Friday the 27th of October, saw the beginning of MCM London 2017, a weekend filled with Movies, comics, manga, cosplaying and all things nerdy!
MCM which stands for ‘Movies, Comics and Manga’, (often referred to as comiccon, the overarching branch of these particular conventions) is a three day convention celebrating everything nerdy; with stalls, artist alleys, panels, celebrity guests, activities, and people cosplaying as their favourite characters. The London event always takes place in the Excel centre, and takes places inside the centre, as well as outside the centre. Many people also organise fringe activities, such as meet ups for particular fan bases; this time round I watched the unofficial Square Enix (known for videogames Final fantasy, kingdom hearts etc,.) meet take place on all three days of the convention.
Vincent Valentine, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy
I’ve been attending MCM for a while now, intermittently, sometimes cosplaying, sometimes not. More than anything, the convention has provided me with a space to connect with friends that I don’t get to see very often, and to also meet new friends . It has always mainly been about spending time with my friends for me. However each time the convention rolls around, I find myself spending less and less time with my friends, and more time running around the convention like a headless chicken. I promised myself that this time was going to be different!
This time I went to MCM on behalf of Amaliah to cover the weekend and meet different types of cosplayers! I was especially keen to meet hijabi/modest cosplayers, as someone who always takes modesty and faith in to consideration when planning own my own cosplays. For me, I’ve always enjoyed the process of planning and conceptualising my cosplays with my friends, seeing how I could tweak them, add more to them to make it something I’d feel comfortable wearing.
The characters I normally cosplay are generally covered, some only needing minor tweaks and adjustments. For the Friday and Saturday, my friend Danielle of StarKey studios designed Alice in wonderland characters as D&D classes (Dungeons & Dragons, an RPG game) for us. For herself she designed an elaborate and gorgeous Warrior version of the queen of hearts, complete with a battleaxe made using a cane. She also designed a ranger version of Alice for me, complete with a perfectly colour matched piece of hip armour and pouldron, a quiver of arrows, and a bow (that she made in five minutes at the back of her van from an umbrella). I wore all of that on top of an Alice dress, that another one of my friends had made for my birthday last year (she made it specially for me so that it was quite long and loose fitting, and gave me a petticoat to wear underneath).
Pictures by Ickle Cosplay
On Sunday I rewore a Mulan cosplay (the outfit she wears at the end of the Disney film) that I had made with the help of my friends (a lot of help from my friends), for MCM last October.
Picture by Hoi Kanikaza Leung
Over the course of the weekend, I did actually manage to meet two amazing hijabi cosplayers, and talk to them about their experiences cosplaying at MCM – meet them below!
Melika Jeddi:
Melika Cosplaying as Daredevil – a character from the Marvel Universe
“I studied psychology, and I’m fascinated by the way our brains work. I’m a bit of an introvert – I love gaming, watching Netflix, and just chilling with my friends or my husband. I also really enjoy making Youtube videos for my two channels – Melika93 (my entertainment channel), and MuslimahMelika (where I share Islamic knowledge).
I’ve been cosplaying ever since I first started going to MCM, three years ago now, I think. Some of my friends from uni were going, and I’ve always been a bit of a nerd, so I thought I’d tag along and see what it was all about. I’d never heard of it before, but it sounded like it would be good fun! I think there were a number of reasons that I started – for one it felt like I’d be missing out on part of the experience if I went to MCM and didn’t cosplay, it felt like such an inherent part of the con. I also really enjoyed getting the costumes together; in the past I’ve been Batman, Green Arrow, Vanellope Von Schweetz, Rapunzel, and most recently Daredevil. I love figuring out how to incorporate my hijab into the cosplays, as it’s important for me to show that wearing a headscarf isn’t a barrier to having fun.
I think the best part was getting my Yugioh cards signed by the voice actors for Yugi and Kaiba, as I really love Yugioh. I also went to a talk by Anthony Mackie (Falcon) which was really funny.
I think the most memorable time for me was when I met Willa Holland who plays Thea in Arrow, whilst my husband and I were cosplaying as Deadshot and Green Arrow. She commented that our costumes looked great, which is pretty awesome as she’s in the show itself. She was so lovely, and even let me take a sneaky selfie with her!”
Fatima Kaiyum:
Fatima cosplaying as Kanon from the anime Naruto
“My name is Fatima, friends call me Farhana and my internet handle is usually a variation of “Aquaberry”. I’m Bengali by birth but grew up in Rome, Italy. I came to London for uni and now live here. I’ve had a passion for anime and videogames ever since I was (3 or) 4. I’ve always wanted to be a part of the stories I adored instead of living this normal, unmagical life!
At the moment, I am an aspiring Chemistry teacher (my favorite manga/anime of all time is actually Fullmetal Alchemist!). In my own time, I like to hype about my passions and lead the News Team at KH13.com, one of the top fansites for my favoritest thing that ever existed – the Kingdom Hearts videogame series.
Lightning from the videogame series Final Fantasy
I haven’t actually been cosplaying that long. I tried my luck at first in October 2014 at MCM Expo London; I went in as Tobi from Naruto. Made my own crappy mask that fell apart by the end of the day! Since then I’ve also cosplayed Hinata and Konan (also from Naruto), No Face, Aqua, and Lightning. I started cosplaying because I knew I was missing the fun. Although I started with a character that was relatively easy for me to do, I actually really liked that character, and every other character I did later. So yes, I started thinking, “What’s the easiest thing for me to do?” and ended up with, “What character do I love and/or identify myself with, whom I would also look pretty good/natural dressed as?” The first train ride to Comic Con as a cosplayer was very tough. Now I travel there like I own the roads!
I really liked this year’s October Comic Con because after going there for the last 4 years, I’ve not only become more confident, but also met a lot of wonderful people that I had the pleasure to see and hang out with again this time. I also co-hosted the Kingdom Hearts Cosplay Meet, and showed off a new cosplay I was quite proud of! I’m already planning on improving it even more for upcoming events such as Hyper Japan!
A lot of memorable things have actually happened to me while cosplaying at MCM. This time, for example, I was just hanging around in my Lightning cosplay when this guy with a melodica passed me by and played the first few notes of Victory Fanfare! So random and funny! I guess the memorable things are really references to the character I’m cosplaying. That’s why I wanted to start cosplaying in the first place; because I didn’t wanna miss this exclusive fun!”
I also had a chance to take a few pictures of other cosplays I really liked – here are a few;
@noodlecupcos as Anastasia
Ickle cosplay as Tifa Lockhart & StarKey Studios as Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy
@Gemma.ew as Holtzmann from the latest Ghostbusters movie
Overall, I had a really relaxed and fun time this time round at MCM London, and met some really talented and amazing cosplayers. But if theres one thing that this convention made realise, its that the best moments at MCM come from interactions I have with my friends while cosplaying, and from other cosplayers who recognise the characters I wear. This was only solidified after meeting Melika and Fatima; cosplaying brings people who enjoy the same things together , no matter who are, or what you do in your everyday life.
I hope that with future conventions, more people will be encouraged to cosplay and that we will see more hijabi cosplays at MCM!
Israa Abid
Israa is a Creative writing and English literature graduate, and currently volunteers for a few charities. In between her routine of nerding out over Dungeons and Dragons, and obsessively eating strawberries, she spends her time writing as much as she can.
