I recently did some deep thinking trying to answer the question "how did I get here?" (By "here" I mean a deep fascination with kigurumi) After probing some of my oldest memories, I managed to piece together the lineage of interests I've had which led to this point. (Or at least, my best recollection of how it went)
1 . Animorphs
Back in elementary school, the Animorphs books were the coolest thing to read at the school library. These stories introduced to me the concept of secret identities, and crucially, the concept of people transforming and into something unrecognizable from their natural physical form.
2. Furries
Sometime in my later elementary school years, I was browsing youtube and stumbled across THIS video.
Little preteen me, who was already a fan of fictional stories of people becoming animals, was completely and utterly enthralled by this video. Someone had created a costume that turns the wearer into a wolf! That was the coolest thing that I had ever seen ever!!
Exploring the channel of this creator further, I learned that this costume is called a quadsuit, which is a variation of a fursuit. Fascinated even more, I poked around youtube for videos of fursuits, and from there began my admiration of the furry community.
3. Kigurumi
I shared this story in this post, but I'm in the mood for repeating myself so I'll repeat myself!
I spent my late elementary school/middle school years fawning over furries. I watched so many videos of furry conventions. By this point, I had developed a strong desire for wearing a costume that could hide myself in totality.
And then I found her videos.
(I forget which video was the first of Nicki's that I saw, but it was one of these characters)
The sight of these costumes blew my mind. The costumes were form-fitting. They could wear clothes sized for normal people.
She looked. So. CUTE.
Through Nicki's videos, I learned what a "kigurumi" cosplayer was. And my heart had been set on achieving a very specific goal.
At times I wonder what would have happened if I didn't fall down this exact rabbit hole. If I didn't make this exact series of discoveries on the internet, where would I be now? What kind of state would my heart be in?
Eh. That's not really important to answer. I'm here. And I'm posting about it.