During C2AGE X-Treme 2017, the MAGIC RAIN team had the pleasure of interviewing Kaotsun and Lexiikat, who both hails from Australia.
If you’ve not heard of this duo before, Kaotsun has been cover dancing on youtube as kaotsun since 2006 and actually started cosplaying properly since she was invited to C2AGE 2014 as a special guest. On the other hand, Lexiikat started dancing in 2008 and joined KCDC (Kaotsun’s Cover Dance Crew) for Kpop dancing in 2012. Then later with the crew’s influence, she started watching anime and cosplaying in 2015. She’s currently studying fashion full time.
[K – Kaotsun; L – LexiiKat]
Q: Is this your first time in Malaysia?
K: No, it’s my second time here. I was invited before for C2AGE 2014 as a random guest where I performed and interviewed some other guests but this time, I’m back as a proper guest! I also brought along my friend this time.
L: It’s my first time in Malaysia, my actual first time outside of Australia. It’s kinda surreal how I’m finally out of the country, like ‘Is this real?’. It’s really fun, I’m glad that I can now say that I’ve been overseas now. It’s really nice here, I like it!
Q: How did you find the experience in Malaysia so far?
K: Oh, we had banana leaf yesterday! I really liked it. The food was a little spicy for me though.
L: Yeah, that was really interesting, I liked the setup. I didn’t really find it spicy though as they were nice enough to tell us which sauces were spicy and which weren’t.
Q: How did the both of you get to know each other?
K: Back in 2011, I started teaching some K-pop dance classes so she came to my class and then I was asked to perform. I was like, ‘I don’t want to perform alone’ so I got some people from my dance class, started a dance crew (KCDC), and we started performing in Australia together. We then started performing in cosplays in 2015.
Q: Both of you are known for being dancers, cosplayers, etc. So how do you balance between cosplaying, dancing and your other priorities in life?
K: We don’t (laughs). It’s a really hectic life.
L: Yeah, it’s pretty hectic. Usually, some of us makes costumes outside of dance, but when it comes to cosplaying in KCDC, not all of us have the time to make our cosplays together so we usually order them online. Oh wait, we’ve made our Kamisama Hajimemashite (Kamisama Kiss) costumes but usually, we’d have to start quite early if we want to make our own costumes. It’s because we then have practice every Sunday, Kaotsun works full-time and I study full-time. A lot of us are either students or working full-time, but it’s fun though. We’re never bored (laughs).
K: Oh, we also do both K-pop as well as J-pop. So we always have K-pop performances going on at the same time as our J-pop, so there’s so much practice to be done, so many costumes to make… We do this to ourselves (laughs and fist-bumps Lexiikat). But yeah, it’s a good life.
Q: From what you’ve experienced in Malaysia, is there a significant difference to how cosplays/conventions are done back in the Australia compared to Malaysia?
L: I’d say that there are more performances here and more variety. Like we do have panels and stuffs back home, but not a lot of performances. It really depends on the size of the convention, really.
K: It seems like we have the same things going on during the convention, but less in quantity.
Q: What are some of the limitations of cosplay in Australia?
K: I feel like Australia is really, really open to anything. You can really do anything.
L: I guess it’s just with anime, you can like a certain cosplay but it might be a really niche anime with a niche target audience. So you might want to cosplay your favourite character, but they won’t be as popular. Like if you want to perform something, you won’t be sure how many people in the room are fans of your cosplay so you have to choose.
K: Yeah, I kinda feel that Hotaru and Gin (from Hotarubi no Mori e) aren’t that popular. It’s pretty niche. So I feel that it’s kinda important to find the balance because we want to perform something that people can enjoy together with us. We did a Love Live! performance yesterday and the crowd went crazy.
L: And today, we decided to cosplay something more personal, but it might not be suitable for a performance. So it’s really important to be able to balance that.
If you missed their performance that day, watch it below!
Q: So just recently, our team (TMR) organized an event called Cosplay Commuter where you do group-based activities along different stops of a railway. Do you think this event would be possible back in your home country?
K: I haven’t been taking the train for years now (laughs).
L: It really depends on where you do it because there are some dodgy areas that wouldn’t be accepting. We were doing a filming in our Love Live! costumes once in public and someone drove past, and threw something at us. So it really depends on where the location would be. I reckon somewhere close to the city would be good place to do it, I think a lot of people would be interested.
Q: In Malaysia, some people cosplay by just wearing a wig and a costume without proper makeup and to some people, things like this are considered unacceptable. What do you think about this?
K: If you want to do that, that’s fine to me.
L: I get why some people would think that way, but maybe they do that because they don’t have the confidence to do makeup, maybe they’re still practicing or they just like the way they look in the costume. It still looks good without the makeup, honestly. I don’t think we get a lot of people actually expressing that kind of opinion.
K: We’re kinda among ourselves, more than in the real ACG community back home. So I think there’s actually a lot going on back there that we might not know.
L: I don’t hear about people getting picked on for things like that, we’re usually quite free. You can see someone with a casual costume with just a wig, and they still look good.
Q: How about your own personal pet peeves?
K: I believe in not judging anyone, really. Sometimes when we have to focus more on the dance, we have to buy our costumes online. We just don’t have the time to make it, and that’s just it, you know. It’s not really your choice or anything.
L: Like our cosplays we brought here, we had to buy it too!
K: (laughs) Yeah, it’s because our dance is too hard.
L: I keep my pet peeves to myself, because I can’t judge other people for the same thing. It’s your choice really to do what you want to do.
Q: How do you think cosplay will change 5 years from now?
K: I think it’ll just keep growing and growing and growing. Everyone’s just getting really amazing at what they do. I feel like it’ll just keep getting better, hopefully into a more free community. I feel like there are still a lot of issues going on within the cosplay community. Sometimes… I just wish people will not care as much.
L: This is going to sound terrible, but a lot of the time, it’s the younger people that sort of starts things and I feel it’s because… they haven’t fully grasp the meaning of life yet (laughs). I haven’t experience too much of those yet though as we usually just stick to our crew.
K: But I kinda feel like we are… hmm, it’s gonna have to go both ways, you know. More people are going to learn to not care as much and some people are just going to keep caring too much, but yeah, I hope that things would improve in the future.
Q: What are your aspirations in the future, in terms of both your dancing and cosplays?
K: Recently, because of Love Live! and everything, a lot of people at conventions have started dancing in cosplay. So I feel that the dancing in cosplay aspect has been growing.
L: We actually do quite a few K-pop and cosplay mashups which are really fun.
K: Yeah, so we hope to be able to bring that in into the ACG community, hopefully. Because we do both K-pop and J-pop, like we do a BTS song in Attack on Titan attires and sometimes we get people who just don’t understand why we do that. Like why not? We love them both. Some people will go, “No, don’t mix them. They’re not supposed to be mixed together”. That’s just being so judgemental. Can’t we just do what we love?
L: It’s mainly the positive comments that we try to focus on. Most people love it though! Oh, I also think that it’ll be cool if we get to make costumes as a crew.
K: Where are we going to find time?? (laughs)
L: I’d personally like to make more of my own costumes in the future. ‘Cause right now, I’m studying fashion and I have to make stuffs for my course and sometimes for cosplay. So I sometimes buy and sometimes make them myself, but I’m going to be graduating by the end of this year. I do try to slip in cosplays to my studies, like if I have to make another skirt, I can finish half of a Love Live! costume (laughs).
K: I had to make some of my cosplays and that was really fun. It’s always worth it in the end. I really wish I could do more, but I really have not had the time to do it.
L: Yeah, she’s like the busiest person ever (laughs).
Q: What advice would you give to any aspiring cosplayer or dancer?
L: If you start off and if you don’t think that you’re great, like you look into the mirror and be like, ‘Ugh, I’m crap’, just don’t give up. ‘Cause for my first cosplay, I didn’t think I looked good, but you’ll get better. You can’t start off great, but keep practicing. Just never give up and don’t let judgemental people get to you.
K: As for me, the one advice that I’ve been giving when anyone asked, in particular to dancing, is confidence. It’s because it shows when you’re performing. I feel like that’s what livens up the stage, even if you’re performing in a group or by yourself. If you don’t have the confidence, you won’t really improve. So I think it’s just important that you believe in yourself first that you can do it and then from that, start improving. So I think this applies to both cosplay and dancing.
Check out their amazing dance cover of Dope by BTS in Attack on Titan costumes!
With that, we’d like to thank both Kaotsun and Lexiikat for their time! We had a great time interviewing them and we hope the best for whatever they decide to pursue in the future.
If you’d like to know more about Kaotsun and Lexiikat, check them out at: –
Kaotsun’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaotsun/
Lexiikat’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexiiKat/
Kaotsun’s Cover Dance Crew (KCDC): https://www.facebook.com/kaotsunscoverdancecrew/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmVLrj-1ywRdw1rDexHa2BQ
