder whether I would have continued to cosplay till now... *smile*
Reprisals
Events : MAC Anime Screening, mid 2002 and Racial Harmony Day, mid 2003.
About the reprisals : Although I still knew nothing about sewing, one of my sister's jackets looked just like a navy school blazer, thus I managed to borrow it out to reprise the costume (well, technically I was doing the winter uniform now, which was another costume altogether) twice, once a few months after my first cosplay, at an anime screening held by the same organisers as the cosplay, and another time for Racial Harmony Day a year later, when my junior college allowed us to wear ethnic costumes (my excuse? I'm a "japanese" schoolgirl! *mischievous grin*). To be honest, I have yet to perfect this costume. I no longer have my sister's blazer, but now I know how to sew! One day I still want to reprise this costume, complete with a proper blazer and the right hair colour... One day... ^_^
Picture credits : Reference pictures taken from Anime Galleries dot net.