Japan’s Highest-Paid Pro Cosplayer Debuts Attack on Titan Costume

Professional cosplayer Enako recently showed off her take on Attack on Titan's Mikasa Ackerman.

The new photos were released to promote a new collaboration between Attack on Titan and the mobile multiplayer shooter, Knives Out. Enako portrays Mikasa with the character's pre-time skip appearance, complete with a red scarf, the standard Survey Corps. uniform, and with an accurately modeled pair of ultrahard steel swords and vertical maneuvering equipment. Two other cosplayers also appear in the photos, portraying another member of the Survey Corps. and an original character from the mobile game.

Enako is one of Japan's highest paid and most popular professional cosplayers. In a 2021 interview, Enako revealed that she has made over 100 million yen -- over $875,000 USD -- in the year so far, mostly earned from paid appearances, modeling jobs and through the sale of photo books. She frequently posts pictures of her new costumes to her Twitter and Instagram, where she has over 1.3 million and 1.7 million followers, respectively. She also frequently hosts livestreams, where she plays multiplayer shooters such as Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Seige.

Which may be part of the reason why she was chosen to promote Knives Out, an online, battle royale style shooter for iOS and Android devices that has no relation to the critically acclaimed murder-mystery movie of the same name. The game is published and developed by NetEase, the Chinese internet conglomerate that operates a number of other free-to-play online games and is also co-developing the upcoming Diablo Immortal mobile action-RPG with Blizzard. The game's new Attack on Titan collaboration lets players customize their characters with weapons and accessories themed after Hajime Isayama's popular anime and manga series.

The collaboration is one of the ways Attack on Titan is building up hype for the anime series' impending finale. Isayama's original manga came to a controversial end earlier this year, and the anime is set to follow suit with its final run of episodes, which are scheduled to begin airing in Japan on Jan. 9.  Crunchyroll will provide a simulcast of the series to over 200 countries, with subtitles available in eight languages. Funimation will also stream the series as it airs in Japan in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Australia and New Zealand. Animation studio MAPPA, who took over production for the series after Vivy: Fluorite Eyes' Song and Vinland Saga's Wit Studio animated the first three seasons, will once again return to produce the show's final batch of episodes.

Source: Twitter