Some things can only happen at San Diego Comic-Con—the best cosplay, movie stars dressed as Toadette, a mystery illness born of a hundred thousand tired nerds—and that’s what makes the event so magical. For just a few days every year, the city’s streets are lined with oddities and wonders you can’t get anywhere else. Case-in-point: If you happened to find yourself in a certain art gallery on the right day and time, you would have been smack in the middle of a neighborhood of Studio Ghibli’s iconic Totoros, complete with master maker and MythBuster Adam Savage.
The Saturday morning of SDCC, 11 Totoro cosplayers and their families waddled their way over to the Nerdist House in the blistering California heat. They made the trek not only to meet and greet each other, but to geek out with the man who inspired their costumes in the first place. It was Adam Savage’s New York Comic-Con Totoro cosplay that got them interested in the outfit. In the video above, they share all the nerdy details.
Each of the costumes were wonderfully unique, and Savage fawned over the lot, noting how each cosplayer made their own modifications and additions to his original design. And don’t let the simplicity of the exterior fool you—inside the larger outfits were electric fans, tubes for water, PVC pipe scaffolding, and display monitors linked to exterior GoPro cameras.
What do you think? Did the builders do Savage proud? How awesome was the Chewbacca Totoro? Let us know in the comments below!
