Kemin mangapäivä 2026 – Buttons, butts and bubble teas

 Hello there!

Kemin mangapäivä (aka Kemi's manga day) was held this past Saturday, on 7th March, for the second time since its revival from a decade of hibernation. Of course I was dragged went there to show my support for a local anime event and yeah, I was kinda needed as manpower too.

Let's get on with the report!

Event poster. Mascot by Nette Nikula.

I woke up early as heck on Saturday morning and mom drove me to Kemi, where I arrived roughly around 9:30. I didn't post any cosplay plans prior to the con because I wasn't set on what to cosplay and yeah, decided to just go with whatever mood I had on the actual day. I ended up choosing the comfiest, most low effort cosplay I had and packed my jedi robes with me.

When I arrived at Kulttuurikeskus, aka the con building, Firith let me in as the doors were still locked. I almost immediately went upstairs to put on my costume and after that I prepared our items for the Matsukirppis (second-hand shop hosted by Matsucon's crew), which mainly meant putting on pre-printed price tags. There were some small chats here and there to make sure all the volunteer crew knew what to do and soon enough the doors were open to the public!

Entrance view feat. Artist Alley.

Some more artist tables and a hoers~

Even though I was a worker I didn't have a specific job schedule or anything, I was mostly a stand-in to help Sanna with the pin workshop, which was a drop-in activity where anyone could make button pins – it was really popular last year and, err, a helper was requested for this year and that helper was me. :'D Some people might remember that I hosted the drawing room last year and well, due to our immense shortage of staff it had to be one or the other and yeah, that's the reason why the drawing room was reduced to a drawing corner and also why there was no drawing contest this year. Simply not enough crew you can count all of us on one hand pretty much and we had to prioritize.

Entrance to Kohtaamo, aka where the pin workshop and other activities were.

Sanna did the first hour or so of the pin workshop while I was free to explore, which mainly meant checking the Artist Alley. It was fun and giving to talk to all the different artists, everyone was so lovely! The clock was roughly 11:00 at this point and while I was browsing the artist tables the first colorful visitors had started to show up, which is always so nice to see. Me and Firith ran around taping Mangapäivä advertisement posters all over Kemi and Tornio and even all the way to Seskarö island in Sweden just a couple weeks before so yeah, it's always a relief to see that people actually knew about the event and we didn't do a lot of work for nothing. xD 

One thing that I couldn't help but notice was the boba tea stand! I had heard from my friends that there's a freshly opened bubble tea shop in Kemi centrum and it was so nice to see them having a booth at the event to promote their new shop! The actual shop is located at the market square area and I heard it was very popular during the Mangapäivä hours; they had to redirect customers to the shop because they kept running out of boba and also because they didn't have all the different flavors available on-site. There was this dude who had to run between the two locations to resupply the Mangapäivä boba booth with more drinks whenever the stash emptied!

MiSu boba's flavors. Yum!

I talked quite a bit with the owners and they were so friendly and genuinely passionate about what they were doing. Seems like it's a small-scale family business run by two young siblings and their mom and dad for support. Honestly a super wholesome bunch, I really hope they succeed! Can't tell y'all how happy I am to finally have a bubble tea shop closer than fucking 100 kilometers away. xD Especially now that the quality has dropped in the boba shop in Oulu since they changed names...

I had time to drink my strawberry boba in peace before it was time to set Sanna free and take over the workshop so she could go explore. But before I could roll in I had to get acquainted with the pin machine, which meant I had to make a prototype pin myself so that I could handle the machine and do pins for all the kids and visitors. You see, the pin workshop was always supervised by an adult and that meant that either I or Sanna took care of the machine – to keep the workshop running smoothly and to avoid anyone hurting themselves. The machine is entirely manual and works by pulling some levers and turning a metallic part around that you put the pin's upper and lower halves onto, including the artwork and a plastic sheet. It's hard to explain but it was quite easy to use once you got the hang of it, just had to be careful to memorize all steps (aka make sure you do them in the right way and in the right order) or you'd mess up and that would suck because you'd then ruin something that someone put time and effort into drawing and/or coloring and I'd hate myself for making a child sad. :'( I had to keep my anxiety at bay because yeah, I was so scared of ruining someone's artwork but luckily only one mistake happened and it was entirely the machine's fault, not mine. It's an old machine and sometimes it will have a hiccup even if the user does everything correctly...

Pin workshop with Sanna sitting at the edge.

Matsukirppis and Matsucon's organization booth.

On the photo above to the far right you can see the drawing corner – despite its shrunken size it was quite popular. Mangapäivä didn't have any panels or organized meetups this year so yeah, aside from the cosplay competition there wasn't any scheduled activities to keep track of. The activities that were available were the pin workshop, the drawing corner, a photo booth (what is 'kuvauspiste' called in English??) and there was also a Nintendo Switch one could use for free in the library's youth room, aka the same room in the back where the drawing room was last year. Matsukirppis, drawing corner and pin workshop were all in the Kohtaamo area btw so yeah, it was busy in there!

Guest book. I continued the Buttman tradition huehuehue~

Working at the pin workshop was actually surprisingly enjoyable. It was fun to see all the different personal drawings and statements people did – I mean I saw everything ranging from Kemi's city hall to boobs so how can I even begin to complain about creativity? The youth will be fine. And there's a resurgence of yaoi and yuri fans omfg. Me vanhukset muistamme.

General view. Kyösti's cafe was open and you could even get ramune!

I ran into some familiar faces too like Joni and Sallukka of course but also my former study counsellor Kaisu from back when I studied at Lappia AMK! It was so nice to see her again because yeah, it's been ages and we used to play Ingress and Pokémon Go many years ago and eat kebab together haha, fun times. She's retired now and seemed to be in good spirits, here's to hoping I'll see her more often in the future!

Once the clock was nearing 14:00 I waddled my way to the auditorium upstairs to go watch the cosplay competition. I planted my ass on a chair relatively far away from the stage which, in hindsight, maybe wasn't the best idea because the music came from the back and it was quite loud, which made it a bit hard to hear what the hosts were saying in the front. It wasn't terribly overpowering or anything but yeah, just an idea for an improvement next time because it was distracting and my neurospicy brain can't focus when there's conflicting sounds.

All contestants on stage.

As one can expect from such a small event's cosplay competition there's not gonna be a lot of entries and it's also gonna be a very short and simple show consisting of a catwalk ('lavajuoksut' as we say in Finnish) and posing and then the winners were announced. No big spectacles, intermissions or acts. Of course all the contestants were pre-judged before the competition even started – Firith and Sallukka were the judges. I was asked if I wanted to judge before the con but it was later deemed that I was better needed elsewhere because yeah, event's short on personnel and two judges were sufficient for this scope.

I think it's very important that we have these lower threshold competitions mixed in with the big ones. With small competitions the primary focus is usually to get experience and stage confidence and it's not necessarily a must to have made all parts of your costume yourself to even be able to enter. Not every contest needs to lead to high-stakes qualifiers and global championships. We need to make sure there's still a place for shy beginners to dip their feet in without overwhelming performance pressure crushing them at the doorstep.

General view.

With the cosplay competition over we were down to the last minutes of the event. I was very happy with how the day had gone and yeah, it's so nice to know that our efforts bore fruit once again and was appreciated. I might not have had the biggest hand in arranging this event but yeah, I've been there beneath the curtains helping with what I could and providing some much needed moral and emotional support to the main organizer. Huzzah!

Kääk! (inside the library, which was open normally during the event)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that at some point, when I was inside the library, Olli (spoiler alert: he's the singer of local metal band Dethropia), who was manning the desk, suddenly asked me in Finnish if I'm Jesus while I was in my unspecified aka random jedi outfit. xD I assumed he was being cheeky and referencing to that one famous Star Wars photo meme that's been floating around the internet if you know, you know and I was like "naaaahh not exactly" lolol! It was all just really silly fun even though it came out of left lane. Random moments are the best!

Random jedi patrolling. (photo: Firith)

Once the con day was over Firith went to grab our unsold items from the Matsukirppis and soon after I went back upstairs to the changing rooms and swapped back into my everyday clothes. Changing out of costume was extremely quick since I had no wig nor makeup or anything – I mean, the level of can't-be-arsedness I felt on the morning was high due to massive sleep deprivation lol. I got a ride back to mom's place where I then had the first grillikota grilled foods of the year and muurikka pancakes for dessert, heck yeah! A great ending to a great day.

Bonus pic: my beautiful button pin. 

With everything else pretty much already said I want to mention before I go that yes, the surprise announcement that was made during the end of the cosplay competition is true – there's a bigger event arriving in Kemi in 2027. ;) I might have something to do with it... *whistles innocently*

Thank you to everyone I interacted with! Thank you for reading!
~ Shiro Samurai out.

Kummacon 2019 – Cosplaying something different differently

Good evening~

Kummacon was held this past weekend on 11-12 May in Oulu and I was there on Saturday only, checking out the new Kastellin Monitoimitalo that I'm pretty sure has never hosted a con before. Kummacon is one of the few remaining cons in Finland that still has free entrance and aims to stay that way, especially now when it seems that Kitacon is dead.

Let's get to the summary!

I woke up on the morning, fed the cats, myself and then proceeded to put on my Jedi garb. I had decided that I'm not gonna bother with any makeup or anything (unlike normally when I cosplay) as I was frankly too tired and woke up too late anyway to really have time. My Jedi clothes of choice were a combination of my Obi-Wan gear and parts from random cosplays, didn't want to wear exactly Obi-Wan's clothing as I was in fact just supposed to be a random Jedi and not a face character. I will admit though that I felt very naked and insecure without any makeup on, but tried to tell myself that it's a small con and no one really cares. #anxietyisreal

Stepdad was kind and drove me and Frozen Angel to the con. The trip took something past one hour and we arrived somewhere between 11-12 local time. The weather was pretty nice on Saturday.

Kummacon entrance. Kastellin Monitoimitalo.

Oulun Miekkailuseura had an info booth at the entrance.

As you can see on the photo above there was a historical sword fighting club present. As a former kendoka it was super cool to see, you could even try swinging one of the swords on a tire dummy. Chatted with the guys for a pretty long time and now I feel like I want to cosplay someone with a sword like that lol.

Once we were inside the building we instantly started to check everything out. Neither of us knew if any of our friends were there so we didn't really see any familiar faces, save for Karri who appeared for a brief moment during the last hours. 

This is pretty much the view you had once you stepped inside.

A bit to the right you had the Kumma kahvila (cafeteria) area.

They only sold vegetarian/vegan food and some sweets/bakeries mainly.

The con was decorated with these adorable... HATTIVATIT.

My first impressions of Kummacon was that it was comfy and I liked the building. Okay, it got quite crammed at times (especially when the obligatory line for the cosplay competition happened) but nothing too bad; had it been a bigger con there would have been problems though. The con building had two floors and the Artist's Alley and some of the chill corners were on the second floor while the rest was on the main floor. Kastellin Monitoimitalo felt fairly modern and I liked the white "pillars" everywhere holding the building up or something, idk.

View towards the toilets and the second-hand shop etc.

Kumma Kirppis, the second-hand store where congoers could
sell stuff they don't want anymore.

There was a karaoke room and a rhythm game room. Disappointed
that just like last year there was still no video game room. :(

Same view as on the other area picture, except this is from the other
direction, aka when heading back to the main area with all the merch etc.

I felt like the seikkailu (lit. adventure) theme was represented well, although maybe not as many funny signs as last year's cosmos theme had. Points for the watching Sauron eye sign in the second-hand store though, made me chuckle. xD

Main area, Urumi's shop to the left side.

A bunch of Pokémon plushies. Notice the Tyranitar!

I didn't buy anything this time but Urumi is always nice to see...

... because you know they only sell legit stuff.

Urumi's shop seen from above.

I saw this Milotic later on and was SO TEMPTED. ;_;

I feel like Kummacon had a lot of merchandise sellers for a small con, I was pleasantly surprised once again! It was everything from video games to literature and to the obligatory weeb stuff. A lot of the sellers I recognized from having seen at other cons before; I think many of the sellers are the same ones just circulating all cons in Finland but it's still nice to do some "window shopping" haha. Especially when it seems like there's always at least something new.

View of a part of the Dealer's Hall. Most was located on the other side
of where the cafeteria was, like basically on the "backside" when you went around.

There's no con without kigurumis, except I think these were poncho style?

Sci-fi figurines and stuff like that. Pretty cool.

Video games. Surprised at the amount of Japanese
imports, seemingly most were from a single guy's collection.

Pockys and ramune in abundance. There were
so many ramune flavors I had never seen before!

I'm sorry I forgot to take a photo of the ramunes on the other side of the Manga Cafe shop but there was stuff like coconut ramune and some other ones I was really curious to try! I just wish ramune wasn't so expensive. Oh well, maybe next time.

When I looked at the people around me I felt like more than half were not cosplaying, which I think is pretty usual. There were some furries (pretty many considering the con's size?) and some people wearing j-fashion but overall everyone was very colorful, except those dressed in black of course. There was a lot of people wearing the pride flag's colors and even rainbow flags draped over their shoulders. Cons are so nice as it's one of the few places were being LGBTQ+ feels like the norm and you are wholly supported by almost everyone attending. ♡

This was next to the entrance. Super clever idea!

I found some more of the hattivatti army... xD

It took us a while before we realized that the Artist's Alley was on the second floor, actually. Despite the obvious sign next to the stairs. *facepalm* Almost the whole second floor was in fact dedicated to the AA, save for the end half that was just a water drinking spot along with a general chill area where you could sit down. There were a lot of artist's there, much more than I expected as some other small cons I've been to have barely had more than one, lol.

A small part of the Artist's Alley "corridor" upstairs.

View of the chill area upstairs.

The first thing I check for when I go to AA is always magnets. Because I want my fandoms visible (wow that sounds so weebish lol) and cool art on my fridge where I can see them and they're useful for holding whatever papers I currently have there. When I find magnets of a style I like it's almost a guarantee that I'll buy something from that table. :D Another thing I keep an eye out for is other useful items along with keychains, necklaces and such, although I start to feel like I already have way more lying around than I have space for lmao. I'm a horrible hoarder of all things cute, can't help it.

The library inside the building had the only game console at the con...

... and there was only like 4-5 uninteresting games, imo.

I feel like if Kummacon won't have a proper video game room next time I'll contact them myself and lend out my PS1 and Wii or something. Honestly once I'm done exploring the building and checking out all the merch I quickly get bored as I have "already seen everything", especially if I have no friends around me whom I haven't seen in a while to chat with. Now it was just me and my brother, who of course works for company but yeah, we don't have so much to talk as we see each other almost every day lol. Note note note that I am not criticizing the con! It's just that I've come to expect the video game room to be there –as it's such a staple– and a lot of congoers play video games so yeah, it always feels like something is missing when it's not there.

Extreme nostalgia when I saw this poster!

There were some lectures that I was interested in but sadly I thought they were on Sunday (had checked the programs before the con only), so we didn't actually check the con's schedule leaflet until we were done with all the exploring and then it was already too late for the most interesting panel. :'( Felt discouraged after that to care for the other interesting-but-not-as-interesting lectures and besides, there was a tier 5 legendary raid coming up at the nearby Pokémon Go gym across the street – so we made a call for others to join us and went to kick Mesprit's ass instead.

I almost missed this at first but I found a Monster Hunter plushie!
It's Legiana from MHW. So happy that you can regularly find MonHun
merch nowadays. It's my con challenge to find something. xD

When we were done with the raid the con was on its last half an hour before closing for the day, or that's the impression I got as many were leaving. We called stepdad to come pick us up as we felt satisfied for the day once we had quickly snagged some proof photos that we both did dress up as Jedis and that it wasn't just a prank.

Proof that I tried to be a Jedi.

I hate my hair, for real. It looks the worst when it's newly washed (weirdly enough) because it's quite literally everywhere, it "floats", waves and kinks however the heck it wants, looks like garbage and feels like fucking frizzy hay that is 100% uncontrollable. It won't stay put or normal no matter what I do to it and sometimes I am mighty tempted to just cut it all off and hope it grows back normally, like it used to be for some years ago before it turned into this dry static shit. Seriously give me back the straight, behaving hair I had in my early teenage years that I still hated because of the split ends, I'd take that back any day of the week now lol. I should just have worn a wig but wearing a wig while not wearing makeup makes me look horrible and... yikes. :S

I must admit though that I was surprised that people actually came up to talk to us, some even asked for photos. I'm used to being left alone on small cons but I guess with basically everyone and their grandma knowing about Star Wars it was to be expected. A part of me felt flattered but another part of me felt like "this is seriously like a little to no effort cosplay and I get more attention for this in 20 mins than I get on a full day when I wear a proper cosplay and do my makeup for like 2 hours lol". Anyone who can relate to this mood?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kummacon was overall a comfy experience. I'd definitely keep going there and the organizers have their hearts in the right place too, seen by how they this year raised money (the price of what "tickets could have been") for Mielipotti charity campaign, to help battling mental health issues, which is common among con people based on my personal experiences; a lot of attendants relate, symphatize and thus donated to the cause.
Kummacon has the charm and comfiness typical to a small con and go all out with the decorations to set the mood for the year's theme. Everything seemed to run smoothly and I didn't notice anything severely lacking or ruining the overall quality, or illusion of quality at least. In hindsight I do think though that the location was perhaps a tiny bit too small, especially when compared to how roomy Pohjankartano is.

I generally felt safe at Kummacon's cheery atmosphere and despite battling long-running mental illness myself it felt okay, save for the nowadays obligatory uncomfortable feeling I get when someone asks for a photo and, after the initial seconds of happiness and perceived appreciation fades, I stand there looking into the camera and dread my life decisions as I know that it's gonna look like shit because I'm ugly af but I'm too kind to decline. Asdfghjkl.
This is obviously not a fault of the con itself, just me being reminded of how it felt to cosplay and be a target of attention after going casual and being "safely invisible" at a lot of cons lately. *shrugs*

And before I end this post, here's my con purchases:

Two magnets from Artist's Alley and Pokémon cards from
one of the merch sellers who sold single cards.

Thanks for reading my summaries!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Kummacon 2019 plans??

Hello guys!

It seems like Kummacon will be my first convention for 2019 and I am quite excited to be honest, it's been half a year since my last convention (Skecon) so any chance to get to geek it out is appreciated. Kummacon is held during 11-12 May in Oulu, Finland, but I will only be there on the first day on a day trip as my stepdad will drive me and Frozen Angel there and check out some stores meanwhile we are at the con. I am quite curious about the new location Kastellin Monitoimitalo though, my aunt said that it's about 3-4 km away from centrum. 

I must admit that when the con revealed that the theme this year is "seikkailu" (adventure in Finnish) I started thinking that maybe I should cosplay and not just be lazy and go casual again. But then I remembered that almost all my cosplays are currently unwearable for one reason or another and so I started brainstorming if I could throw something fitting together in time. Sadly I realized way too late that what I feel the most like cosplaying from right now is Sea of Thieves, my latest video game addiction – and the problem is that I have nothing in my closet that I could use to even do the most basic, starter pirate outfit with; I feel so disappointed in meself, lol. No I'm not doing just the underwear, even though that would be even easier. xD And I want a gunpowder barrel as a prop but that ain't happening in less than a week either. *sniff* So I have to postpone my pirate dreams for a later convention (Närcon maybe, idk?) but I feel like I'm missing such a fun opportunity as it would fit the con's adventure theme so well.

No pirate's life for me this time. I don't really have sewing equipment
at home and don't want to stress either as results would 100% be ugly af.

Oh well, I stared at my cosplay list for a while and thought that I know for a fact that I want to do a movie or a video game character. I haven't felt any hype for anime/manga in a while to be honest (except that I still want photos of my costumes, Hotaru from SDK in particular right now) and I have thought about writing a blog post about this dilemma but I'll save that for a later date.
But whatever the case I feel like just doing a random Jedi would be comfy and easy enough – and with May the 4th recently passed and a new movie in the makings it feels very relevant... and fits the theme! Now to hope that me and my anxious ass keeps to it and doesn't bail out at the last moment.

Kummacon cosplay plan for Saturday:

tl;dr - I want to be a Sea of Thieves pirate but as I'm Matti Myöhäinen again I'll just be a random Jedi knight (without lightsaber cuz I'm a poorfag) on Saturday, to fit in with Kummacon's adventure theme. 

Anyone else going to Kummacon this upcoming weekend? See ya there!

~ Shiro Samurai

[Sponsored] MoviesCostume review: Star Wars Luke Skywalker cosplay costume!

Hello geeks around the world!

Firstly I need to apologize for this review being so so late; I've had a really rough time for a while now and some other issues delaying the review, in particular, which I'll mention later.

MoviesCostume contacted me for a collaboration offer a while ago, I accepted as I like to spread the honest word around about different cosplay online stores because seriously, there's a whole ocean of cosplay shops out there! I'll admit that I had not heard of them before this but after looking through the site I saw a lot of similarities with CosplaySky. I suspected they were related and after getting my costume I'm almost certain they are.

I had a bit of trouble deciding on a costume to review as I had to stay within a certain price range. I ultimately decided on going for Star Wars again, mainly as I have been more drawn to movie characters and video games lately. I choose Luke Skywalker, the staple character and front figure of Star Wars to many – and I ended up having to pick the "old man Luke" outfit from the newest movie, also known as The Last Jedi. Now I am very well aware that the fan opinions on this movie in particular range from pure unadulterated hatred to those who actually think it's the best in the series or at least enjoyable – I won't go into that as it's a fandom hellhole of galactic proportions and gets really toxic really fast but I'll just say that I liked the movie and yeah, haters gonna hate I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But if we get back on track I want to say that MoviesCostume seem to have a pretty large selection of costumes for affordable prices. They carry a wide selection of cosplays ranging from TV-series and movies to anime and video games, you should be able to find something you like.

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 to a completely honest review of MoviesCostume! 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 feel like I should mention that I am generally observant when I browse online cosplay costume shops – I have a habit of scrutinizing even the smallest details (I'm a perfectionist to a fault, lol) and comparing them with official reference photos to see how accurate they really are. I do often strive to find the most accurately made costume possible but I also keep realistic expectations in mind – you won't get something that's 100% accurate, well-made and with high-end quality fabrics for cheap. Ever. 
"You get what you pay for" is something that I always keep in mind when I browse cosplay shops, especially once you know the process (I study sewing and fashion) and what things would actually cost if an experienced seamstress made it custom for you. I think most people who have done their research know by now that no Asia-based cosplay shops really are "tailor made" so yeah, I do lower my standards and expectations accordingly for most online bought costumes (unless custom commissioned), to give a fair review based on the quality that can realistically be expected.

 ~ Contact, packaging and shipping ~

So many things have happened since I originally started contact with MoviesCostume that I honestly don't really remember much, so sorry about that. Truth be told I've had an (ongoing) harsh depression period eating at me for a while now and I struggle, hard, with literally everything. The only thing I have a faint memory of is that the shipping took somewhere between 1-2 months from China, which is to be expected. I'm sorry I suck so much. ;_;

Shipping.

Costume bag.

The costume arrived in this green plastic bag that I had to pick up from the nearest postal office. Once you opened that up you were met with the costume bag itself, a ziplock style clothing bag and yes, it's in every way identical to the ones CosplaySky uses – a big reason for why I do believe that these two stores are related, or possibly even the same company. The costume bag is roomy, clean and actually really usable – you should definitely keep it for storage!

~ Fabrics and sewing quality ~

A quick look on the costume's product page tells us that the costume is made of PU, linen and "cloth" – whatever that is. Seems really vague to me and that's often not a good thing. But based on my previous experiences with online costume stores you can almost certainly assume the fabric to be polyester or a poly blend and I'm 99% sure that's the case this time too. Oh and yeah, PU most likely refers to PU-leather, aka fake leather.

Inconsistent sewing quality.

My first impression was that most of the fabrics felt thin and kinda cheap, save for the tunic and the cloak which appear to be linen (although it's hard to be 100% sure without doing a burn test as it could be a chemical fiber imitating linen really well) and notably thicker and more rough to the touch than the rest, in a good way. I don't really expect any costume parts to last more than a couple or so rounds through the washing machine but honestly, who really diligently washes their costumes anyway, lol? I only wash mine if I literally spill something on them or get some dirt etc that won't go away, otherwise I just air the costume out after wearing for a few days.

Okay so, I inspected the costume parts for a while and noticed that the sewing quality is kinda inconsistent. The majority are straight neat stitches and that's good but there's also some, err, questionable stitches. Mainly some hems were uneven, bunchy, warped or such. Nothing that ruins the costume in itself (as the seams still obviously hold the costume together) but when you study to become a professional tailor it's among the little things that you immediately notice.

Closer look on one of the tabard's lesser quality sewing.

One thing I also couldn't help but notice was the staggering amount of random loose threads poking out everywhere. Like I'm not even kidding, I can understand that there's a couple or so as when you tidy up your finished work it's easy to miss a few but seriously, whenever I cut one off it felt like soon enough three more sprouted on another spot! Sure it's really easy to just take up the scissors and snip them off, so in a sense it's really no big deal, but to me it gives a sloppy impression when there's random threads poking out literally everywhere I look.

What is included:

• Tunic

• Coat

• Tabards

• Under-belt 
• Belt (with pouch)
• Pants
• Feet wrappings
• Glove
• Cloak

What is NOT included:

• Boots
• Wig
• Any props (lightsaber, mechanical arm etc)

~ Detailed description of costume parts ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: I had to go to school and dress a mannequin as, sadly, the costume doesn't fit me and I still needed to present it for the review somehow. :( More about that at the end of the post. Also, I'm sorry but I had no way to iron the costume before taking the photos as I did this after school time, so it's basically "straight out of the bag". Oh and yeah, in my class we pretty much only have female mannequins so sorry about the tiddies lmao.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tunic: I'm not sure if it even is a tunic but that was what I saw it called on a quick Google search so yeah, I'll roll with it. Basically I'm talking about the collared under shirt. It appears to be made of linen, medium-ish thickness with a visible texture. It's one of the two clothing items that feels like it's of decent quality.

Tunic back close-up. Zipper.

There's a dress zipper in the back to get it on as the fabric does not stretch at all (linen, duh). The zipper feels okay and more sturdy than I expected, I'm not sure but the zipper head/lock itself appears to be of metal (painted white) while the zipper 'teeth' are plastic. I swear I had a photo of how far down the zipper goes but the photo magically disappeared from my camera and I can't find it anywhere.

 

Shoulder seams and collar visible.

The length is approximately to my hip bones so it's not super long or anything. This was also one of the few clothing items I could sort-of wear but it behaved in an unflattering way on the upper torso, it's hard to explain but the cut was kinda boxy and awkward, especially around the shoulders. Most likely a sizing issue.

Sleeve mouths.

Coat: Again, I'm unsure what to call this but I refer to the vest-like cream colored garment Luke wears that is the main part of his outfit. This piece is of a thin, polyester or poly blend that is smooth and has a very slight matte shine to it, in certain lights. I don't really like this fabric and feel like it's way too "flimsy" feeling to fit anything in Star Wars, to be honest. Only good part with it is that this fabric is light-weight and thus will easily flow in the wind and look cool, assuming you have ironed it.

Coat button. Grandma style. :'D

I honestly can't remember Luke's outfit having a button (at least not a visible one?) so I think this might be inaccurate. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. The button is where the coat fronts overlap.

Notice the fastener on the shoulder, the tabards have matching ones to
keep them in place.

The coat is long, full-length pretty much, with the sides split starting from the waist and going all the way down. I had a photo that showed the split but it's somehow gone as well, but you can kinda see that the coat splits at the sides on the full body photos farther down.

Tabards: Basically two long rectangles that drape over the shoulders and just kinda hang there, in classic Star Wars style. Although when I laid them out they didn't seem to be completely straight but actually had a slight curve to them. These are made of the same creme colored fabric as the coat, except that there is some kind of interfacing between the layers to make them a bit thicker and less floppy. The tabards stay in place thanks to a plastic fastener on the coat's shoulders, so you won't need to be tugging at them constantly as they won't be inching towards your arms after a while.

Tabards attachment.

Under-belt: Not so much to say, a simple sash with velcro closure that goes under the actual belt. It helps to hold the tabards in place at the lower half too. Same thin cream fabric as the coat.

Under-belt velcro fastening.

Belt: Faux leather belt. My least favorite part, sadly. It just feels really cheap in every possible way – it's not sturdy at all and awkward to wear. The belt doesn't stay put and the material is so flimsy that it just kinda buckles up and down, leaving gaps between the belt and your body you know? I can guess that the complete lack of any kind of tightening or adjustment option is the main reason for this and, honestly, there's literally nothing even keeping it in place as there's no proper closure in the back. What the heck.

Belt front.

I just don't like the "belt buckle". It's just a fabric shape stitched on top of the belt, it looks off to me. Only points I can give it is that it looks just like on the stock photo so I did expect it to be like that but yeah, as soon as you take a closer look it looks weird. And it feels almost a bit sticky to the touch?

Belt back.

Belt back. Closer look. Seems okay right?

The belt's "closure" seen from above. See what the problem is?

In case you don't see it I'll make it clear. Look at the photo above, see that little leather "strap" that goes in the metal clip? Well, on the backside/underside there's nothing to secure it to anything whatsoever. No button, no velcro. Nothing. So yeah, the belt totally comes off if you as much as move a meter. This could just as well be a single miss on my particular costume but as it's what I got to review –and it doesn't work– I have to mention it.

I've also tried securing the belt strap the "normal way" (as in first under the metal clip edge, over the middle part and then under the other edge of the clip) but it's no better because there's no prong nor belt holes to keep it in place and so it just slides off anyway.

Pouch.

On the belt comes a pouch that is attached to it. You can freely move it around as it's attached on a belt loop. It's fully functional and the flap closes with velcro. This pouch also reveals that the fake leather is fabric on the other side.

Pouch opened.

Pants: Same cream fabric as the coat and all, again. It feels way too thin for pants, like I honestly fear that if these would have fit me they might have torn if I sat down. The pants feel really costumey but they at least look like proper pants on the outside. The darts and stuff are there, belt loops and there's even functional pockets! The pants close with a button and zipper. I don't trust the zipper to last though, the tunic's zipper seem to be the better one of the two.

Pants front. Close-up.

Pants closure.

Pants back.

Pants inside, just to show pocket pouches.

Feet wrappings: Not much to say, same cream fabric again. It's basically just two long strips of fabric that's overlocked around all edges to not fray. You are supposed to wrap them around your lower legs like Luke seemingly has. There's no velcro or anything so you either just tuck them under themselves or tie the ends off or something to keep them in place, once wrapped.

A photo of all the costume parts I couldn't dress the mannequin with.

Glove: Fake leather single glove. Luke covers up his mechanical arm with a glove on his right hand. It has some shine to it and feels like you'd expect any inexpensive fancy dress leather glove to feel like. Good thing it's easy to modify as this thing is as shapeless as a potato sack. It's basically the same width all through with some chunky fingers and yeah, remember when you were a kid and outlined your hand on paper and cut it out? It looks like that. :D Okay, I know that making actually fitting gloves and patterning those can be a major pain in the ass but this is like such a level of bad that I don't know if I should laugh or cry, especially if we are to believe the "professional tailor" claim. I can't think of any human being who would have swollen shovel arms in these proportions – that's gotta be a hypothermic neanderthal or something lol.

Inside of the glove is different color. (notice really uneven hem)

Glove, "above" view.

Glove, "under" view.

Cloak: And here's the best for last, the cloak! My favorite part of the outfit. It appears to be made of a grayish brown linen, slightly softer in touch than the tunic and less textured. It's basically a hooded full-length cape and it's really wide. Shame it gets wrinkled easily but it's still pretty sweet to twirl in and watch it flare out in the wind! There's no sleeves and to keep it in place there's a tiny hook closure at the front. I can see a lot of use for this cloak on live-action roleplays and such as it's generic and fits many fantasy settings more than just Star Wars.

Cloak worn on top. Front.

Cloak worn on top. Back.

Cloak hook closure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Below is a couple "full" (minus the cloak, pants, glove and feet wrappings) cosplay photos dressed on a torso-only mannequin.
All photos taken by me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Front without cloak.

Back without cloak.

Front close-up.

In all fairness this particular costume is about 90% accurate to the stock photos on the site. I knew what it would look like but I was hoping for the fabrics to be a bit more fitting but, then again, I'm not surprised as this is the typical China quality, give or take. But hey, make sure to study the stock photos carefully as you are likely to get something similar to it if you buy from MoviesCostume.

Feeling a need to dress up to align with the Force?

Link to MoviesCostume main page: MoviesCostume Online Cosplay Store

Luke Skywalker TLJ costume link: Star Wars Luke Skywalker Cosplay Costume Version B

All Star Wars costumes: MoviesCostume Star Wars costume selection

MoviesCostume store & Luke Skywalker costume rundown – Pros and cons:

+ Accurate to store's stock photos
+ The linen fabric is pretty okay
+ Sewing quality is good for the most part
+ Quick processing & making time
+ Shipping time as expected
+ Packaging
+ Easy to deal with customer service
+ Replies fast to emails
+ Clothing bag

- Despite ordering custom size some parts are too big and others too small
- A lot of loose threads and a few uneven/bad stitches
- The main fabric (creme colored) is thin polyester, doesn't fit idea of Star Wars
- Not applicable for Legion 501st etc standards
- Not for those who demand screen-accuracy
- The belt lacks any closure to keep it in place without falling off (mistake?)

~ Sizing ~

I have already realized that "custom size" is in reality not custom size with online costume shops. It can't possibly be with big factories that creates a full costume in less than a week. Because to do custom size you generally need to draw the pattern from scratch for each customer etc.

Which means that previously when I've had "custom size" costumes fitting it has been because I've been lucky with having my measurements corresponding to the ready-made sizes once they were mixed and matched; aka "custom size" is most likely just the store taking whatever pre-set sizes they have and making each costume part to whatever pre-set size lands closest to your given measures, for example M for pants, S for shirt etc.

Most of the costume parts were in this case too small, which is harder to do something about as bigger you can (almost) always take in but smaller you're stuck with. I would always prefer to wear the costumes that I'm showcasing myself but this time it was not possible so I had to resort to another solution, hence the mannequin. It was my only way to get the review done, I hope you can understand. 

Luke Skywalker reference image.

~ Conclusion and final thoughts ~

Okay, so despite how harsh my review might sound I want to stress that the costume does look like the stock photos and if that is good enough for your costuming needs then you need not worry, especially if you are not picky about fabric choices and fit into standard sizes. MoviesCostume are, based on my experience, really patient and easy to deal with.

MoviesCostume's turn-around times are comparable to other overseas costume shops, so be sure to plan in advance and order at least a couple months prior to the event you need the costume for, just to avoid any stress. Their costumes might not be the most character accurate out there but will work as decent bases if you can't sew from scratch but want to do some small modifications to an existing costume. There's a lot of crappier satin monster cosplay stores and scams out there so yeah, MoviesCostume is actually decent if you count in the whole spectrum of online shops. Some of the issues could potentially be fixed if you're sewing savvy.

Overall, I can say that I would only recommend this Luke Skywalker outfit for those who are new to cosplay, for Halloween, a movie showing, themed parties or your Star Wars crazy nephew's birthday and the like. Basically it's a "quick fix" costume or one on which you don't want to spend a lot of time doing research beforehand and are content with simply being recognized as "old man Luke" as this will do it. But if you're looking for a screen-accurate or authentic feeling Luke Skywalker costume then keep on looking, this is not the costume you're looking for. But if you don't care too much about details or don't mind being a grumpy old Jedi on a budget then by all means go for it, it's not expensive for the fun that can be had with it! May the Force be with you.

Final Grade (from A-F): C

Recommend to others: Maybe

That about sums it up. I hope you found this review helpful and hey, do hit that "follower" button if you aren't reading my blog yet, I always appreciate new faces!

A huge thank you goes out to MoviesCostume for making this review possible and to you for reading this! ♡
~  Shiro Samurai says goodbye.