Emerald L King
cosplay - Japanese literature - popular culture
Zagato and Princess Emeraude from Magic Knight Rayearth made for the WCS Australia Preliminary Competition held at SMASH, July 2023. Costumes made and worn by Emerald L King and Amy.
Photography and Editing by Jo of RedScarf Photography
Emerald L King first started cosplaying in 2007 when she was approached to give a talk on magical girls at her local anime convention. Since then she has created over 40 costumes based on anime and manga by artists such as Matsumoto Leiji, CLAMP and Yamato Waki, and computer games by Koei and Square Enix. Emerald’s work often incorporates antique kimono silks and leather, and focuses on creating garments rather than throw away costumes.
Based at the University of Tasmania, Emerald has cosplayed, judged, and MC’d at events in Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. She is an award-winning cosplayer most notably winning the Madman National Cosplay Championship in 2016 (as well as placing in 3rd in 2012 and 2nd in 2018), and winning the Australian heats of the World Cosplay Summit in 2023 and representing the nation in Japan in 2024 (as well as placing 2nd in 2019 and 3rd in 2018). Since 2017 she has volunteered at the World Cosplay Summit Finals held in Nagoya in August each year as a translator and Japanese/English interpreter. In 2020 she was named a World Cosplay Summit Support Ambassador.
After being “outed” as a cosplayer at an academic conference to Kotani Mari, Japan’s first cosplayer, Emerald has conducted research into cosplay. Her publications include Sakura ga meijiru: Unlocking the shōjo wardrobe – cosplay; manga; 2.5D space” in Shōjo Across Media: Multidisciplinary Approaches (2019) and “Tailored Translations – Translating and Transporting Cosplay Costumes across Texts, Cultures, and Dimensions” in Signata: Annales des sémiotiques/Annals of Semiotics 7, (2016) https://journals.openedition.org/signata/1243.