Let’s start the new year with a phenomenal Cosplayer of the Month. There are plenty of cosplayers on YouTube. But this talented lady stood out because of the subject of her videos; her adventures at conventions. All the way from Canada, here is Anya Panda!
You make amazing cosplay videos on YouTube! How do you come up with ideas for them?
Honestly most of my video ideas just kind of come out of nowhere while I’m at work. Whenever I come up with a new idea or remember a new story I want to tell, I write it down in a notebook I have that’s dedicated to video ideas. That way, I can just pull from that whenever I’m wanting to film something new.
In your experience, are cons any different in Canada than they are in the USA?
They definitely are. From my experiences going to US cons, as well as what I’ve seen of them online, US cons are on a far larger scale than any of the Canadian cons I’ve been to. The cosplay contests at US cons appear to be a lot bigger and more prestigious than those that I’ve seen and taken part in here in my area.
You cosplay a lot of cartoon characters. What are some of your favorite cartoons to watch and why?
I’m definitely a sucker for obscure 90s and 00s cartoons. Some of my absolute favourites are Extreme Ghostbusters, Fillmore!, and The Legend of Calamity Jane. They’re all fantastically written, have amazing and highly endearing characters, and are really progressive. They deserve so much more attention, it kills me that they aren’t better known.
What are the best and worst parts of vlogging at conventions?
I think the best part is having such a tangible record of my convention experiences. It’s amazing how much you forget as time goes on, so my friends and I really enjoy getting to look back through my vlogs and relive those events. The worst part is how troublesome vlogging can be, especially in the busy context of a con. I do my best to try and have a consistent amount of footage from a given con; however, that is a really challenging thing to achieve given how much you already have to keep track of when you’re cosplaying and con-going.
What is one of your most memorable moments cosplaying?
I think interactions with kids always make for some of the most memorable moments. I once had this little girl, I would say about 2 years old, at Emerald City Comic-Con run over to me while I was Raven and hugged me. Her parents went and took a photo of her with my Teen Titans group and I, and then she just clung to me the whole time and was reluctant to leave after — she was that excited. Given that Raven is a character that provided me a lot of strength and comfort when I was a kid, it meant a lot that this little girl was that happy to see my Raven.
What are some other cosplay concepts you are working on now or would like to
work on in the future?
My next project is going to be Adora from the 2018 She-Ra, as well as a secret Overwatch cosplay I’ve been slowly working on for a while. Aside from those, I’ll eventually be working on Marina from the 2003 animated Sinbad (another great underrated cartoon), and I also hope to do Ashe from Overwatch at some point soon because she’s amazing.
If you could cosplay with anyone in a cosplay photoshoot, who would it be?
There’s a handful of cosplayers that I really looked up to before I even started (IchigoKitty, Hopiechan, Hee-Hee, and Courtoon to name a few). They served as some really formative role models for my younger self just getting into cosplay, so if I had the privilege to shoot with any of them, that would be such an amazing full-circle kind of experience.
What is the next event we can expect to see you cosplay at?
It won’t be for a while unfortunately; my next con should be Tsukino-Con 2019 in the Winter.
What is your advice for those just getting into cosplay?
Focus on having fun with it. I think it’s really easy, especially now that cosplay has grown into a whole professional kind of industry, to get overwhelmed or worry about not cosplaying “correctly.” There is no right or wrong way to cosplay, it’s literally just about having fun and sharing love for fictional media, so just focus on keeping it enjoyable.
Where can we find you online?
You can find me on Instagram at @the_anyapanda, and on YouTube at youtube.com/anyapanda