Li Nezha (Nataku)

Category: Fantasy

Inspiration: "Nataku" is the Japanese pronounciation of 哪吒 Nezha's name. The character is originally from a Chinese novel known as 封神榜 "Feng Shen Bang," which was adapted to Japanese manga form as 封神演義 "Feng Shen Yan Yi" (Japanese: Houshin Engi). The Nezha I am cosplaying as is from a very very very old Hong Kong live-action miniseries. As a child, I watched it with my maternal grandpa, and really loved the main character's outfits and attitude. By cosplaying Nezha, I hope to rekindle some of the great memories I had while watching the series with my grandpa. Nezha is actually played by a girl in the miniseries (the character is supposed to be androgynous!!), so I don't *really* consider this a true crossplay, but ehhh whatever. ;) You can see the opening theme song here.

Favorite Aspect: I love this character!! Also, since I did wushu for 5-6 years, I had lots of cool martial arts poses at my disposal for the people taking pictures of me. This is the first costume I ever sewed completely on my own, and it gave me a huge self-confidence boost in my sewing abilites. Particpating in the costume cabaret at JACON 2006 was a lot of fun! Thank you Garry for taking my picture (I love how you can see the back of my mantle in the mirror, hehe)!

Least Favorite Aspect: Of course, no one recognized my character. Because of that, I didn't get very many pictures taken of me. Boo...

Easiest Task: Spray-painting a hula hoop. Wheeeeeee!!

Hardest Task: The collar/cape/mantle (whatever you want to call it). It wasn't hard to make each petal, but the difficult part came when I tried to sew them all to the bias tape. Lacing the red string up the legs and getting my hair right was also quite a task. The string would fall down as I walked (plus they cut into my legs >_<), and it took at least half an hour to get my hair right.