Top 5 Cheap and Easy Anime Halloween Costumes 2021

One of the great things about Halloween is that you get to dress up. Dressing up is tons of fun! Some of us wiser otaku have learned not to wait for Haloween to cosplay but for the rest, we at least have this one day to pretend to be animated characters!

In the past, I have tried to help those who are near and dear to my heart, namely the broke and/or lazy anime fans, by providing super necessary guides to cheap and easy anime costumes you can usually put together at the last minute.

This year, I want to once again lend a helping hand… or post to this valiant cause but with a bit of an update. You know what immediately adds extra cred to a costume you obviously put together 5 minutes before the party? Making it topical! So this time around, I’m going to be suggesting costumes from the most popular anime of 2021 so far (I’m writing this in July, so somewhat topical…)

And it has to be anime that have aired for the first time in 2021. No sequels or long-running series. So the 5 most popular anime that first aired this year so far are: To Your Eternity, Jobless Reincarnation, Tokyo Revengers, Wonder Egg Priority and Horimiya (from least to most popular according to Anilist). Well, this is going to be fun, I’ve only seen two of these so far (I plan to see two more). Oh well…

5. To Your Eternity – Future Vessel

This has got to be my favourite on the list. And I do not understand why To Your Eternity isn’t more popular. It’s still very popular mind you (8th overall so far this year) but it’s such a captivating anime. Anyways, it’s also the best costume you could wish for.

For those that haven’t seen it, the main character can turn into people that have influenced him in his life and he calls those forms “vessels”. As far as we know there is no limit to these vessels and the character is immortal so he could live forever. There is really nothing that says he couldn’t meet you at some point and you guys couldn’t become close friends. And maybe someday, you will influence him enough that you can become a vessel.

What I’m saying is that you only need to dress up as you! But Fushi as you, so you now, be very polite and maybe look for your words from time to time. Costume done!

4. Jobless Reincarnation – Rudeus Greyrat (pre-reincarnation)

I haven’t seen this show but I have seen enough isekai to know that your best bet at a cheap and easy costume is to look at the character in the mundane world. So that’s what I did. I’m not sure if we see him at all in the anime, to be honest, but a quick google search tells me that Rudeus before he was Rudeus was a big guy with short brown hair and a tracksuit.

Tracksuits are easy, most people have a pair of joggers and a hoodie lying around. If your hair isn’t brown, you can always get some hairspray. Hey, they even have that stuff to cover up greys all year round, it’s cheap and everywhere. And if you have long hair and don’t want to commit to a trim, just tuck it under in a faux cut.

Finally, pad out your hoodie a bit if you need some extra girth and you are good to go. Try to act like a guy who’s been bullied all his life to sell the point!

3. Tokyo Revengers – Little Naoto

This one was a bit more of a challenge. I am really looking forward to watching this anime.

As far as I’m concerned, you should shave your hair into a deathawk and slap a temporary tribe tattoo on one side of your shaved skull. I mean, it’s a look! If you could pull that off and you don’t risk losing your job, go for it. It’s awesome. I want to be friends with someone who looks like that. And it’s so striking that it probably won’t even matter if you’re not blonde, the wrong gender or otherwise not costumes.

However, for those of you that don’t want to shave your head for some reason, you could go for the younger version of Naoto. As far as I can tell, you only need grey pants and a white shirt, those seem like staples in most people’s closets. After that, a can of dark brown hairspray and you are good to go. It’s no deathhawk….

2. Wonder Egg Priority – Ai Ohto

You can actually find Ai’s exact hoodie on Amazon for not that much money but if you want to spend some time hunting, I bet you can find an oversized yellow hoodie for just a few bucks in a thrift shop and draw that sunflower on it. Triangle hairclips are also super common. And I feel like these two items are enough to get the essence of the character across.

I haven’t even seen the show and I feel like I would recognize you based on the hoodie and a side part with a triangle clip.

If you want to go the extra mile, some blue-black hairspray and a pair of blue shorts to wear under the hoodie would round up the outfit. It’s the most expensive costume here and I think you could probably pull it together for about 30$.

1. Horimiya – Casual Miya

Even though I feel like To Your Eternity should be more popular, I was honestly psyched to see Horimiya as the most popular anime of 2021 according to AniList (so far). I had a lot of fun with this show and almost as much fun reviewing it with Moya. And I am thrilled to bits that other people watched it as well.

One of the nice things about Horimiya, for our current purposes at least, is that the characters do spend a lot of time in street clothes and those clothes change from day to day. As such, a simple t-shirt and jeans are a perfectly acceptable outfit for Miyamura when he’s not in uniform. Anything can be on the t-shirt really. You just need some black hairspray if your hair isn’t dark, to begin with.

As a bonus, you have a couple of options. If you have long hair, throw it in a half pony and get a bunch of fake piercings (or real ones). If your hair is short, or you want to tuck it in, you can grab a black eyeliner or just a black pen and dot a bunch of fake piercing holes along your ears.

For some extra humph pick a slightly see-through white T and get a huge fake tribal all along one side of your body. Alternatively and for extra extra points, get a bossy brunette to walk around with you! Maybe have some awkward conversations!

There you go. I feel like all these costumes are reasonably cheap and easy to put together even if you decide to start working on your costume the day before the party. Feel free to share your costume ideas as well. They might help someone out. And I just like hearing about other people’s costumes!