Attack on Titan Cosplay!

Hi! My name is Katherine, but you can call me Kat. I’m a new writer for G33kpron (and the youngest I think), a huge anime fan and I’m about to tell you about my first cosplay build that I wore at Toronto Comicon’s AnimeCon.

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin, lit. “Advancing Giants”), is a Japanese manga series following the story of Eren Yeager, his adopted sister Mikasa Ackerman, and their friend Armin Arlert. After the outermost Wall is breached by Titans, including the 60-meter tall skinless Colossus Titan and the abnormally intelligent Armored Titan, and his mother dying in the resulting destruction, Eren vows revenge against the Titans and later enlists in the military, accompanied by Mikasa and Armin.

The tv series, which only started airing episodes at the beginning of April 2013, already has a huge fan base worldwide. A video game followed in Japan on December 5th for the 3DS, but no Western release has been announced as of yet.

I surprisingly didn’t come into contact with this series via the manga, which would usually be my thing, instead it was the tv show. Once I saw the first episode, I was hooked! I couldn’t stop until I saw all the episodes and read all 52 chapters of the manga. Once I’d gotten through all the material and the obsession was fully integrated, I tried to get my mother to watch this amazing anime. She saw the first episode and had had enough. All she kept yelling was, “They have no genitals!”. The titans creeped her out so much, she just refused to watch anymore.

Luckily, my mom had been kind enough to indulge me and help me build an Attack on Titan Survey uniform so I can cosplay it at AnimeCon that happened in December 2013. Ok, so this isn’t my first cosplay (I’ve worn an Arya Stark of Game of Thrones Cosplay that my mom built) but this is my first build with help that something I wanted and mostly made by me. My mom cosplays as well and she always insists that cosplayers should try to play to their natural attributes. I chose Ymir since I at least have her hair, that is… after I got my mom to cut my bangs to match. Yes, we’re THAT serious about our cosplay.

I managed to find white skinny jeans, brown boots, shirt and a jacket which is pretty much an EXACT replica (even if it was a bit small for me) all over the counter so I didn’t have to make them! Woot!

Now that I have all the clothing, I just need the bonda–I mean, harness… Yeah! That…

I went to my mom to help build the strap system that basically ran from head to toe. She used stuff that was made of a pvc/pleather type material. It took less time than I was expecting to make them. Then again I have never built something for a costume before and my mom did most of the work, she’s a pro, so it went way faster. We didn’t need to make any seams, just cut the straps out and sew them all together and add buckles, the back plate, an old pair of black suspenders and voila!

The day of the Anime Convention I ran into a TON of other people cosplaying Attack on Titan. I’m not really surprised as it’s really popular right now. What I found out when we got there is that they ALL bought their costumes online. Not one of them made theirs! I felt a little cheesy having made mine amongst a ton of girls that paid a lot of money to buy the version sold online. That was until I mentioned to one of the cosplayers that my outfit was made by my mom. Then they were all over me asking questions about how we did it! Mine looked just as good as all of theirs, and they made me feel very welcome. Lots of squishy hugs were had. 🙂

HUGE thanks to my mom for helping me make my wish come true on my Attack on Titan Cosplay!

Next project: Building the 3D maneuver gear or what my mom so lovingly nicknamed… THE TOASTERS!

Note: You’ll notice that I didn’t actually wear the jacket. Why you ask? Well, we had considered painting the crests that needed to be on it, but my mom found machine stitched crests on eBay! Yay? Well, it would’ve been yay if they had come in the mail in time to apply them. -_- Oh well, they’ll be added to the jacket and worn with the ‘toasters’.

Here are some pics from the day of the Anime Convention: