Anime Heres: gintama

When I first saw our club, Otaku Geirin’s mascot, Gintama’s Elizabeth back in a cosplay competition held in a local mall, I was curios what is the feeling being inside in the suit… until yesterday.

To those who don’t know her or him, Elizabeth is a character from Gintama who is always being accompanied by Katsura. Elizabeth is a large duck that never speaks that walks. That’s all you need to know.

Before I updated this blog yesterday, to those who read my Plurk entry, I accompanied the first guy who wore the suit for us to promote our club’s Movie Room. Aside from being crowded by curios students who don’t have an idea or has a slight idea about who is Elizabeth, they took pictures with her, and in some point, chased people around especially girls, and hugging others and be hugged. The guy on the suit got tired and so am I. In my own opinion, our promotion for the Movie Room failed. Only a few of them neither noticed our films nor took pay attention on the film that is being showed, 5 cm per Second.

After eating my lunch, do some things in the cosplay café and update this blog, out of boredom and curiosity (Here we go again.), I decided to wear the suit. While on the suit, I decided to roam around the campus and learn one of the perks while inside a costume. You can hug the girl you like without her noticing you. In short, I suck expressing a girl with my feelings. :P

Aaaanyways, I roam around the campus while trying my best to balance the suit. The problem with the suit, even if you have a rather blurry vision on the surroundings is that you can have the proper vision if you balance the suit in the right pose, in short, most of the time, my hands are always up so that I can see the way properly. It was tiring by the way.

While walking around, I decided to go to the arcade area in which, a couple of students decided to “harass” Elizabeth. How they “harass” her? Not by punching her or anything but by poking the poor bird off and trying to block her path. After leaving the arcade area, I noticed that my hair is ruining my vision on the surroundings, so I decided to return at the staff area at the café (Where I got the suit) and experience fresh air. Leaving the suit felt like I survived in hell. The suit was really hot, add the fact that you need to walk, raise your hands a little for you to have a better vision, plus, you need to exaggerate your movements a little so that people will notice your actions outside the suit.

After putting a bandana on my head to cover my hair, a friend of my and also a club member asked me to go to Jolibee (A nationwide fast food chain that luckily has a branch on my school) while wearing the suit… and she will pay for what I will order. Therefore, I seized the opportunity!

This were I decided to play with the crewmembers of the said fast food chain. What I did is wave at them, do some high fives and act rather childish on suit by pointing my order while in character. There is a part of me that I am not satisfied. So, I decided to roam around the Food Court and wave at the people around me, and played on some customers while some, wanted to take pictures of my character so, I gave them a chance. It was fun. After having my take-out, a cheeseburger meal and left my friends, while holding it, it felt like I am advertising from the said fast food chain while those who see me holding the plastic wanted to ask my snack and since my character doesn’t speak, I need to do some actions for them to know that I don’t want too.

After returning to the staff area and removed the suit and ate my order. Because of my “brilliant” mind, I thought a weird idea. Go inside the horror room while in suit. I invited my friend (The one who treated me in the fast food chain) to the horror room, and tell this weird idea to my fellow club mates. After dressing up as Elizabeth again, it is time to get this show on the road!

We payed the tickets for the horror room and since we pay for the tickets and those crew members near the horror room have no idea that a large white duck is around the area and it is not allowed, and we have the tickets, they have no choice but to let us in.

While inside the suit waiting, this is when horror struck. My nose started running in a higher rate unlike earlier in which I can still control. It was both a mix of extreme perspiration and a strong case of runny nose. My friend asks me if I am sure with this idea, since we are already here, and since this is “brilliant” idea anyway, GO!

At last, it’s our turn to enter the room. Like last time I entered the horror room last year as myself, it is still boring to me. The only good thing inside the horror room is that it is air-conditioned and I can relax a little bit while in suit. After feeling some random monster pulling my legs, or some random monster “jumping” on my face, it was not a terrifying experience… until about four of them started pulling me! The pulled all the limbs off my body that the damage from raising my arms while in suit became rather worst! At last, I left the room and then I hummed in my head the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare and jumped around! After having some people asked to take pictures with Elizabeth, I returned to the staff area, returned to normal, and started to act normal like nothing happened while experiencing some aches because of wearing the costume.

While on suit, it made me realize how hard it is to be on costume, especially if you are a suit actor for a tokusatsu show. Now I understand how Seiji Tekaiwa, Eitoku and Jiro Okamoto felt. There job is much harder compared to what I did… especially Tekaiwa considering he had a bad vision on the surroundings while filming Kamen Rider Decade!

Aside from that, I realized how those fast food chain mascots felt. Unlike me, they need to wear a large head that they need to balance and some of those has those movable eyelashes that I don’t have any idea how they moved it.

Because of this, I realize the reward being a suit actor, if you see others smile because of you being inside a suit, it eases the pain on having a blurry vision or the pain of having your arms raised for quite some time. It was both a fun and a rewarding experience. Because of this, for my pain to be at ease, I decided to do some ways so that I would be a little comfortable while in suit for tomorrow… after watching Kamikaze Girls and The Girl Who Leaped through Time!

Anime Heres

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Suit Acting as Gintama’s Elizabeth

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Even More Gintama

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Gintama

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