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 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:14 pm
So, apparently, dressing up as anime people is big business over in Japan, as they have people who are Professional Cosplayers(and I'm not even kidding, when I say they're paid to dress as anime people). One such person I've stumbled upon, is one Arisa Mizuhara. ( This is her, wearing The Contacts Of Caucasian Coloring, and yes, her eyes are Western-sized In addition to modeling in costume for the media, crafting costumes for herself, and others, and being a hostess, she also offers one other particularly interesting service(taken straight from her Myspace page)... Arisa Mizuhara Are you in love with any anime heroine? I can cosplay as her and we go on a date! I have many costume for you to choose from (full list will be available soon). I can act the character very well and you will fulfil the fantasy to be with your favorite anime girl. As a psychologist in training, I can't even begin to fathom the kind of psychological impact this will have on the one taking her on a date. As a writer & researcher of cultures, I predict this will make whatever fanboy taking up her offer, that much more obsessed about their chosen character. As a plain ol' person, I think this, to be the equivalent of throwing yourself into a pool of hungry sharks and piranhas. What do you all think?
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:40 am
Koiyuki As a psychologist in training, I can't even begin to fathom the kind of psychological impact this will have on the one taking her on a date. Forget that. Anybody who would go out of his way to pay someone to pretend to be an anime character and go out on a date has got to have serious issues to begin with. And do people actually come forward and pay her for this dating service? I'd like to hope that it's just Arisa Mizuhara who has lost her marbles in her desperate search for more money and that nobody has made such a request . . . but then again Japan is full of downright horrifying weirdos. Count your blessings and thank whatever spiritual deity you believe in that a very large fraction (if not all) of America treats cosplay as nothing more than a personal hobby (and not a mainstream one, apart from the Halloween season, either) and that we don't get to see much of this "extreme cosplay" (if we can call it that) in our lives.
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Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:17 am
I think that offering such a service is prfoundly dangerous to her health. Anyone that obsessed with media very could have problems differing fantasy from reality.
They probably have a romantic obsession too and no one wants to reject someone with such deep seeded problems. You could have a murderer on your hands very shortly.
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:26 am
she's really cuuute!
And i agree with ~zzang~
Also, she never knows if they are a ***** or want to kill her, or rape her, she can end up in an awful situation, putting herself out there like that!
and yes, I geuss some people just want to do it, as a dream, like going on a date with a celebrity, but some people could become obsessed, andtake it way to seriously, and not realize, that she isnt into them.
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:00 pm
Konomi-chan and yes, I geuss some people just want to do it, as a dream, like going on a date with a celebrity, but some people could become obsessed, andtake it way to seriously, and not realize, that she isnt into them. But what gets me is how anybody could seriously (as opposed to just doing it for the lulz) treat a cosplayer as if the person really were a fictional character they would want to socialize with. Although, and let's be honest, all of us have probably uttered the phrase "Damn, if only he/she/it were real" after watching a movie or reading a book or whatever, none of us could ever convince ourselves that someone acting as a character actually is the character. The offered service is something on par with a five-year-old meeting Spongebob Squarepants at his birthday party. And, likewise, a person who seriously considers this service as a means of fulfilling a fantasy has to be so disillusioned (as successfully suspending disbelief on such a matter would be completely impossible for a normal person to accomplish) that they would have the mental capacity of a five-year-old. I have no doubt in my mind that anyone with romantic interests in fictional characters who would seek this service is both crazy and dangerous, but can someone this insane actually exist?
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:20 pm
Well, luckily for the majority of us out there, she's FAR too attractive to be attainable to the large number or drooling otaku out there. And even though we may see her as looking a lot like a character she's dressed up as, many otaku are LITERALLY IN LOVE WITH THE 2D character. They would see a cosplayer, no matter how good, as simply a false dress-up.
So, no. I don't think it will cause too many problems with her or with those she dates. It's about as silly as saying that if a person wears a Burger King outfit too much that they will think that they're the king of hamburgers, and that those who dates that person will think so too.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:08 pm
Eh, I know a guy who'd probably take her up on the offer. I know him from Magic: the Gathering; he's almost 18, but you wouldn't know it from how obnoxious he is. >.< I mean, he lives with his parents, he has no job, he got booted from school this year for taking too many sick-days, he's a habitual liar and he mostly plays video games or watches anime/manga for the vast majority of the day.
Bear in mind, I'm usually very tolerant of immaturity. In some semi-appropriate atmospheres, I go sofar as emulating it. But asking a waitress if he'd get charged extra for chugging a ketchup bottle, and then downing over half the thing in front of everyone? Having a pizza-face and not brushing his teeth (I'm serious; my friend took him and I along for a trip to a Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix. Not one toothbrush.)?
Yeah. I kind of need to draw the line here.
And while I doubt there are obsessive otaku/fanboys there who would take it to the extent of stalkerishness, rape, murder, etc. (And yes, I know they're out there- just not as many as some think)? Yeah, in some- perhaps many- cases, the fanboy will be even more obsessive. He'll likely save and pour more money into another date, immerse his life deeper into the subculture, or not even change his life in the least. It could bump his confidence with the opposite sex, or it could make him shun all others for the fantasy.
My point? I don't care. =B
I don't care that Ms. Mizuhara wants to play dress-up and give dates to otaku who couldn't even attract Koiyuki's aforementioned sharks and piranhas because she's 25, and if she wants to take money from nerds who really need to feel this fantasy in the flesh- either out of stupidity or loneliness? Hey, more power to her; she's old enough to be responsible for dealing with the stalkerish as much as the innocently shy people, and otaku are going to be otaku whether they go on a date with her or not. She's probably making more money out of each date then I do for several weeks of work.
As for the Myspace page- which I bumped into in order to double check her age- it hasn't been touched in months.
In conclusion, yeah, I might be a little callous about the cosplay shenanigans. I only did it once at Otakon '04, as Amarao from FLCL for a day, and I had fun with it- the fact that many femmes were dressed into lolicon attire was a strangely pleasing coincidence. ^-^; But in the end, some guys are so unattractive or inexperienced that they might need to do something like this just to bump their confidence. Others...Well, others are just plain disgusting and should be shot. Twice. But profiting from the desires and fantasies of others isn't a crime; it's a form of capitalism.
;B Dirty, diiiirty Capitalism..
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