Akanksha Sachan – India’s cosplayer goes global!

Classy, sassy, and a bit bad assy – These words perfectly describe Akanksha Sachan, a professional cosplayer from Delhi. Cosplaying involves the creation of costumes or the purchase of the same, in order to portray oneself as a character from a cartoon, video game, movie, or anything for that matter. Comic cons are a huge hit with the new age gamer and anime enthusiast, and there’s a lot of passion and competition involved.

While the Western World, and most Asian countries have embraced Cosplay, India seems to be trailing behind slowly. But millennials are taking huge strides in improving the Cosplay community in India and Akanksha is a role model to many others in this industry. Her work shows the serious effort that goes into Cosplaying and the way she captures the character’s essence is always on the dot.

Akanksha is a seamstress, anime-addict, a traveller, a graphic designer and a hardcore gamer. Her passion to travel is enhanced by a career that she has made out of cosplaying. She represents India at conventions across the world.

Akanksha Sachan had won the best anime/gaming costume in 2013, at Comic Con India, Bangalore. This year, Akanksha stole the show at the Dew Arena Cosplay competition with her incredible Cosplay of Leona, from League of Legends. Subsequently, she will be attending the Dreamhack event at Sweden in 2019. She had also represented India at the World Cosplay Summit in Japan, earlier this year.

The first time I met Akanksha was on her twitch live stream. I had been invited to play League of Legends with an all-girls team. I was excited to find girls who wanted to play but I was a bit apprehensive, thinking to myself, “I have only ever played League of Legends with guys who have been playing MOBAs like DOTA for years, how is this going to be?” But it turned out I had been living under a BIG rock, because we did incredibly well. Akanksha was outstanding in the ‘carry’ role, as was her support, Pooja Moore.

What strikes me as most incredible about Akanksha is that she creates her own costumes…yes, hand-made, from scratch. I saw a couple of her costumes online and I was instantly fangirling like crazy! She works with Worbla which is a popular thermoform plastic, and she makes fantasy props like an absolute pro. Akanksha is always coming up with new and innovative designs. “I am always up for learning new techniques of crafting,” says Akanksha and this statement truly comes to life when you take a look at all of her new and upcoming outfit concepts.

From Erza Scarlet, Sakura Kinomoto, Lady Captain America and Espeon the pokemon, to Kagome from Inuyasha, Wonder Women and Refititi, Akanksha has covered many genres of Cosplay and has pulled off all of her outfits like a boss. Her social profiles have complete lists of her Cosplays and trust me, there’s quite a few to go through!

“I want to spread the art of cosplay and help the cosplay community in India reach new heights,” says Akanksha. Her plans for the future – “More video content!”

Akanksha builds close to 100 costumes a year and these are mostly commissions. If you would like to follow her work, or support her business, you can visit her patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sachan

Hats off to this amazing artiste, and role model! By representing India across the globe, Akanksha Sachan has already taken Cosplay to new heights in our country.