There’s cosplay and then there’s cosplay. It’s always charming to see people of all ages exercise their creativity on behalf of their favorite movies, books, games, etc. But every now and again, someone comes up with a cosplay idea that’s truly mind-blowing.
Mike Carambat (known on Reddit as retroresource) is a prime example. Recently, he designed an Overwatch cosplay outfit for his young daughter Amanda. This isn’t just your average dress or bodysuit, though—Carambat made his kid a D.Va mech complete with moveable robot arms, an electric wheelchair for its base and a steering mechanism at its torso. It even has a voice system with D.Va quotes and fusion cannons that rotate and light up when you fire them!
It’s extremely touching to see a guy do something like this for his daughter. Quite empowering too, considering Hana “D.Va” Song’s backstory and the way that players of the Blizzard Entertainment game have responded to her.
Hailing from South Korea, the Overwatch character—whose name is (obviously) a play on “diva”—started out as a champion pro StarCraft player (another popular Blizzard Entertainment game in South Korea). However, when MEKA needed mech pilots to battle the Omnic, they recruited D.Va. Whether she’s squaring off against StarCraft opponents or defending her country from AI robots in her mech, she fights with everything she has. She puts it simply: “I play to win.”
D.Va’s spirit has inspired women in the real world. Recently, a group of female gamers formed the National D.Va Association in response to sexist attitudes in the South Korean gaming community.
A member of the group told Polygon that they “decided to act for feminism under her emblem so that in 2060, someone like D.Va could actually appear.”
Who knows? Thanks to this stunning cosplay—which cost less than $1,000 (!) to make—maybe that someone could be Amanda Carambat!
You can see video of the D.Va mech assembly process on Mike Carambat’s Instagram. If you want to see it in person, head to DragonCon in Atlanta this September!
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