Do you fantasize about the "paper man" from anime and games appearing in your life?
Breaking the boundary between fantasy and reality is a long-standing topic, and in 1999's Digimon, electronic pets can enter reality; In the 2021 online drama "My Babylon Lover", the male protagonist of the novel created by the heroine when she was a child suddenly appeared in reality, claiming to love her and was born.
Digimon: The Last Evolution ACG audience is rather blurred about the boundaries between "paper man into reality". Otome games with live-action appearances will be scolded bloody, players shout "only love paper people", and cosers who wear wigs and draw full makeup and play themselves as a certain role, as long as the appearance and temperament are infinitely close, can also be loved by "insiders".
After projecting enough feelings for "Paper Man", some people are no longer satisfied with their relationship with the character, and are limited to buying peripheral support and the dating plot designed by the game copywriting.
The "COS commission" industry was born. Cosers are commissioned to play the role loved by the client, and can take photos online at the client's request, or spend some time with the client offline. Some people pay for the "paper man boyfriend" to enter reality and date themselves for a day, and some people find two cosers to dress up as their own CPs, let them travel as a couple in front of them, and act as a camera focusing on candy.
Platform-related commissioned posts
Perhaps for safety reasons, or perhaps because of the many social fears of two-dimensional groups, it is easier to open chatterboxes between people of the same sex, and this kind of COS commission almost all occurs between girls and girls. Searching for "COS commission" on various social platforms, female cosers offered prices, indicating the height they could reach, the categories of intimate behavior they could accept (mostly holding hands and hugging), and most emphasized "not accepting male commissions". The single owners posted photos, as if they had really experienced a sweet date with their favorite characters.
I wondered if Jocoser dressed up as my favorite character really "break the dimensional wall", let her gain my empathy, and also make me feel "loved by the paper man"?
So I decided to actually experience it. Searching for the combination of "COS commission" and local IP on Xiaohongshu, I found a few cosers who looked experienced, had a certain amount of traffic on the platform, and had a look that matched my character image.
In the end, I chose one of them (I called her "Y"), sent a private message to her to confirm the time of the commission, added WeChat, handed over the deposit, and waited for the day when the dimensional wall was broken.
It may be the first time to experience such a commission, and the day of the agreed meeting is getting closer and closer, and I also inexplicably became anxious, constantly searching for the keyword "COS commission" on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and B Station, wanting to understand what kind of activities ordinary customers will carry out with COSER.
I asked Y what she usually plays with her single owner, and the answer is: generally follow the single owner, watch the exhibition, go shopping, the secret room script kills, make cakes, make jewelry, shoot stickers... It's like opening a book of "100 Things Couples Must Do".
On the day of the discussion, the character who arranged for me to date with Y was Aki Hayakawa in "Chainsaw Man", that is, she was dating me in the same way as Akira Hayakawa. Strictly speaking, my emotional projection of Aki Hayakawa cannot be regarded as a love mentality, but more like silently liking this "paper man" with feelings of appreciation and pity. At the same time, I am also a "CP fan" of Aki Hayakawa x Himeno in the anime. On the day of the "date", I also looked like Himeno, firstly, because I felt that this would "relieve embarrassment" more, and secondly, I always felt that I had a lot in common with Himeno, and I hoped to better empathize with "Hayakawa Aki" in this way.
I don't trim my wig, so I can only wear a messy wig and walk into the coffee shop dressed as a character, and "Akira Hayakawa" quietly appears behind me.
This anxiety has finally "settled". Frankly speaking, the moment I looked back, I was stunned in place, the feeling was probably similar to the crush often said on the Internet today, as if I really saw Hayakawa Aki step over the dimensional wall and walk in front of him, and "he" spoke, but it was a female voice belonging to Y: "I've been waiting for when you find out (I'm behind you)." ”
Before I found Y, I also looked for "online commissioning", which is to take some character photos in my favorite style with a suitable coser online, or make a list of character language C, and let real people play favorite characters and have conversations with me.
In short, I have constantly tried to find the point of interaction between the second and third dimensions, so that this ethereal relationship becomes within reach.
Accompany to the coffee shop
The meaning of the existence of cosplay is often to bring the two-dimensional character to the three-dimensional and form a wonderful chemical reaction of "2.5 dimension". But when we communicated, I could only think of her as Y, not as "Aki Hayakawa".
Y became a coser out of interest at the age of fifteen or sixteen, and also entered the "industry" of COS commission at the end of last year on the recommendation of a friend. The most singles she received were the characters in the otome game "Love of Light and Night", such as the well-known "Xiao Yi" and "Chisley", who accompanied the single owner to "play for a day" on the character's birthday, single master's birthday or simply on rest days.
The price of COS consignment is billed by the hour, and "subscription days" will have a fixed price that specifies the hours when it can be opened. Because most single owners expect a "one-day date with a paper man's boyfriend", cosers often need to complete what "ideal boyfriends" should do in dating, such as bringing flowers when meeting on dates, taking the initiative to hold hands, and so on. On the Little Red Book, there is a single owner who complains that the experience of his COS commission is not good, and the coser he finds will not even have the most basic "boyfriend etiquette", and he wants her to open the door by herself.
The spit on quality in the Little Red Book
Cosers who receive commissions will also write the bottom line of "intimate behavior" that they can accept. In the rules of y, the most intimate contact is kissing the cheek.
She only accepts the commission of girls, and the single owners she encounters will neither mention or do requirements beyond the rules of the commission, nor do they need the coser to fully follow the logical interpretation and performance of the character's character image, but only need the image to fit to the greatest extent and chat normally during communication. And when Y and I were drinking coffee at a table, we could neither enter cosplay nor talk about "Chainsaw Man", just like ordinary netizens who met for the first time, and because of dress, like a pair of colleagues talking about work.
"Colleagues who talk to work"
Among the cosers she knows, no one takes orders from single-masters of the opposite sex. But I have asked for a photo coser online, and I have revealed to me that I have received the commission of the main COS of the men's single: "Holding hands and hugging are also separated, and I feel that the few I have made an appointment are not very good, a little obscene." ”
In Y's view, she rarely participates in various COS businesses online, such as taking photos and holding up signs. "It doesn't feel good to collect money. Among coser friends, these are commonplace, and it's a bit strange for outsiders to collect money. ”
"Dream girl" refers to a woman who has a romantic relationship with an idol or anime game character. The original semantics had a certain pejorative meaning, but after the otome game began to become popular in China, the frequency of use of "dream girl" became widespread.
Just like what Y experienced, it was the "dream girl" of the otome game that made COS commissions popular. Y once heard in the circle that a single owner invited five cosers to play the five male protagonists in "Love of Light and Night" to celebrate his birthday in a manor.
"It's an exaggeration." She said. I also nodded in amazement: "I really want to be a rich woman." ”
Station B can find a variety of cos commission records
My small gifts for Y include a copy of Call Me by Your Name, a star film written in Himeno's voice, a star film written in my own voice for Y, several anime peripheral photo cards, and two packs of soft seven stars. In "Chainsaw Man", Hayakawa Aki because Himeno began to smoke, and the two smoked soft seven stars together, and after Himeno left, Hayakawa Aki switched to smoking camels. I explained as I gave her the gift, and she immediately resonated.
After drinking coffee, Y and I took a big photo sticker and visited the popular Internet celebrity exhibition "Tomorrow is Approaching". During this period, we started with "awkward chats" that did not have any central topics, and later found that in addition to "Chainsaw Man", we also had the same CP, concerned topics and memes in anime such as "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" and "Volleyball Boy", and gradually became warm.
Take a group photo in the mirror in the exhibition
During the photo shoot, Y helped me sort out the messy wig and walked side by side in the mall, and she naturally took my hand.
The weekend 798 has many couples in pairs, and Y's appearance has also attracted the attention of many pedestrians. There are even passers-by who come together to "play terriers": ah, will you be eaten by the fox demon (the demon who signed a contract with Hayakawa Aki) while walking on the road? And by the back I was able to naturally wrap her arm, as if we were a normal couple dating on the holidays.
Y frankly said that even if she encounters a single owner who is particularly afraid of society, she will try her best to find a topic within the contract time, not to be cold, and try not to look at the mobile phone without looking at the mobile phone, and pay attention to the dynamics of the single owner. Walking through 798, a discarded building covered with graffiti, Y said that the last time a single owner of Xiaoyi took many photos with her here, she felt that this scene was very suitable for "Chainsaw Man". So I also stopped to take a few atmospheric photos of Y, and at this time I was still afraid to enter the country, and she was one with the graffiti.
After obtaining consent, Y will post a photo with the single owner on his social platform. In addition, Y's main platform is more of her COS feature films and "whole life" videos. She once considered doing self-media, but there was no actual benefit, and it would also make her feel anxious about traffic, and gradually only posted casually on it.
Y took over the youngest single master and just entered junior high school. "At first, I didn't know she was so young, I just thought she was simply a social terrorist, and then when I talked to her, I found out, and I was completely shocked." This is also the only single owner who wants to make another appointment after making an appointment once, and Y chooses to politely refuse: "You are too young to accept your money".
A friend of mine was also worried about "cos commissioning" because of this. The coser who plays the "one-day boyfriend" has to diligently help carry the bag and open and close the car door, and some single owners will also ask the coser not to open his mouth during the whole process, so that he can substitute himself. "Instead of thinking that she is a character I like, I will feel that people are just little sisters who are still in college, and although I spent money, I am embarrassed to let people help me do this and that, which may be the reason why I have not taken this step."
I also happened to be a year older than Y, so I asked her, "Then you're not afraid I'm a bad person?" ”
This "danger" does exist and is unknown to both the coser and the monomaster. The single owners Y meets are basically young girls with cute personalities, but once one party is hidden, the result of the guidance does not seem to be a dream "one-day date". The COS commission posted on Xiaohongshu was accompanied by friends, and Y came to see me this time, and it was her parents who drove her to the agreed café.
Even the "cos commission" itself exists in the gray area, I once mentioned the online cos commission to a friend, and the other party even thought that I was talking about taking pictures of the welfare Ji who was playing the edge ball.
Complaints about harassment of commissions
Finally, the question of "bad guys" was laughed at by us. In order to fit the scene in the original book, I set dinner at a family wine house. During the meal, we took pictures of each other with Polaroid, and thanks to Polaroid's exposure technology, I finally laughed unhappily under the camera.
At night, Sanlitun is full of fireworks and silver flowers, and there are less than three hours before the end of Y's "business hours". Quickly skimming across the square to take pictures of landmark buildings and street photos (Y said he hated being photographed by the street), we took a few popular "cos commissioned whole jobs" on station B, posed for some of her solo atmosphere photos, and finally I gestured and said: I want to take that atmosphere photo, let's go to a darker place.
In "Chainsaw Man", Hayakawa Aki and Himeno are a rather tragic pair of work partners, as a senior, Himeno took Hayakawa Aki to start smoking, and she finally died to save Hayakawa Aki. The author, Fujimotoki, is evaluated by readers as "the cult film director of the manga", and in the film film, the absurdity of ash, red blood, overflowing and unspoken love constitute the whole of these two people.
"Chainsaw Man" anime OP
In the blurry footage of the iPhone, "Aki Hayakawa" calmly walks from one end of the street, and "Himeno" rushes towards him, and they hug under the heavy night; "Hayakawa Aki" took "Himeno" by the hand from behind, the two of them ran around the street with ping-pong (because I had a lot of things in my bag), and "Hayakawa Aki" lit a cigarette under a bright and dark street lamp... These are all recorded. Later, the two of us squatted on the road with our mobile phones and took out a cigarette, but together we only lit the one of "Hayakawa Aki", and "Hayakawa Aki" lit my cigarette with his cigarette and completed a scrawled cigarette kiss.
Maybe the night has become the protective color of two "2.5 dimensions", we squatted on the curb to smoke, I told a joke: I saw two rear-end cars driving double jumps to the side of the road in my hometown, and two very young and beautiful female drivers squatted on the side of the road smoking, probably waiting for the insurance company to come.
I asked him again: Can I kiss him? He said, "Kiss it," so I quickly leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
On the way home, I repeatedly pulled the progress bar of this video and smiled from the bottom of my heart. I realized that perhaps the most irreplaceable value of cos commission is to leave these images with "me" participation.
In every moment of simple companionship, as long as Y shows a slight resemblance to "Aki Hayakawa", I can easily realize that she is not him, and he cannot come to my reach from the paper, the screen, or my imagination. I regret that the virtual is virtual after all, and the practice of forcibly dragging the virtual into reality will even be called magic by passers-by.
But when this video appeared in front of my eyes, it was clear to me that I had been her. In a memory that will eventually fade, Himeno kisses Hayakawa Aki.
The commission ended, and we each took a taxi. I told y: go home and drink more hot water, eat more, smoke less, produce more films... At the end of the commission I had made, the client also said some words of entrustment to me, and she saw that I was busy with work during the week's contract time, and I was often troubled by human feelings, so she said goodbye to her in this way, which made me almost cry.
Verbal C Delegate The other party is Chisiley of "Love of Light and Night"
But when I opened her homepage with emotion and wanted to "refill my drink", I browsed her order history. Other single-owners like me left messages on her homepage, praising her fit and enjoyable experience with the character. So I immediately sobered up.
Just like at this moment, the taxi was about to arrive, and as soon as I received my instructions, I bowed my head and transferred the entrusted money to her.