Another season of SyFy’s Heroes of Cosplay has come and gone. Season two was a vast improvement from the first season, but the show still has a long way to go to make the cosplay community happy with their subculture going mainstream. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make everyone happy. From the overall mistakes with the show, to the nitpicking of the internet, Heroes of Cosplay has room to grow, but least it’s going in the right direction. With a few new cast members, the reality show focused more on the demanding construction of costumes, rather than the meaningless schoolyard drama of the previous season. And the costumes…whoa. They were astounding. The cast really brought their A-game with creativity and craftsmanship.
That doesn’t mean this season was without some missteps, most of which happened off-air. Social media is a behemoth that connects us altogether. It’s a curse and a blessing. Most of the “drama” from the show came from unhappy people who took to Facebook, Twitter, and the like to express their dissatisfaction with the filming and with the show itself. Animate Miami and Wizard World New Orleans seemed to have the most twitter drama, as many people who attended those specific conventions weren’t happy with the way the filming of the contests went or with the winners of said contests. Everyone can’t win, being that the cast is a part of a show that is putting on the contests; it would seem as though they’d win all the time. Unfortunately, viewers often forget that this is a “reality show” – reality being a very loose term. The cast has often expressed that this is much more of a scripted show than a reality show.
There are probably certain things SyFy could do to keep pleasing the community, some of which I think they’ve already started to do. This season wasn’t terrible. This season wasn’t perfect. But this season offered way more than the previous season did in terms of costume construction, which is really what people want to see. Some things that would make an improvement to the show are:
Better Organized Filming
One of the biggest gripes I’ve heard was how disorganized and lengthy the actual contests could be. The Wizard World New Orleans contest has been talked about many times for being super lengthy for the attending crowd. Sure, filming is a long process. It’s not easy, but perhaps if the filming was a bit more organized, there would be a lot less chatter around the internet.
Diversity
This is one aspect of the show that people have wanted more of from the beginning. The show seems to be moving in the right direction, adding more men and people of different backgrounds and cultures. However, cosplay is such a diverse hobby, and it seems that the show is still not capturing the true spirit of what the hobby can bring: so many ethnicities. So many people from all walks of life. Young cosplayers. Old cosplayers. Those who are handicapped and those who overcome so much to cosplay. Diversity is a very difficult thing to showcase, because there will always be someone who isn’t represented at a given time. However, Heroes of Cosplay should show how vast this community can be.
More credit to artists/commissioners/etc.
Personally, the credits fly by so quickly after the show’s over it’s hard to see if these people got credit, but a lot of people are demanding that credit is given when due. Fair enough. Most of the cosplayers give credit after the fact on their personal twitter accounts if someone helped make their props or costumes, but many people want that credit given on the show. There was a bit of controversy just before the finale involving Yaya Han’s scene at Museum Replicas where a flash of some Bayonetta fan art designs had the artist taking to Facebook. One person even called Yaya out on Twitter, where she took to her personal account to express her feelings towards getting blamed for everything on the show.
Heroes of Cosplay season two was good, but the series could be great. It’s impossible to please everyone, but hopefully the show will continue to show growth if it has future seasons.
