Alodia: The face of cosplay

There was a time when people weren’t sure what cosplay was. If at all, it was trivialized and cosplayers were dismissed as “a bunch of people wearing silly costumes.” But things have changed since then, thanks to people like Alodia Gosiengfiao.

Alodia, 24, is the niece of the late film director Joey Gosiengfiao, who is her father’s first cousin. There are a lot of doctors in her family and she herself actually wanted to be a doctor once (Alodia took the college entrance exams for La Salle and Ateneo in Biology, both of which she passed) but after talking to a few of them, she changed her mind. “They said late na sila nag-start mag-work, mga 30 (years old) na, but for me, personally, dapat mag-settle down ka na around that time.”

Instead, she turned to Fine Arts and majored in Information Design. It was a perfect fit, because Alodia had always had a passion for the arts. Then in 2003, she discovered cosplay, which is short for costume role-play. It excited her, because it became an outlet for her love of art, and also of her interest in movies, Japanese animé and video games — and the longer she spent in the company of other cosplayers, the deeper her understanding of it became.

Explains Alodia: “Basically, it’s like having Halloween all year round, but other than that, cosplayers can make their own costumes, like we can craft our own props, and do our own makeup and hair, so it’s like a living art form. Instead of a canvas, kami na yung canvas mismo. So instead of pen and paper, yung buong body na namin ang dinadamitan.”

Once she discovered cosplay, there was no turning back. Alodia started joining competitions, and later moved on to judging them, both locally and internationally. Now there are groups all over the globe who have become part of this worldwide phenomenon.

What Alodia finds so fascinating about cosplay is that it fuses so many different art forms and allows people to be as creative as their imagination will allow in the designing of the costumes and props. Although there are some people who think that cosplay is limited to Japanese animé, inspiration can be drawn from practically anything, from movies to music. In Italy, there is a group of cosplayers who dress up like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry and perform onstage. “It’s actually a fusion of different arts like crafts-making, music, painting, lahat-lahat na na-combine,” she says.

When she was still new to cosplay, there was a point where her parents told her to stop because it was getting too expensive. “First of all, na-culture shock sila because it wasn’t really mainstream before. You don’t see it on TV, you don’t see it on the streets. Talagang kokonti kami before. Later on, natuwa sila because they would see us having fun during conventions. But after a while, sabi nila, stop cosplaying na, because it’s getting expensive. Kami kasi ang nagpo-produce ng costumes out of our own budget.”

Costumes can range from P1,000 to P2,000 and go up to as much as P30,000 depending on the materials used. In one competition that she judged in Australia, there was a contestant who spent about $3,000 on his costume. It was expensive, because the contestant molded acrylic and dyed it blue to make it look like ice. He bought materials little by little and didn’t realize that it had already reached that amount.

In Alodia’s case, her fascination with cosplay led to so many different opportunities. Because of cosplay, she bagged endorsements, film projects (she was in The Reunion as Julie, the girl who caused the problems in the barkada of Xian Lim, Enchong Dee, Kean Cipriano and Enrique Gil and she also played Sang Kang Kang, the ghost in the second KimmyDora movie) and TV guestings. She also hosted the local gag show LOL, short for Laugh Out Loud, with Luis Manzano.

She’s been written about countless times and has become something of a celebrity online. In the local cosplay community, she is often referred to as the “Queen of Cosplayers.” Her fame has also spread to other shores. Recently, a Hong Kong-based company created an Alodia doll, while in Japan, there are plans for her to record an album of songs in both Nippongo and English.

“Technically, it’s still a hobby, but some people are fortunate enough to get projects and to do it full-time. So it can actually become a career,” says Alodia, who has about 50 characters in her cosplay repertoire. We’re sure there will be plenty more.