Hello fellow geeks!
This review is super late due to the corona virus screwing things up and also because I had no available photographer for a long time. Thankfully now the wait is over and I'm super excited to share this costume review with you all~
Cosplayflying contacted me for a sponsorship offer quite some time ago, I had heard of this shop before and I'm pretty sure I've been oogling the site at least a couple times too lmao. I happily accepted to collaborate as I genuinely enjoy to do reviews and keep the cosplay community informed about everything from lenses to online costume stores. And who doesn't love the opportunity to get a new cosplay? :'D
It wasn't easy to decide on what costume I wanted to review as there's a huge sortiment and constant new arrivals from the latest anime shows.
Cosplayflying also sells costumes from TV-series, movies, video games and of course the ever popular superheroes! They also sell wigs and cosplay shoes.
I have to admit that I've been out of the loop with what all the new animes are so, hehe, I ended up picking a costume from something familiar to me since some years back –
Touken Ranbu, which I still enjoy. There's a lot of potential cosplay candidates among the sword boys but I chose to go with the smol bean Kashuu Kiyomitsu as I have already cosplayed his uchiban/casual version before and thus already have like the wig and such~
My reviews are
always 100% my genuine opinion, no matter if the items were sponsored or
bought with my own money. I never compromise my honesty and true
thoughts to my readers.
With all of that said I want to welcome you warmly to a completely honest review of
Cosplayflying!
I hope you will find this post helpful and feel free to leave a comment if you
have any questions after you're done reading.
Let's go!
~ "Forewords" ~
I'd like to mention before I start with this costume review that I often have eagle eyes when I browse cosplay shops, meaning that I do look at even the smallest details and try to figure out how accurate it is to the character in question. Now, of course, I also keep my expectations realistic – you can't get something
that's 100% accurate, well-made and with high-end quality fabrics for cheap. "You get what you pay for" is still a relevant saying.
And also, in the case of Touken Ranbu in particular, I've noticed that every online cosplay store I've come across seems like they started producing the character costumes way before the artbooks existed, meaning that the backside of the costumes often are inaccurate to some degree. This is simply because, back then, no one knew what the backsides of the costumes looked like and so early costume creators had to guess, including cosplay shops. I acknowledge this and this is also why I will be more lenient on the accuracy grading, even though I own one of the artbooks myself.
~ Packaging and shipping ~
I am unable to say exactly how long shipping took but, based on the email exchange dates I had with the contact person, I'd say it took roughly one and a half month to arrive from China to Sweden. That's a bit longer than usual but some busy holidays happened during the transit time which, most likely, made my package delayed. I am quite sure that unless you make an order during Christmas, Halloween, Chinese New Year or some other busy event you should be able to get your costume within a month.
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| This is what the package looked like straight out of the mailbox. |
So my costume arrived in the typical plastic wrapping. Thankfully it's just fabric and thus this kind of lightweight shipping has very little risk to damage the contents inside, despite the lack of protection.
I teared up the plastic bag and inside it all the costume pieces were in this one big ziplock bag. It's a little bit like a clothing bag but not so fancy. The ziplock bag does a good job of keeping everything inside, it's very easy to open and close and yes, it's reusable and quite roomy.
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| All costume parts in the bag. |
~ Costume thoughts, fabrics and sewing quality ~
When I check the
product page on the store there is no mention on what fabric types the costume parts are made of but yeah, they feel and behave like your typical bought costumes feel and behave. Most of the fabrics are lightweight and my educated guess would say that everything is polyester, except maybe for the white undershirt that could be a polycotton blend. Synthetic fabrics are readily available and cheap so they are by far the most common fabric type you'll get when you buy costumes ready-made online. I personally prefer natural fibers when I sew costumes myself but you'd be naive to expect like a linen or wool costume to cost less than 100 dollars so yeah, one can safely assume that bought costumes are like 90% synthetic fabrics haha.
So when I pulled out the costume from the bag I was met with the new costume smell. I don't know why but that smell makes me all giddy and excited lol! My first impression of the costume was that it's pretty nice and extremely accurate to the stock photos on the site. Like I actually went back to compare my received costume to the photos online and I legit can't find a single thing that's different
– even the golden buttons have the exact same rose pattern on them. Major points right there.
Sewing quality is generally fine on a quick look, seams are straight, edges are serged (although the serger thread settings have been wonky on some places xD) and there weren't that many loose threads poking out. I managed to almost rip the butt seam on the pants though when I crouched down for photos... oops. Thankfully that's an easy fix.
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| Vest (left) and shirt (right) straight out of the bag. |
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| Pants (left) and jacket (right) straight out of the bag. |
The white undershirt is your ordinary button-up dress shirt except with a stand-up collar. It has darts, it's figure sewn and it has cuffs at the sleeves with single button closure. It's thankfully not very see-through at all and, even if it was, the black vest would keep it covered.
I don't want to lewd Kashuu as in my eyes he's just a boy lmao.
The vest is pretty nice, it's not a boxy fit at all and it has the proper darts in front and back on both sides. It's sleeveless and the fit is actually pretty snug as it's figure sewn too. Oh, and the inside is lined and the buttons go all the way down and the buttons are metallic with golden color. The vest opens up at the front completely, meaning that all buttonholes are real ones.
I don't really have anything to say about the pants, it's your typical costume pants with pressed legs. One thing to note though is that the golden rope thingy is attached to the pants through two belt loops and can't be removed unless you release it with a seam ripper. The pants have a button and zipper for closure but thankfully there's a bit of elastic at the back, to give some extra width would you need it.
The jacket is my favorite part, of course it is. It's the most recognizable and fancy part of the costume! The emblems (or
kamon, to be precise) are printed on and seem to be of good quality. The lapels are lined with gold trims and attached to the main body of the jacket so that they stay in place and look crisp. There's three metallic golden buttons on each side of the jacket's front but they are purely decorational as Kashuu wear his jacket open and well, there's no buttonholes for them anyway and the jacket is too narrow lol. The black and red rhombic lining is just like Kashuu has in the game and it's a very nice detail! The jacket also has slight shoulder padding to make it fit better and look more important. Oh and yeah, the length is down to my knees.
My only little nitpicks are that the jacket would feel even more valuable if the main fabric had some weight to it but now it at least flares out during windy days and that's pretty cool too. Another little thing I'd like to mention is that according to the artbook Kashuu has a strap on the back of the jacket (it's probably there to gather excess material) and I actually messaged
Cosplayflying and asked if they could add this strap and sent with reference photos. They did not do it nor did they answer that part of the email, so either they didn't understand or they ignored or missed my request. Regardless it's no big deal.
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| All the decorations laid out. |
So the costume consists of four main parts (shirt, vest, jacket and
pants) and then a bunch of what I'd like to call decorations like the
belt, the scarf and the hand armors which come in two parts and are made
of PU-leather, aka pleather. The hand armors consist of a lower part
and an upper part
– the
lower part attaches with wide elastic on the back while the upper part
has straps with buttons at the ends. The belt is also PU-leather with a
metallic belt buckle, it definitely feels like a costume belt as the
belt itself is really really thin and it would likely wear down quickly
if you used it daily.
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| Bracers attach like this on the underside. |
The armors are what I expected them to be, in good and bad. They look decent and you can tell they are for Kashuu's costume but they are simple and lack details. Also, they are soft so they don't really look like armor, ya know? This is just me being picky but I acknowledge that you obviously won't get professional worbla armors from a Chinese cosplay store so it's pretty much always pleather and well, pleather easily looks cheap in my opinion. I will likely replace these at some point as they are too big for me anyways (the upper parts are huge, they spin around my arms and won't stay put) but for now they will work. Also, I don't understand why the lower halves don't have a "finger ring" so that you could secure them in place by treading the loop through your middle finger. Feels a bit like a missed no-brainer. ^^" Yes, they also move around a bit but far from as much as the upper bracers as the elastic keeps them on tightly.
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| The hair clip came attached to the bracer, which left teeth marks on the pleather. |
The hairpin is supposed to be the white ribbon for the ponytail but I didn't use it as I already have my wig tied by other means. It's a considerate addition in case they add in case you forgot this little detail.
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| The scarf is very simple and loooong. |
And lastly there's the scarf Kashuu wears hanging from his neck. It's really long, just like it should be, and the material is lightweight and pleasant to the touch. The fabric has some elastic qualities and it's very soft; I think it might actually be tricot or something like that as the scarf doesn't feel like the typical polyester at all. It flies in the wind easily if you move around. It's basically made as a long strip of fabric that has been folded in half, sewn shut and then the edges have been cut up and sealed with a seam across to make the tassels. Very simple.
What is included:
• Undershirt
• Vest
• Jacket
• Belt
• Gloves and bracers
• Hairpin
• Scarf
• Pants
What is NOT included:
• Wig
• Earrings
• Sword
• Boots
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Detail photos ahead!
All photos taken by Heesman.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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| Jacket front close-up. |
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| Emblem close-up. Notice the lapel has decorative fabric. |
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| Rope thingy, belt and lining details. |
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| Back close-up of jacket hem. It flares outwards. |
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| Two-part hand armor details. |
This cosplay is about 100% accurate to the stock photos on the site,
which is awesome. I can only speak for this particular costume so make sure to study the stock photos closely as
you are likely to get something really similar to it if you buy from Cosplayflying.
Full cosplay photos below!
Photos taken by Heesman.
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| Front view. |
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| Side view. |
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| Back view. |
Want to get your own Kashuu Kiyomitsu cosplay? Check links below!
Cosplayflying store & Kashuu Kiyomitsu costume rundown – Pros and cons:
+ Fabrics are pretty nice
+ 100% accurate to store's stock photos
+ The fact they even had Kashuu's battle costume
+ Mostly accurate to official character references
+ Sewing quality is fine
+ Metallic belt buckle and buttons
+ Jacket details
+ Shipping time as expected
+ Safe packaging
+ Very affordable prices, great value
+ Customer service speaks good English
+/- Some costume parts were a tight fit (note: custom size)
- Bracer armor straps are huge
- I asked to get the jacket strap added but they missed it
~ Sizing ~
I never fit into any standard sizes so I always have to ask for custom size, which is a bit troublesome as even then I rarely receive a perfect fit. Some parts are often too big and others too small and this applies to all cosplay online stores in general. In the case of Kashuu's costume it was mainly snug but still wearable, the only thing I couldn't button down completely (that is supposed to be buttoned) was the white shirt but thankfully no one will ever see my unbuttoned sin as the vest hides it. xD
I want to mention that I am pretty sure that even if you order "custom size" it won't actually be custom, I am fairly certain that the store just mixes and matches stuff from the standard sizes to get one that is as close to your size as possible – you can get lucky with an amazing fit this way or you might get something that is closer but still not perfect. :)
Just be prepared with bought costumes that it's likely you might need to do some small modifications yourself so yeah, some sewing handiness (or a relative who can help) is a great asset.
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| Kashuu Kiyomitsu reference image. |
~ Conclusion and final thoughts ~
I am overall super pleased with
Cosplayflying and my received costume. I was so happy they contacted me and that they've been so patient through this whole covid-19 situation that grossly delayed my review. ;_;
The cosplay is really beautiful on photos, it's fun to wear and very recognizable for fans of the game (and anime)! I might do some smaller modifications at some point to make it even better but even as-is this costume is great and ready for an anime convention, a themed party, video game events or any kind of social geeky meetup where you want to dress up. Be nerdy and rock it!
Cosplayflying's
turn-around times are comparable to other Asia-based online shops, so make
sure you plan in advance and order at least a couple months
prior to the event you need the costume for, just to make sure that if anything happens you still have time. Quality seems similar to their competitors but I have to say that getting a cosplay that looks
exactly like on the stock photos was huuuuuge! I can't of course know if it's 100% accuracy for all costumes on their site (which there are a ton of, in my opinion they have more costumes than other stores and of rarer characters too!) but I trust
Cosplayflying a lot after this review and I'd love to work with them again.
Any negative pointers I brought up are honestly so minor it's really of
no concern considering how incredibly cheap this costume is, which is
$72.99 at the time of writing. If you think that's expensive for a full costume you honestly have no idea how much it would actually cost to hire a professional seamstress to custom-make a costume for you. No but seriously, I enjoy making costumes but I also enjoy just vibin' and sometimes having the costume arrive ready-made in your mailbox is incredibly convenient. I give two thumbs up to Cosplayflying and I would not hesitate to recommend them forward!
Final Grade (from A-F): A-
Recommend to others: Yes
That about sums it up. I hope you found this review
helpful and hey, if you are new here and like what you see do hit that "follower" button!
A huge thank you goes out to Cosplayflying for making this review possible and to you for reading this! ♡
~ Shiro Samurai out.
