CATDOLL: A Japanese COSER insider revealed that his funding comes from "night work"

Now more and more people are beginning to like COSPLAY, and various COS activities, exhibitions, etc. are also increasing. But recently, a Japanese active COSER revealed that COS is not as glamorous as it seems on the surface. In fact, many Japanese COSERs have to do "night work" to get COS funding. It seems that as long as you like it, you have to invest a lot of money in it.

The picture has nothing to do with the article and the person in the picture is not the person involved.

This COSER's self-exposure is as follows:

Nice to meet you. My name is Mibo Rei (pseudonym), and I am an active COSER who is about to turn 30. I have been into COS for almost 10 years, but not all the things I encountered during this long time were happy. Sometimes I also saw the "darkness of COS".

What I want to say this time is that "among COSERs, there are many who work at night." To illustrate this fact, I will tell you about my first encounter with COS.

I learned the word COS in the winter of my third year in junior high school. I have loved animation since I can remember, so I also participated in some voice actor activities of my favorite works after junior high school. At that time, anime geeks were bullied in class, so I never confided in others. In addition, I failed the junior high school entrance examination and felt that I had caused a lot of trouble for my family. In the end, I simply found some female companions on the Internet and went to the doujinshi sales meeting without telling my parents.

The woman who went with me was my sister who was in high school at the time. She wore a COS costume on the day of the event. This was my first encounter with COS. After returning home, I researched various things about COS, and not only wore COS costumes, but also tried using props such as cosmetic contact lenses.

Later, I went to high school, and there were more and more like-minded classmates, so we often went to the Comic Market. The COSERS who participated in the Comic Market would take pictures with each other and communicate, and we often participated in it... Then I noticed a fact: other COSERS were closer to the characters in the works than I was. Specifically, not only in terms of makeup, but also in "posture" and "standing movements", etc., they were very professional, which opened the door to a new world for me.

The picture has nothing to do with the article and the person in the picture is not the person involved.

I was just doing it for fun, but before I knew it, I got deeply involved. After entering college, I spent all the money I earned from part-time jobs on COS, and I would definitely participate in COS events on weekends. At that time, there were not many types of props such as cosmetic contact lenses, and they were expensive. In order to save money, I also started to make related costumes and props myself. As my COS experience continued to accumulate, I began to have my own style. I would also communicate with others at events and discuss photo shoots with photographers. I increasingly wanted to be recognized by others, so I kept working hard. Now I have been in society for 5 years, and when I think about it, I have spent 1× years on COS. Now that I live alone, in addition to my main job, I also work part-time at an izakaya at night to earn COS fees.

But to be honest, many COSERs are engaged in "night work". In order to COS a character, I will collect various CDs, character peripherals, etc. as reference materials, so I also need to work at night to earn money. And my friend is publishing COS photo albums and CDs. In order to meet the cost of the costumes, she even became a bar girl. To put it bluntly, hobbies cost money.

I heard from a friend who works as a bar girl that when she holds a Christmas party in her store, she would see people posing in the costumes they made. Naturally, they are all COSERs. I remember NHK reported about COS a few days ago, and used words like "the darkness of COS". But in fact, this is not wrong. After all, COS is a hobby that consumes time and money. As women, we still feel a little uneasy when we think about the future. But we can't give up this hobby, so we fall into a vicious circle...

When we grow up, we can't just live on our hobbies. In a sense, I'm bound by the curse of COS. But even though I'm scared, I still go to COS events on weekends (laughs).

Many netizens also expressed their opinions on her self-exposure. After reading these comments, have you gained a new understanding of COS?

"After all, you can't make money from COS... From the cost of costumes to makeup, etc., it's a huge amount of money."

"I think this is true... Although it happened a long time ago, there are indeed some girls around me who work part-time at night for COS."

"As long as they are not engaged in pornographic services, there is nothing to criticize, right? But recently, it seems that more and more COSERS are doing this kind of thing..."

"In fact, being able to work hard for one's own interests is something that people envy and respect."