Somewhere in the Malaysian city of Petaling Jaya, a 23-year-old man man murdered a 15-year-old girl and stuffed her body in a suitcase. But what was specifically jarring was the man’s love of the anime se­ries One Piece. Mostly because he’s famous among the Malaysian cosplay community and even helped many get more involved with both anime and cosplay in general.

A cosplayer who knew him personally couldn’t believe he did it, and even said that there weren’t even any “unsavory rumors” about him. Obviously this is a tragic event, and while his actions have hampered the local community, other cosplayers in the area have taken exception to the portrayal of cosplayers. A cosplayer by the name of Kyu-erien, who knew both the victim and the murderer for about five years, said it wasn’t fair to blame cosplay or the cosplay community itself. “If cosplay is to be blamed, then porn should be the subject of question as well. There are many things that might corrupt a person.”

The suspect (top) poses with three other girls during a cosplay photoshoot .

There was also concern that cosplay events in the area, such as conventions, might suffer knowing that some cosplayer was murdered seemingly out of the blue. They’re right about not portraying/framing the entire cosplay community like this, though. The source article isn’t about some serial killer who dresses up in costume and/or goes around killing other cosplayers. It’s just some guy who murdered someone who had a similar hobby as he. There’s no mention of what his motive was, or what kind of problems he had leading up to the murder; hopefully this will be just some random, isolated incident and won’t be indicative of any problems in the future.

It’s usually a good thing to have a killer cosplay (I’ll let myself out…)

Ari Rockefeller

When he is not training Pokémon and being the very best, the Master of the Written Word churns out convention, video game, anime and movie reviews like clockwork. No one is more productive and dangerous with a pen and paper (or, in this case, a keyboard).

More Posts

Follow Me: