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Before we start, let me introduce you to what the amazing show My Hero Academia is. It is a superhero series about Izuku Midoriya. He was born without superpowers, something that is considered odd in this world. Where there are superheroes, there are supervillains.
One of these supervillains is Himiko, an important member of the League of Villains. She is the master of disguise, the cosplayer of the My Hero Academia universe. She is an expert in stealth and infiltration. While she is mostly lurking in the shadows, she can hold her own and is very skilled at combat.
Himiko has one of the strongest Quirks. The Transform Quirk has given her the ability to take on the appearance of any individual. However, she needs to have ingested their blood. The duration of her transformation is dependent on how much blood she swallowed. She can’t copy the Quirks of other individuals.
In this Toga Cosplay Ideas guide, I am going to talk about Toga her background, her personality, and of course I am going to discuss her costume. I will go into depth on what she wears and how you can get this costume for your own, and I am going to give my opinion on premade and homemade costumes. At the end of the article, I am going to answer some of the most asked questions about Himiko Toga and this cosplay.
Getting to Know Himiko Togo: Personality and Background
I have a saying I often repeat about cosplaying and acting. A perfect cosplay is 90% costume and 10% personality. You can never have a perfect cosplay if you are not at least a bit acting like the character. That is why I think it is important to think about who you are cosplaying and what their background and personality are.
Background
We know quite a lot about Himiko Toga, her background. She comes from an esteemed family, the Toga family. When she was a child, she already had a weird obsession with blood. One time, she brought a bloody dead bird to her parents and started asking weird questions and calling the dead bird pretty.
Her parents who were mortified with her behavior tried to make her normal again. They put pressure on her to make her normal again. Himiko just played along and was known by everyone as a well-behaved girl who was always cheerful and nice.
When a fight broke out in her school and a boy named Saitowas covered in bruises and blood, something snapped in her and she turned back abnormal again. Himiko developed a crush on the boy, just because she saw him bleeding.
One day she broke down and stabbed Saito with a box cutter, stuck a straw in his wound, and started sucking his blood. She was in complete bliss doing this.
After this, she disappeared and was linked to many murders where bloodletting was part of the killing. She evaded the police and joined the League of Villains.
Personality
Himiko Toga is very cheerful, even when she has just killed someone. It is clear that she is sadistic and not completely right in the head. This continues even when she is going to be in mortal danger. She often blushes out of pure excitement and embarrassment.
Himiko is also still in part a normal teenage girl. While she is completely crazy, she still falls in love and befriend other girls.
Himiko is best seen as a complete psychopath that seems to not be able to handle normal relationships. Even less so when blood is involved. Due to this, she has a very hard time fitting in and feeling wanted. She has major mood swings and can go from happy to furious in just a couple of seconds.
Despite being not 100% in the head, and horrible at relationships with other people, she is a very loyal friend. After Twice was killed, she became enraged and fearful of what would happen to her when she is caught.
What do you need for a Himiko Toga cosplay?
Blond wig
If you do a lot of cosplaying I would recommend you to buy a high-quality wig. A great wig is going to help you a lot when cosplaying. A lot of characters in anime – despite it being a very rare hair color in Japan – have blond hair. So you will be able to use the wig for many cosplays. Get a wig that is of high enough quality that you can put it into different hairstyles without damaging the wig.
If you have gotten your wig make sure you have some fabric softener and soak your wig. Then you can air-dry your wig and then just use a couple of bobby pins to fix the hair. Twist the hair into buns and then apply the strongest hairspray you can get. You can not apply enough of it.
Toga Mask
This is an optional thing to have, but it is a cool addition. You can make this yourself, by using cardboard, paint, plastic tubes, and so on. However, I would strongly recommend you to buy a premade mask. This is going to be a lot better than making it yourself, and a lot safer too. Since the paint, you are using if you are doing it yourself might be harmful to your health. A premade mak is inexpensive and will save you quite a lot of time. If you are just going for the Toga schoolgirl look, you do not need this item.
The Himiko Toga scarf
This is something some of you probably can make yourself, but I sure can’t. You can make a very well-made scarf for a pretty inexpensive price of great quality. I prefer this over making it myself since this doing arts and crafts for a costume piece like this can easily cost you tens of hours. If you are just going for the Toga schoolgirl look, you do not need this item.
The Toga Blood Drain Machine
This is another one of the items of this costume that are awesome in my opinion. It is very hard to make. I would strongly recommend you to just purchase this item online. The options you have online are all very high quality and making this yourself is just going to be more expensive in raw materials alone, and the time you invest in it could be used for other parts of this costume better if you want to make something yourself. If you are just going for the Toga schoolgirl look, you do not need this item.
Hikimo toga dress
You will probably have to buy this one too. You can make it yourself if you want to, but it is not going to be cheap if you start from scratch and you will need to put the time into it. If you want to do it yourself the easy way, you are going to need one large blue cloth with white lines, and a red silk cloth. You are also going to need a white fitted shirt with buttons.
Cat eyes
Are these needed for a good cosplay? No. Are they needed for a perfect cosplay? Yes. It comes down to how much effort you want to put into your cosplay. Besides the fact that putting in contact lenses is extremely annoying, there is also the problem that using contact lenses can be quite dangerous if you pick a bad brand. You will need to buy a great quality lens from a reputable brand.
The Pros and Cons of Buying Your Cosplay Costumes Premade
While at first glance, Hikimo Toga has a pretty easy outfit to cosplay, you might take it to the next level and cosplay her in her combat outfit. Both are very good options. I am going to consider both of these in this chapter. Please note, these are my personal opinions. You might think a certain pro is a con for you, or what I am saying just does not make sense to you.
Why You Should Buy Premade
Convenience – Buying premade is so much easier than dealing with buying all the different materials and making sure you have the right equipment to make a piece of your costume. It is also a lot less stressful. You don’t have to be scared that you mess something up and have to start all over again, or won’t be able to use a piece of the costume.
Quality and accurate – If you buy a popular cosplay costume – like the one this guide is about – it is likely going to be pretty high quality. The cosplay scene is a pretty big industry. Selling inaccurate low-quality products is not going to make your company a lot of money in the long run. If you are making an item yourself, speaking from experience, it is a lot less accurate if you are a beginner.
Why You Should Not Buy Premade
Not as unique – Using premade products means you are going to have other people that have the same product as you. The odds are someone is going to have the same costume, down to the details as you. Some people do not mind this, others hate this. Making a costume from scratch all by yourself is going to ensure nobody has the same cosplay costume as you. You could of course also just make one or two items yourself, or add something unique you have made.
Final thoughts about cosplaying as Toga from My Hero Academia
Toga is one of my favorite My Hero Academia characters. You can make her cosplay quite easy by just cosplaying the schoolgirl version. You can also make it a bit more expert level by doing her combat version.
I would strongly recommend you to go for the schoolgirl outfit if you are a beginner who wants to make some things yourself. The combat outfit should, even if you are an expert, be bought premade in my opinion.
The only downside with this costume is that not a lot of people know this character. Yes, the anime is very popular, but at this point in the story, she is a side character and not the main villain, no matter how cool she is.
Frequently asked questions about Toga Cosplay Ideas
Question: Do I need to buy a wig for this cosplay?
Answer: Yes. Even if you have blond hair of the same length, you should still use a wig. You are going to need to use a lot of hairspray for her haircut. That is probably going to damage your natural hair. So I would just use a wig. If you have a quality wig, then you can do this without a problem. Just make sure you wash out the hairspray immediately out of the wig when you are done cosplaying.
Question: Is Toga from my hero academy a recognizable cosplay?
Answer: If you are going to go as her schoolgirl form, you will probably have a very hard time being recognized. She does not get so much screen time and is not one of the best-known characters in the series. Real fans will recognize you straight away if you have done the haircut right.
If you are going as her combat version, the odds are a bit better in your favor. Her props are pretty unique but to make sure people know what they are you will need high-quality props that are accurate to the anime.
Question: What is an extra prop I can bring for the Toga cosplay?
Answer: Yes, you can! Since her entire character revolves around blood, you should strongly consider bringing some fake blood or applying some on the white shirt if you want to add a cool twist to your cosplay. Of course, this is going to give you quite a few looks, but it does really add a lot to the cosplay in my opinion.
Overall
Do you have any tips for people cosplaying Hikimo Toga for the first time? Have we missed a cool costume item, or do you want to see us cover another character of My Hero Academia? Let us know!