A Couple of Cuckoos is a charming new rom-com anime series of the Spring 2022 season that stars the studious Umino Nagi and his lively fiancée Amano Erika. These two teens were accidentally swapped at birth and ended up raised by each other's parents, which totally reshaped their worldviews and lifestyles. This is true of Erika in particular.
Erika was raised by Nagi's parents -- wealthy and successful hotel owners who gave her everything she wanted growing up. Curiously, Erika did not grow up as a self-absorbed himedere or an "ojou-sama" type -- instead, she's a carefree and fun-loving person who expresses herself not just with model-worthy clothes but also whimsical cosplay. In fact, her costumes provide some serious insight into her character.
How Erika's Cosplay Represents Her Explorer Side
So far in A Couple of Cuckoos, Amano Erika has expressed herself in a number of ways, ranging from her hobby of posting pics of herself on Instagram to experimenting with cooking with her biological little sister Sachi. Of course, Erika also enjoys the wonderful world of cosplay, with her appearing in at least three unique cosplay outfits so far in the anime. Erika has dressed up as a gym coach, a Cupid-style magical girl and most recently, a baseball player. All this suggests that Erika would rather change to suit the world around her than demand that everyone do things her own way. She wants to see the outside world as it is, not simply project herself onto it.
Erika's enthusiasm for cosplay suggests that she is a curious person who is eager to explore and test the world outside the comfort of her foster parents' home. She is certainly grateful for everything her foster parents have done for her, but even so, Erika might have gotten a bit bored living like that, and she wants to see what else is out there. Often, the children of wealthy parents feel bored or stifled by their lifestyle, leading them to explore the outside world both in positive and negative ways, ranging from making lots of new friends among the working class to reckless stunts or crimes.
Fortunately, Erika takes the more wholesome route and explores the outside world with cosplay and adventures in cooking, and she is happy to look and act likes someone she isn't -- hence, her gym coach, Cupid magical girl and baseball player outfits/ Erika is growing bored of the "flavor" of her comfortable upper-class life and wants to go on a taste-testing spree with costumes. However, there's even more to it than that.
What Erika's Cosplay Says About Her Personality & Relationships
Erika's fondness for cosplay not only represents her desire to explore the outside world but also her innate goodness and generosity. Erika has some subtle traces of being a himedere, such as her vanity on Instagram, her fondness for fancy clothes and her habit of ordering around servants in the household, but Erika is a very watered-down version of the core himedere archetype. Most himederes are self-centered, vain and love to control others, but Erika is selfless and compassionate, usually putting the needs of others ahead of her own. An early example was Erika's determination to bond with her biological parents and sister Sachi, then her attempt to become Cupid and help Nagi get together with his crush Hiro.
Every time Erika dons a costume, it's for the benefit of others, and that flatters her character immensely. Her Cupid and gym coach outfits are two early examples, and more recently, Erika also cosplayed as a baseball player when she spent an evening bonding with Sachi. At the time, Sachi was highly distressed about Nagi seeing other girls, so Erika took this chance to comfort Sachi and take her mind off things. This included Erika joining Sachi at the batting cages in her baseball cosplay to help cheer up Sachi and get more involved in this particular hobby -- and it worked.
By the evening's end, when the sisters were at a public bath together, Sachi was much happier and more relaxed, and Erika commented on it. Her cosplay alone didn't save the day, but it played a part, and Erika's baseball outfit definitely added to the trend of her cosplay being a tool of her generous and compassionate side. If she dons another costume in the future, A Couple of Cuckoos fans can be sure that something good is about to happen.