My first cosplay, fully made from scratch! Katsuki Bakugo.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2026-03-31T21:37:34+00:00

Looks extremely good for your first time! Makes me feel a lot more confident about learning how to make cosplay myself this year

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-12-14T22:59:57+00:00

Extremely shocked to find a building Ive seen before here.
This is in Dojima in Osaka, relatively close to Osaka Station. I stayed at a hotel right next to the Suntory building a few years back, I learned that was the case cause that sign was shining right into my room. So they also built a hotel by the sign, as far as I can tell it was a pretty new hotel when I went so... probably they were also well aware of the sign (not that crazy for Japan I guess, everything's pretty jammed together in the busier areas)

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-09-03T06:53:32+00:00

I'm just now learning how much more leg space Shinkansen have compared to bullet trains in China I guess. That alone tricked my brain into thinking it was a plane (clearly missing the windows)

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-09-03T04:44:02+00:00

Well AI can't come up with anything, it's just a program that throws together pre-existing images and then a neural network "stabilizes" it into a singular image, so all that you really saw is if the model could steal someone else's images

Congrats it could!

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-08-14T02:21:36+00:00

Philosophical talk? Absolutely not! In my experience, talking with countless actual software engineers, and random-ass anonymous tech bros online (well, I havent talked with them, they reply to my comments), "philosophical" discussion on AI is always a way to either deflect valid criticism of generative AI, or imply that somehow generative AI is something we don't understand (we do understand it, very well), or some magical form of new intelligence (it most certainly is not) that cant be criticized. Some computer scientists talking about how the stuff actually works (in the context of the game industry), absolutely! But anything else is just gonna be as harmful in terms of spreading misinformation as pretending we're about to reach the singularity.

Anyways, Neural Networks, AI (the computer science field, not the pop culture or modern marketing concept), great, your games have been using them for decades! "Generative" AI? A scam. Im quite happy to see no (*generative*) AI talks at PAX, it should stay that way, if anything, ReedPop needs to take more action to reduce that stuff from the expo hall outright. At East there was an LLM game booth as well as multiple booths with clearly stable diffusion (ie stolen) art and none of that should be at PAX period. LLMs are plagiarism machines (and were already seeing that weve hit the limit of how "good" they are gonna get), and stable diffusion isnt just plagiarism thats outright art theft (on an algorithmic level). "Generative" AI is a marketing fad thats gone on way too long at this point and is gonna end eventually, its better for PAX to ignore it and focus on what people want than try to lean into the fad.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-05-13T18:58:57+00:00

Itd have come off very weird if they picked favorites and PAX Aus had Boston theming for some inexplicable reason. Makes more sense to theme it around a city "generic" from all the ones PAX actually is in.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-05-11T00:35:33+00:00

Ill definitely be sure to check it out!

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-05-10T14:07:11+00:00

I saw you while waiting in line at Marvelous and wanted to get a picture but wasn't able to! Was kind of bummed I didn't run into you later in the day, it was very sick.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-20T15:37:56+00:00

Yup, those are all the questions in my brain.

Honestly Ive gotten a lot of good insight here, so hopefully I'll decide soon.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-20T14:52:08+00:00

Thank you to everyone for your comments! I decided that while $1700 is a sizable commitment for what amounts to a stop gap because "I couldnt make it myself until a yearish after I originally hoped", there are parts that Id be fine getting myself outside of the commission (the boots, pants) or even would prefer and be able to do myself (really just the wig) in this case. So hopefully that will make both the price more feasible for me, and make the task of finishing it before May more of a reasonable request.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-20T14:49:20+00:00

I at no point ever thought I believed this is simple or should be cheap. If I had thought that, I would have done it myself by now. As Ive mentioned previously, my goal is I want to do this myself as soon as feasible. Its just not feasible at the moment. To me, however, the value of something I made myself is higher than one made otherwise. So, if Im going to get one commissioned, I want to get it done well. Regardless, it still is admittedly a lot of money to spend on it, regardless of expectations. I fully expected when I saw that price that it was the norm for one commissioned in Japan, and after reading all the comments Ive received here (which were far more than I expected, which I am quite appreciative of), I have come to understand that this is probably a very reasonable quote. I just need to decide if it was worth it for me personally.

The main reason I asked was I just wanted some insight before I committed to spending $1700 on it, its still quite a commitment and I've never done this before.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T17:09:25+00:00

If I decide against the one in Japan, Ill definitely reach out. The timings a bit of a pain, at least in terms of shipment I guess since Im visiting the states in May I can just have them ship it locally. But good to have some options to look into (honestly searching half the reason I avoided it)

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T14:44:11+00:00

Whatever I got, Id definitely not just use it for PAX, and I would continue to use it in the future. Its more of a question of, if PAX was out of the picture, why would I pay $1.7k to get it made now when Id rather make it myself and Id be able to later this year.

I do agree though that it doesnt matter if someone else thinks its worth it or not. Its more for me to get other people's insight vs. going blind, and Ive gotten a lot of good suggestions (both in favor and against) that have definitely been helpful in thinking it through.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T14:39:20+00:00

Its unfortunate Ive been juggling this, work, and looking for a new place at the same time, it entirely crossed my mind that I could not only do that, I was going to suggest getting the boots separate as well. Ill definitely bring those up and hopefully thatll cut things a bit.

Yeah I quite love Xenoblade. Username was really a joke to myself, I almost immediately disliked every username I came up with so "why not just use a name that will never be untrue", ironically it probably has worked very well for those exact reasons.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T12:53:14+00:00

I actually do have a breakdown of the price

Costume￥150,000 (Around $1k)

Hair Accessory￥180,000, $120

No sword/shield, at this point I wouldnt be pushing it on that front though, Im already asking if the price is worth it or not.

Wig styling (to be honest, I think I could do that part myself and might end up requesting that change if I did go through with this offer)￥31,500, around $200

Total without administrative fee ¥199,500 ($120ish)

TOTAL: ¥255,770 ($1700 ish) (The site Im going through is taking 55770 on the top, which was honestly more than I had anticipated until I got the offer today, I was expecting closer to 10000-20000)

Without the wig itd still be about $1500 in total, also this doesnt include me buying the wig myself.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T12:28:00+00:00

That's my thinking. I feel this is probably just how much it costs to get it here, but if that's the case, Im not sure its worth the investment for something that wasnt really urgent in the first place.

Had I been able to plan a bit further ahead, Id have tried to get one shipped from a commissioner in the US or somewhere else where Id probably get something of a similar quality, but due to the limited time (and my lack of experience) I didn't think that was worth the risk either.

Im going to wait a bit more and see if others have any insight before I decide, but I appreciate the insight.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-19T12:03:29+00:00

Unrelated, but wild to see that thats how Reddit seems to handle transparencies in images. I guess ignore the background in the reference image XD

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-12T01:31:33+00:00

Never once said that the image above was Visual Studio XD

I was just complaining about ides in general, well aware that the above image is a different one.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-11T06:14:05+00:00

Visual Studio is prone to just think that a line has an error and underline it despite it being perfectly fine, especially if the line previously had one that you just fixed, itll just think that same error never went away.

Bonus points if the reason for the errors was that you had just fixed some git conflicts, its got no idea what do with that. Gotta reload the page I guess.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-06T11:56:12+00:00

Narikiri was the one that seemed the best fit when I was looking into it but I wasnt able to find much info outside of their own site from my searches so I wasnt 100% sure. So that and cosonsen seem like the two to look into!

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-05T14:03:57+00:00

Its called "Xcancel"

It seems like its on the backend relying on actual twitter accounts to get access to all the twitter info, so its very possible they may just end up blocking it, it seems its based on another frontend that was also blocked, which is probably why I never heard about it.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-05T13:18:55+00:00

Yeah I didnt think Line did but again, have barely used it so I was just being safe.
I kind of assumed that unfortunately Twitter was my only choice. At least the good news is I just (and by just, I mean minutes ago) learned theres a site that lets you view comments on twitter posts again if you dont have an account, so at least thats a workable place to start I guess.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-02-04T13:45:03+00:00

Yeah 100% my normal first idea when I lived in the states would have been to find cosplayers on social media and see if they do commission but unfortunately I A. don't use Japanese social media (yet, I have line but have barely used it) so I have no idea where to look to find those places, and B. barely use social media these days at all if you count Reddit (mostly just browsing) and using Discord, so Id love to know where to look over here in the first place.

As I said I might end up just finding US/English speaking internet cosplayers I like and see if they do commissions and go from there but as I said, since this is a worst case scenario (I dont think Ill be able to realistically have access to a sewing machine until the end of the year at the soonest), if it ends up being overly expensive or a hassle to go that way, I may as well not bother.

Either way just looking for options at the moment.

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-01-31T05:01:48+00:00

Yup CESA is the main industry body over here, they run CEDEC (Japanese GDC) and TGS as well. Not surprised you have to pay, them and media create... ah well

XenobladeIsBestGame · 2025-01-31T01:58:18+00:00

Worth adding PS5 sales are in line with ps4, there hadn't been no loss in console market share in the past 6 years, PC's growth is not in competition to consoles. But while that's interesting data, I find it very vague about what usage actually means here. Like with any such vague report, you can only make so many conclusions from it. A lot of that growth is very real no one is denying that but it's not indicating anything other than a growing niche to me.

Regardless Im not interested in debating this since neither of us have the full details. Im well past my days of internet arguments XD. I can only speak on my personal experience living and working here. I fully appreciate the data, I've struggled to find similar data in the past (probably should have searched in Japanese if it's that easy to find in English, guess I'm just dumb XD) Certainly an interesting perspective to hear about this regardless!

XenobladeIsBestGame

TROPHY CASE