Photo:@climacam

People kept asking if there was real food in the bucket/peach mango pie container! I told them “No, don’t you think it’d be soggy by now?” I feel like as a Filipino it’s a little bit sacrilegious to eat soggy Jollibee. It’s best to eat it as fresh as possible. Other reactions I got were hilarious, but I especially liked hearing “I have to show my mom/family”. I think seeing Filipinos thrive and enjoy the representation in this silly costume I did is inspiring for me. If anybody reading this hasn’t yet, please try out Jollibee if you’re close to one. If not the chicken then at least the peach mango pie. It’s delightful.

I actually found a video from a doll makeover YouTuber named Hextian, who is also Filipino. He made a Jollibee doll and I actually said to my friends I wanted to cosplay her. That was around 2019. I’ve been ruminating on the idea for three and a half years. But at the time, I was still in college with no money and no means of creating something like that. Flash forward to 2022, when planning for Katsucon 2023, I was thinking about what to do in terms of a cosplay for Katsucon. That’s when I said, “Okay, Jollibee cosplays are really rare, especially SEXY Jollibee, why don’t I just try doing it?”

I bought a red bunny suit cosplay off of Amazon, and bought yellow and red fabric of the same material (PU Leather) on Fashion Fabrics’s website. I used the yellow fabric to just sew on stripes on the bodysuit. I used Kinpatsu Cosplay’s tail tutorial to make the base of the bee stinger and used the yellow fabric to cover the band that holds the belt around my waist. I actually free handed the pattern for the EVA foam and that’s how I made the stinger. It’s only my 2nd time using foam like that, so I think it is a bit rough around the edges. But there’s always room for improvement! I also bought a child size white chef hat from Etsy and I made the antennae out of craft foam, and attached them with magnets through the wig. I made the wings out of eva foam with a layer of yellow cellophane.

My older cousins got me into anime and they used to go to Otakon back in the day. I remember begging my mom to let me go and eventually I was allowed to in 2012. That’s when my oldest kuya (male cousin in Tagalog) asked me “Who will you be cosplaying?” And I said, “Oh, is it required?” He said, “No, but it’s a lot of fun. You should try it out.” So I debated and finally caved in after looking at so many pictures online. I was 14 years old when I got my dad to buy my first cosplay as a birthday gift and it was Maka from Soul Eater. I was hooked since then!