Kawa (@kawa__ii on Instagram) is a DC area cosplayer with over 10 years of experience cosplaying a wide range of characters from anime and video games. Her love for the hobby began at 10 years old when she and her classmates attempted to dress up as Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts, and it only grew from there. She excels at sewing, wig making, and prop design, but is always expanding her skill set with new trades. Kawa recently won her first beginner's level cosplay contest at Cosplay World 2023 and hopes to compete again in the near future. 

Kawa at a young age was very interested in the game Kingdom Hearts, and saw others dressing up as the characters online. However, she did not actually begin cosplaying until she was 12 years old when she decided to do the character Shinku from Rozen Maiden. Kawa states that this also where her love for altering outfits came from. 

More recently, Kawa explains that her hardest build was her build for the character Kaveh from Genshin Impact, which she actually won her cosplay award for back in 2023. "I made Kaveh's outfit in three months, and then went on to [use] an additional three months to make the prop" Kawa says. The reason this particular prop, being Kaveh's robot briefcase, took so long was due to the technical elements involved with it. In the game, this briefcase shows different emotions, and so to emulate this, Kawa states that she "...relearned Python coding to do this project and learned how to use an RPI (Raspberry PI)." From 3D printing the case itself, to coding the emotions for its face, Kawa says she may have outdid herself, but she doesn't regret the work that she placed into the project. 

Because Kawa is big on small details, she explains that she got very interested in making clothes for her dolls that match her cosplays. "I started doing them because there just was a lack of character clothes to match dolls" Kawa says. She also goes on to say that these clothes have gone on to be a trademark of her cosplay style, and she has become known for bringing her dolls to conventions with her that have similar outfits to her. "I believe that this also stems from the fact that I used to be an American Doll collector" Kawa states. "...a big thing about them is that they have clothes that will match you...And it is such a cute thing, and I think I never got over that."

On top of her own cosplays, Kawa also does comissions for others. This is when people will pay her to do small pieces of the cosplay, such as wig styling, small sewing projects, and prop making, so they don't have to do it themselves if they don't want the hassel of making it themselves. Kawa states that her comissions started out as doing small projects for her friends to pay off her hotel costs for cons, but the benefits she has gotten from doing this have been good. "...it just gives me a little bit of extra money and it helps me out with purchasing some of my cosplays because cosplay is an expensive hobby" Kawa says. 

Because of Kawa being from the DC area, her experience with the cosplay community is a bit different compared to what cosplayers may experience in the south. Kawa states that due to people being geographically closer to each other on the east coast, they are able to host more meetups and get togethers when it comes to cosplay. "Cosmeet DMV is something that usually happens seasonally where we have a big meetup between photographers and cosplayers" Kawa says. Because of big meetups such as that one, Kawa believes that there are more opportunities for cosplayers and photographers, who are adults, to meet up with each other outside of the con space. She also explains that 'lobbyconning' is a huge thing in the DMV area, where people will just hang out in the lobby space of a con as opposed to buying a ticket to actually go in. She feels as if the community in the DMV is more tightknit, which has helped the area as a whole accept cosplay more as an artform compared to the south.