Why Are Cosplayers Wearing Heart-Covered Boxers?

Fans Of A New Franchise Know About This Silly Cosplay Trend

If you’ve been to a convention recently (or anywhere where people might cosplay), you may have come across a weird sight. Grown men wearing what looks like heart-covered boxers. They may also have a little cat plushie with them. And you might’ve wracked your mind, trying to think of what fandom could produce such an odd combo. No video games spring to mind. You haven’t heard of some show blowing up that features someone wearing that (at time of writing). Who could it be? What is this man from?

Well, his name is Carl. And he’s from the absolute smash-hit of a book series, Dungeon Crawler Carl.

To even explain what this book is to the uninitiated is to define some terms. This is not your usual fantasy series; this is not your usual comedy series. Dungeon Crawler Carl’s roots are quite niche. It’s a LitRPG. Which, broken down, means “Literature Role-Playing Game.” Have you ever played (or know someone who plays) Skyrim or Fallout 4? How about an avid fan of Dungeons & Dragons? Those are role-playing games—and LitRPGs are books about role-playing games. Only, that doesn’t (usually) mean that the book contains stories those games might depict or is a book with a game built into it. No. It means that it’s a story where characters progress through something like levels or pick classes, like in those games. Often, LitRPGs are tales of people from our world ending up in a world that operates on video game logic.

Does that all make sense? I hope so—because that’s what Dungeon Crawler Carl is about. A “dungeon crawl” is a specific game scenario where someone must go through a series of spaces (a “dungeon”) and defeat monsters, disarm traps, and gather supplies as they go. Dungeon Crawler Carl is the tale of a man named Carl (and his—eventually able to talk—cat) as they progress through a death game, like The Hunger Games or The Running Man, with hopes of reaching some kind of safety.

But Bamware is not a website about book reviews; it’s a website about cosplay. So, then, what’s with the boxers? Well, Carl entered the dungeon in the middle of the night, so he’s not well dressed, or “dressed” at all. A lot of the book’s comedy comes from throwing absurd things at the reader at a very steady pace, including silly stuff happening to Carl.  

But Carl is not a goofy character most of the time. He tries to be a hero, at least in the first two books. So, like someone dressing up as Superman, Spider-Man, or—in the book world—Kaladin or Jack Reacher, Carl is another fun cosplay from another big series, that has built itself quite the fandom.