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‘Paris.ae’: A professional Emirati cosplayer taking cues from Japanese fashion

“Paris.ae” shares her inspiration and passion for Cosplay as well the challenges that facing the cosplayers in the Middle East. (Supplied)
“Paris.ae” shares her inspiration and passion for Cosplay as well the challenges that facing the cosplayers in the Middle East. (Supplied)
“Paris.ae” shares her inspiration and passion for Cosplay as well the challenges that facing the cosplayers in the Middle East. (Supplied)
“Paris.ae” shares her inspiration and passion for Cosplay as well the challenges that facing the cosplayers in the Middle East. (Supplied)
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05 Jan 2023 04:01:40 GMT9
05 Jan 2023 04:01:40 GMT9

Amin Abbas 

DUBAI: Paris.ae is a professional Emirati cosplayer with unique talent and passion for Cosplay, gaming and fashion.

Speaking exclusively to Arab News Japan, Paris.ae shared her inspiration for Cosplay: “I was always fascinated by cosplayers when I was going on DeviantArt back in 2004, that’s when I was introduced to the idea of cosplay where you dress as a fictional character back at the day it was difficult to obtain cosplay clothes, so I pushed the idea on the side. When we had our first MEFCC 2012 back in Dubai International Marine Club, it was my first-time seeing cosplayers in the UAE. Still, I was too shy to even ask for a photo of the cosplayers. I thought at the time the cosplayers who were attending may flew to attend or were non-Arabs.”

“Around the end of 2018, I found out there are many Arab cosplayers especially from the Arabian Gulf, which surprised me even more as the Arabian Gulf area is known of being more conservative. At the time, I did cosplay once in Osaka March 2018 but wasn’t comfortable enough to do so in the UAE. In the same year, I found Vega Cosplay on Instagram and messaged him on how I was interested in being a cosplayer but I’m too shy to do so, to my surprise, he did respond and encouraged me to do so as there are many Arabian Gulf girls are cosplayers. So, I’m still thankful and grateful to him,” she added.

About her beginning in the Cosplay field, Paris.ae said: “I did it in Nipponbashi Street Festa March 2018, Osaka was happening during my visit. I thought why not join and experience cosplay for the first time! So, I bought 2B and attended the event. It was an interesting experience to see different cosplayers and how much time and effort they put into the cosplay.”

“My first project was being an idol in Lunar idols (previously known as Coralwave). At the time, there was no Idol groups in the middle East, and being part of it I was responsible for pushing the group to be part of events so I was dealing mostly with convention where I had to introduce them to the idols concept and let it be part of their event,” she added.

About the challenges that she faced during the projects that she worked on, Paris.ae said: “It was difficult to get convention on board with the idea but with more persistence and meetings it worked and I’m very happy how far the group grew and got. I had a vision to push the group even further to perform in the gulf region, but I had to leave the group to focus on my personal growth as a cosplayer.”

About the challenges that she faced during the projects that facing the cosplayers in the Middle East region, Paris.ae said: “I would say lack of support from gaming and anime industries. We see some companies are supporting the mainstream games such as league of legends or PUBG. I would love to see Square Enix, Konami or Capcom supporting cosplayers in the middle east who are into their games.”

About her inspiration for Japanese anime & manga, Paris.ae said: “When I was in middle school in the early 2000s, anime started to become popular among students where I had friends who had the same interest, so at the time one of my friends introduced me to manga that’s when I learned anime is actually coming from manga that been animated and not all manga get animated. So, with that she introduced me to ‘Hana Kimi.’ It still my favorite manga as it’s the first I’ve manga I read, as anime Hunter X Hunter still has a special place in my heart.”

About the most inspirational thing from Japanese culture that you have adapted into her daily life, Paris.ae said: “Their sense of fashion, Japanese girls are very fashionable. It really surprised me when I went to Tokyo, it changed my sense of fashion a lot.”

Paris.ae has visited Japan three times and she is looking to visit it again next year; she went to Tokyo in 2017 where she studied Japanese language for a month. Then again twice in 2018 where she had the opportunity to explore more cities like Osaka, Nara, Kawasaki, Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, and Nagano.

Regarding her upcoming projects, Paris.ae said: “Right now, I am working on a secret project that I’m extremely excited about that I don’t want to give details about but I’ll give a hint, it’s a female character with an armor.”

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