It really warms your heart to see more Japanese celebrities show their support for cosplay. It’s one of the flashier hobbies that anime fans can boast and is getting more popular by the day. Cosplay websites abound with fashion tips and suggestions for various costumes styles, poses, and makeup options for just about every conceivable costume on the market.
But AKB48 star, Haruka Shimazaki, might want to do a bit of rethinking before offering up her own anime makeup (AniMake for short) suggestions, as her most recent attempts caused a despairing cry to ring out from among her adoring fans…
This week Haruka’s followers waited with bated breath to get a look at her newest message from the AKB Video Center official YouTube channel, excited to see some cute pictures of their favorite idol in popular anime get-ups. In the past, she’s tried a few different costumes with varying degrees of success.
Her first attempt last May was Hatsune Miku, where she felt the need to add blobs of colored eyeliner to the bottoms of her eyelids in what we must assume was an attempt to make them appear both greener and more gigantic. The overall look wasn’t any cause for concern. Passable, and from a distance the strange extra green and white didn’t stand out too badly.
Then she tried Asuka Langley Soryu from the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. However, she decided to add crazily large eyelashes to her bottom lids, making her look like she got into a fight with a plastic surgeon. Not only did the effect do nothing to make her look more like an anime character, let alone the character she was cosplaying, but it also made her eyes look misshapen and creepy.
This time, though, fans had high hopes for her Sailor Moon cosplay. After all, how could someone mess up such an iconic character?
This is how:
The video starts by showing the makeup artist applying copious amounts of black eyeliner to just about everywhere around Haruka’s face except her eyelids. From there, we’re shown the final product: a strange reproduction of Usagi’s anime eyes drawn out on Haruka’s cheeks, brow, and eyelids.
Anguished cries that she’d gone “too far” and “robbed everyone of the happiness of simple costume play” were abound on the message boards when her new video of cosplay tips hit the net on September 1. Some found it funny. Others were crushed that the starlet would think that this much makeup was remotely attractive. Most just LOLed at the scary attempt to replicate a 2-D anime style on a flesh-and-blood human.
After such an outcry, will the intrepid cosplay-enthusiast try her hand at another character? Will she take her AniMake even further next time, or decide to tone it down now that her fans are making their rather grossed-out opinions known?
Only time will tell. In the meantime, let’s hope she doesn’t get any backlash from the real princess of the moon kingdom.
Reference: YouTube
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