How do you handle the realization that you are becoming too old for your favorite hobby?
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Yui Sakuma
Translation: Alethea Nibley & Athena Nibley
What They Say
26. Office worker. Secret Cosplayer
Twenty-six-year-old Nagisa Kataura has a secret. By all appearances, she’s an average temp-worker, but beneath her business-casual exterior she’s a devoted cosplayer. Transforming into her favorite anime and manga characters is her passion in life, and her hard work and creativity has earned Nagisa respect amongst her cosplay cohorts. But to the rest of society, her hobby is a silly fantasy, so she has to keep her two worlds separate. However, as demands from both sides of her life begin to increase, she may one day have to make a tough choice – what’s more important to her, cosplay or being “normal”
How do you fit in when you have to keep your biggest passion a secret?
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Technical:
This is an oversized A5 release from Kodansha Comics, and surprisingly it has six glossy color pages. Kodansha Comics isn’t known for doing much with the color releases, so this is a nice addition. This volume also has a lot of extras with the mangaka’s original short story concept for Complex Age, character design notes, a glossary of cosplay terms, and translator notes. The printing is clean throughout and the page alignment is good.
Sakuma’s art is a little rough at times with some awkward limb positions and backgrounds are mostly absent. It reminds me of mangaka in the earlier phases of their career. I would expect the art to tighten up over time.
The translation reads well and grammatical errors were absent. The original Japanese SFX and sign text remains with smaller English translations alongside.
Content:
Nagisa has a secret she keeps close to her at all times; she is a cosplay fanatic!
She isn’t just into cosplay, she loves it so much that she learned how to sew just so she could make her own costumes and cosplay more than she could if she bought professionally made costumes. Plus, Nagisa is a perfectionist, so she thinks poorly of professionally made mass-produced costumes.
The fact that Nagisa is a cosplayer and keeps her hobby a secret from her friends, coworkers, and parents isn’t the only thing she wrestles with in her life; she is also twenty-six and loves to cosplay as a petit girl character. The fact that she is getting older and tall for a woman begins to weigh on her as she realizes that she physically doesn’t match her favorite magical girl character. Then pile on the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, lives with her parents, and works a temp job and Nagisa has a lot to be depressed about.
But with all that, cosplay keeps Nagisa getting out of bed everyday. However, her becoming one of the oldest people to attend cosplay events only becomes more glaring when her cosplay group brings in two young girls eager to cosplay. One of these girls is the physical personification of Nagisa’s magical girl cosplay and it magnifies her second guessing of her ability to continue cosplaying. Then when she over hears someone at a cosplay event call her old, her self-doubt begins to spiral out of control. Will Nagisa’s best friend be able to step in and right her ship? Is this the beginning of the end for Nagisa and cosplaying?
This first volume also contains a short story Sakuma created as a precursor to Complex Age. This story focuses on a married woman in her mid-thirties that has been a Gothic Lolita for more than a decade. She is hardcore as she dresses up anytime she leaves the house, except for work where she does the office lady thing. It is a fun story because her husband loves her Lolita costuming and adds some welcome humor.
In Summary:
Complex Age is an appealing examination of cosplaying fandom and the trials of aging many women face. That is something to be said, considering I have never understood the appeal of cosplaying, nor am I a female. I am getting older, however, and I can certainly relate to the protagonist’s slow grappling with becoming too old for a hobby. Nagisa not only wrestles with being into a hobby many people have poor opinions of and she keeps secret from those in her life, but even within her hobby’s community she begins to become an outcast because of her older age and above average height. That is a brutal thing to experience as she physically ages beyond the youthful appearance of most anime characters that are cosplayed by fans.
I look forward to following Nagisa’s progression in this story as she will be faced with ignoring the opinions of others and continuing to do what she loves or accepting that she needs to quit her hobby.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: June 21st, 2016
MSRP: $12.99
