Cosplay Amino: A New Form of Cosplay Networking! (App Review)

It's sometimes hard as a cosplayer to social network in the cosplaying world without meeting the person either at a convention or somehow online. A lot of times we resort to using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even Tumblr to find other cosplayers with same interests and costume ideas. However, the creators of Cosplay Amino recognized this issue, and created the app especially to network cosplayers.

Cosplay Amino is one of the many apps made in the Amino series of apps for your phone; others being Harry Potter Amino, LoL Amino, Crafty Amino, Star Wars Amino, and so many others it would take a fair amount of time to name. Needless to say, Cosplay Amino in an interesting niche app that helps you as a cosplayer meet other cosplayers, get help on cosplays, give advice to others, get ideas, and just chat with those who like what you like.

Welcome to the home page of Cosplay Amino! As you can see, there are three tabs at the top when it comes to news on your newsfeed: Following (where you can see new posts made by those you follow), Featured (where posts that gain enough popularity show up, of an admin of the app made it), and Latest (any post a member on the app made relative to when you click it- it shows from most recent down). You can as a member "review" posts, where you can like what is posted, comment on it, etc. The two icons at the top show your home section, and then also your friends and follower lists.

This is the home bar or page of the app! Not only does it offer you links to the other Amino apps, as seen, but it takes you to different sections of the app as well; if you click your profile picture icon (me at the top), it takes you to your account page. Clicking on "My Chats" takes you to the list of chats you are in (you have the option of joining public group chats, making private group chats with friends, or doing one on one chats). Notifications show you who might have just followed you, responses to your posting or comments, and results on polls or answers you gave around the site. Composition allows you to write blog posts on your account, create a forum post or poll, post pictures, and more. Search allows you to look for specific topics that are tagged as such, or certain people's accounts. The links below that are to certain sections as labeled.

This is the home page of your account! When most everyone clicks your name, this is what pops up first. As you can see, you can make blog posts (I made one about cosplaying Clone Mozart from After School Charisma), choose certain cosplays that are your "favorites" to be featured at the top, and it shows your reputation, your following count, and your followers count. To gain reputation and become a full "community member" like I became, it takes a lot of following people, gaining followers, and posting comments, liking people's things, and being overall helpful. People doing the same to you in turn also helps boost reputation. And to get the full "community member" title, all you need to earn is 25 reputation. Sure it seems little, but it is actually somewhat difficult!

As a full community member, it allows you to start public chats that anyone can join. For instance, as I saw that there was no "Sengoku Basara" group, once I reached 25 reputation, I formed the group and people joined. By being in public chats (and there's a long list of them, ranging from general topics like my "Sengoku Basara Chat" to "Coloradostuck Cosplayers") you meet plenty of other people who like the things you do, and are from all around the world even! I'm in a group for German Cosplayers currently, due to the fact I am studying in Germany right now, and would like to meet German Cosplayers.

This is your official "page" that people can see. It allows for a short bio, along with featuring multiple pictures in a filtering method behind your icon. It sometimes also shows where you live (though this is an optional thing that you can turn off!), and the typical reputation, following count, and followers count. I sure have a lot to do projects wise!

As always, there are pros and cons with every app. A few cons I can find with it is that the constant notifications on my phone about public chat messages popping up, though I'm sure I could actually turn that off. A big thing that the entire community complains about is how the icon for the actual app looks atrocious, which is kind of true. A few other things is the odd posting format that you need to know a little coding to fix, and weird buggy issues with polling.

Overall, I think this app is really useful in the end for meeting new people, learning a lot about cosplaying, and encouraging you to do your best in cosplay. While the app is occasionally weird and buggy, it's a brand new app that really only came out a month ago, meaning the programming team has plenty of time to make it better!

Overall Grade on the Doki Doki Scale

From a scale of one to ten Dokis, I rate this app as...

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ -Eight Dokis!

Find the Cosplay Amino app on the app store for iPhones, or the Android Market for Android users!

Here are a few other shots of the app as well!

Image 1: My Sengoku Basara public chat I made. Despite not enjoying some of the immaturity of people (like the one person who apparently ships Ieyasu and Mitsunari with that picture), I enjoy moderating the group and meeting people interested in cosplaying SenBasa, or just love the games/manga/anime. As the community member running the public chat, you are able to change the banner that people see on the home page for public chats, along with changing the background picture or colors (in this case I have Masamune and Yukimura fighting).
Image 2 and 3: The Forums where you can post on different topics and learn from Step-by-Step DIY posts. Each different topic offers different ideas; photography often has cosplay photographers talking about tips with their work, or advice for newbie cosplay photographers
Image 4: These are the overall public chat lists. You can search for certain topics, look for groups based near you, or just filter through all five billion chats made by people. There's never a secret password to join, and the nice thing is you can leave and rejoin however much you want.