Name: Yukina/ 雪菜
Appearance: Yu Yu Hakusho
Variation: Default
Description: Yukina is an Ice Maiden and twin sister of Hiei, although she is unaware of their relation. As a member of a demonic family of winter spirits, she produces beautiful jewels through her tears. When she found out about her brother who was cast from the Ice Kingdom she escaped to the Human World.

Worn at: AnimeNYC 2021.

Why I chose this costume:
Yu Yu Hakusho is one of my favorite animes. I recently reread it and had been watching the Stage Play and felt inspired to cosplay more characters. I actually had been working on the stage play version of Botan first, but Yukina was easier to bring to a convention. I also liked how her wig was translated into a more realistic hairstyle than the super poofy 90’s look, but that’s just a personal preference! Marina Tanoue is so cute as Yukina and everyone in the stage play is really well cast.

Mechanics of the outfit:
Like the stage play, I wanted to keep the costume as authentic as possible and more on the realistic side since that was what I was basing it off. So a lot had to do with learning how to properly wear a kimono and tie an obi (practicing kitsuke, the art of dressing in kimono). I purchase the kimono, obiage, under kimono, tabi socks from Kimono Yukata Market Sakura. The obi, obijime, zori were purchase from Japan Yahoo! Auction. These were all auction bids so I can’t really link a specific shop, but for all the kimono accessories, I bought them from KIMONO WAKU. I did buy winter zori as well, (like the ones she wears when she’s first introduced) but didn’t have time to paint them.

You can get some great deals from bidding and sometimes pay much less for second hand items than purchasing them new. Sometimes the second hand items are new/unworn. The reason I didn’t purchase the kimono accessories via bidding was because there’s specific versions of items I wanted and there are a lot of items used when wearing kimono; it just didn’t feel worthwhile trying to outbid someone on something if I was still going to have to purchase x item elsewhere. If you’re not super picky or just a beginner learning, there a lot of great kitsuke kits you can get for cheaper than purchasing the items individually. I could go into specific in another post if anyone is interested, but it would take too long here lol.

The proxy I used was DEJAPAN. They are super easy to use for the most part, but I found it easiest to go to the actual website you want to search from instead of searching via their website (and just pasting in the specific listing into their website). It’s easier to click specific search criteria (price, category, new arrival/shortest bidding time, etc) via Yahoo! Auction. DEJAPAN’s website has less search criteria you can click and unless you search something specific, it will search everything and you can only look one page at a time. I prefer to open all the pages at once to search so it was easier to look on Yahoo! Auction. Again, I can write a guide if anyone is interested, it’s a lot to explain here.

Just to be clear, I’m not super fluent in Japanese and certainly not all the kanji, but the technology for Google Translate and to translate the website itself has come a long way! If I’m trying to look up a specific anime or word, I’ll just look it up on Wikipedia and change the language to Japanese. #hacks So if you know 0% Japanese, you can still be able to navigate it.

For the undergarment (nagajuban) I sewed the red collar from some fabric I had (that I also used on the hair piece). Although now I think I need another kimono underwear because I…. don’t want to take the collar off now LOL.

Fair warning, putting a kimono is not easy and I had to practice several times to get it correct. For most of it, I followed Kimono-Sunao‘s videos. Most of her videos don’t have English subtitles, but I think you can more or less figure it out from the video? Posting the videos I watched because it can be hard to search if you don’t know Japanese.

Also just wanted to clarify again if you’re buying a costume that’s tailored to fit you, you most likely will not need to do any of these. Kimonos, in general, are larger/longer than the average person, the purpose is that people of different sizes can wear it. So the way it’s tied is to fit the wearer.

Also, before anyone comes for me, I am not claiming to be super experiences or knowledgeable in kitsuke or kimonos. My knowledge comes from what other professionals are posting online.

How to Wear Kimono → She goes in-depth about how to wear the kimono, but may not be helpful if you don’t understand it.
How to Wear Furisode → Or if you’re impatient, you can watch the furisode version, it would just be without the long sleeves. The concept is basically the same.
How to tie Obijime → I used a flat obijime so this was especially helpful
How to tie Obiage → I loosely followed the beginning of this one, because the way she folds it is specific to the design on the obiage, but since mine was solid, it was less important to center the motif.
Troubleshooting undergarment collar → This is tricky LOL Sometimes by the time wear the kimono the undergarment will shift.
Items You’ll Need to Wear Kimono → I more or less used everything in this video, except I didn’t use the obi-makura 帯枕 (obi pillow) (the type of obi I did didn’t require one) and used some elastic versions of the koshi-himo 腰ひも (inner belt) instead of the ties like she shows. I also used a korin belt コーリンベルト for the collar as a personal preference.

Not from Kimono-Sunao, but I made a mistake of buying a Nagoya obi instead of Fukuro obi. Think I was tunnel visioning at this point and didn’t read the auction correctly. Most of them are tied in a taiko musubi (drum knot), the square looking knot, and I wanted a bow because that’s how it was tied in the stage play. But I ended up finding a video from 木ノ花 on YouTube that wasn’t too hard to tie. Though I had to redo it several times to get the tie proportion correct.

Odaiko Ribbon Obi Knot

The wig I purchased off Amazon. I wanted to get one from Arda but they were on backorder at the time and I didn’t want to wait because I was also buying my Botan wig at the same time. I bought the wig from ROLECOS and was surprisingly impressed with the quality. It was very soft and quite thick; I had to even cut some of the volume out when I was doing the ponytail. Even though it said, “Prime,” it was being shipped out of China so it took a few weeks to receive. Maybe Amazon has some in stock now, but the one I purchased took a while. The wig is definitely teal like how they show it, but sometimes flares blue in photos.

I purchased a styrofoam ball for the back ponytail. I didn’t have time to go to the craft store and Walmart only sold it in this size (3.8″) so I shaved a bit off so it was smaller. In hindsight it probably didn’t really matter since it’s not big enough to be seen from the front. This was my first time stubbing a wig and it was terrifying LOL. But I learned a lot and feel a little more confident doing it again next time. I think if I can take the wig apart, I want to redo it. I bought a canvas wig head that was my size, but I made the mistake of not stretching and pinning it to the form while working on the wig, so it ended up being slightly smaller. I made the bangs a little too long so I was able to have the wig sit a bit further back so it wasn’t as noticeable.

I used some of the extra wefts from the ponytail to make into the ahoge and miscellaneous pieces sticking up and secured it with hot glue. I opted for separate pieces because the way the wig was constructed, the mesh/cap underneath could be seen if I tried to just spike it. I used Got 2b Glued hairspray for the ends. I saw a trick on how you can use a hair crimper iron to add volume and I think I will try it when I go back to fix the wig.

For her hair piece, I used some red fabric I had and made some rectangles that rounded into a point at the ends as shown. I added some wire on the inside to the width of the piece. This was so it could curl it to follow the direction of my head. The fabric I used was already on the stiffer side so I didn’t need to add any interfacing or make the wire into the shape of the hair piece. I had the wire on hand, but you want to use a gauge that’s high enough that it will hold it’s shape and not warp. I used a round-nose plier to make a circle at the two ends to secure it and so it couldn’t accidentally poke through the fabric. I didn’t sew the wire end to the fabric because if you make it the same size or even a pinch bigger, it should fit snugly.

Edit: Since writing this post, I ended up going back and redoing her wig, which I highly never recommend. Taking apart the wig after I had hot glued it together was tedious. Fortunately the wig was heat resistant, so I was able to just straighten the ends that looked wonky. It ended up looking way better and should hopefully fit better. Unfortunately you can see some of the glue parts from the previous version, but it’s whatever. I used clear caulk this time with minimal hot glue. I cut the bangs shorter and restyled them. Kids, never take a somewhat styled wig and just toss it in a wig bag LOL. I tried the crimping method on the side pieces and I’m not sure I like them. I think the wig fibers are too silky/soft so it was hard to tease without just combing it all out. Last wig pic is the new one!

Personal Feelings:
Wow, even though the costume was bought pieces, I learned so much about kitsuke and kimonos in general and it was challenge, but so much fun. I had always wanted to own some kimono/furisode growing up but they were always super expensive or I just had other priorities. It was really exciting being able to do it, even in cosplay form. Wig styling has always been challenging for me so I usually just avoid it LOL. But I’m glad I pushed myself to step outside of my comfort zone, even though the wig seems “simple.” It kind of made me realize Yukina is a pretty minor character for the most part. But working on the cosplay and finding all the perfect pieces for her really made me love her more.

Last photo by simplyfrankpro.