INTERVIEW: Yaya Han on new costumes, new conventions, new reality series

Yaya Han has helped cement the image of cosplayers, those dedicated fans who role-play their favorite characters at comic book, anime and manga conventions. In the industry, she’s seen as a legend, and now she’s showing off her costuming capabilities on the new Syfy series Heroes of Cosplay.

“I’m very excited,” Han said recently during a phone interview. “I’ve heard rumors that apparently I am portrayed as, you know, someone to aspire to in the community or in the industry, which I’m flattered. I personally don’t see myself as a legend. I think cosplay is too vast of an art form for there to be one legend. You know, there’s just a lot of great talent out there, and I think our show features some of the best. And it’s just an honor to be on the show and to be a part of it with everyone else.”

Han first entered the cosplaying world like many others: She was a fan of anime and manga when growing up. She said she never had aspirations of making professional costuming a career, but that’s exactly what it has become. She’s a common sight on the convention circuit, often judging cosplaying contests (or winning them herself).

“I grew up in Europe, and so like we didn’t really have Halloween,” she said. “So I didn’t know that you could dress up as characters and such, and when I entered the world 14 years ago, it was really just as a kid who wanted to go to conventions and share what I loved with others.”

At her first convention, Han saw cosplayers, and now she sees that experience as a revelation. She didn’t know how to sew or make costumes, but she was determined to enter this niche market. “I’ve always been a creative person. … Cosplay just took it a step further; [it] was doing art but on a three-dimensional level. So it was not just designing and putting it on paper; it was actually hands-on making a garment and styling a wig and making jewelry and props and such. And everything I learned was just from being self-taught, from just being very curious, from wanting to experiment, making lots of mistakes. And I just really got engulfed in the creativity and the fact that you can be creative in any way. There’s really no limit to it. That’s what’s so fascinating to me. You can do anything that you want.”

Citing cosplaying as her “favorite pastime,” Han first gained notoriety when she started competing in costume contests.

“That’s the thing, 10 years ago, there was no other way for cosplayers to be recognized,” she said. “You could wear a great costume in the halls, but there was no like photography. People didn’t have SLR cameras, and so you would just get grainy hallway shots. There was no way to post your photos online. We didn’t have the network of Facebook … that we do now. So where were cosplayers going to showcase their costumes? The only way was in front of an audience on a well-lit stage in a competition. So I started competing almost immediately after getting into cosplay.”

From those early ventures, Han branched off and gathered a group of fellow cosplayers who would often compete together. They would make costumes and choreograph their presentations. In turn, they became legendary, winning contests at top conventions over and over again. “There was about a year and a half where any convention I went to, I won best in show, to the point that conventions started noticing it,” she said. “And so the organizers would then ask me to stop competing and instead … judge. And that is how I became a judge because when I competed there weren’t very many cosplayers judging. There were actually really none. It was just whoever the guests at the conventions were that were like in the industry of anime or voice actors and such, and they would be the judges. So once conventions shifted to having cosplayers judge and costume designers judge, that’s when the craftsmanship really went up because those people really had an idea of what was important in a competition, not just how funny your skit was, or how big your costume looked on stage. It really was about how well did your costume look up close, and how does the inside look, how well constructed is it, and how much was actually homemade. And those [are] judging standards that I’ve always supported, and I’ve always tried to uphold, and that I hopefully will continue to uphold in Heroes of Cosplay and in the future because that’s very important to me.”

On average, Han attends as many as 25 conventions a year, calling cosplaying her job now. However, she is quick to point out that some don’t believe cosplaying can become a viable career. Skeptics have questioned her on how one can make a living, thinking something “shady” is going on. Han stays positive against the naysayers. “As someone who literally came to America to live the American dream, I can only say that I will continue to do my best to be a positive influence, and I will always support those who choose a path less taken and choose to do something for a living that they really love,” she said. “For me going to conventions is part of my jobs, but making costumes and traveling to cons is also still something I love. And my goal is to always find the right balance between enjoying my hobby but also enjoying my job, which is the same thing.”

Because of her status in the community, and the new fame that will come from the Syfy series, Han finds herself in a position offering feedback to new cosplayers. “I always encourage people to not just … look for answers that are handed to them but actually actively go out and seek the answers and really experiment on their own, find their own unique way of tackling the problem,” she said. “It’s so much more rewarding when you figure out a problem and you figure out how to make something versus someone telling you how to do it.”

She said newbies shouldn’t be intimidated by established cosplayers who have been around the convention circuit a long time. Han emphasized that any cosplayer should only cosplay for personal reasons. “You should never succumb to outside judgment or outside influences, and I try to talk to parents a lot about being involved with their kids’ cosplaying, and seeing it as a positive pastime. You know, instead of your kids being out there possibly doing drugs and getting into trouble, they’re home, they’re being creative, they’re making something. So that’s something that should be supported.”

Han first heard of Heroes of Cosplay three years ago. Initially she had a lot of questions about the mechanics of filming, but she signed up and now is thankful Syfy picked up the show. She said the Syfy audience is a good fit because of its exposure to conventions, geek culture and cosplaying. One of the best features about the show, in her mind, is that it focuses on the art form rather than the finished product.

“I think a lot of what is focused in cosplay is the glamor and is just, you know, the finished product of how great someone looks,” she said. “And I think that with our show you actually see the journey behind the scenes. … And I hope that the show will show people [that] these people who supposedly look all so amazing and make it look so effortless, they had to also work very hard to get to that point.”

One positive that might come from Heroes of Cosplay is a newfound interest in convention contests, which Han said are becoming events of the past. Making sure everything is ready to go for a large presentation is too much trouble for cosplayers who can easily snap a picture at home and post it on Facebook, she said.

“They don’t understand the rewards you get from being in a contest,” she said. “Whether you win or lose, it’s a life experience. It’s a challenge, and just rising to that challenge by entering is really important. And a lot of people for them it’s easier to just do a photo shoot and post it on Facebook. Bam, you’re done. People see it. They compliment you, and you move on to the next picture. But with costume contests, they are such a huge part of cosplay, and I would not be the cosplayer I am if I didn’t enter contests at the beginning.”

Fans of Han’s work can see her at this year’s Dragon Con in Atlanta (she herself is an Atlanta area resident) and Germany’s Connichi. She said traveling to Europe for cosplaying reminds her of the good old days of the convention scene. “I like to go back to Europe to sort of be among people who still share a lot of the same feelings as I do,” she said. “Because in the U.S., cosplay is becoming mainstream. There’s more fractions and more philosophies related to how people cosplay, and I think … having been in this community for so long, I still have a lot of longing for, you know, how things used to be. And so that’s why I go to Europe whenever I can because their cosplay scene is a little smaller still.”

Whatever the future holds for Han, there’s a good chance she’ll experience it as someone else.

“It’s a very interesting and unique culture to be in,” Han said. “I would never have regrets of choosing this niche or choosing this path because whenever I make a costume, the peacefulness that I get makes it completely rational for me to still be doing this. Because when it comes down to it, I like the process of making [a] costume and wearing it, and there is a moment of euphoria you feel when you put on a brand-new costume that you made yourself.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Heroes of Cosplay airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on Syfy. Click here for more information.