Perhaps...I am a jealous sort of person. Perhaps I am a purist of some undefined sort. Perhaps it's something else. But, man, whenever I hear someone remark on how Meredith McCoy, the English voice actor of Number 18, looks SOOOOOO much like #18, I just don't get it. Granted, there are plenty of hardcore #18 fans out there don't agree she's the real life Juuhachi, but there are more than enough out there that do think so to irk me.

So Meredith McCoy has long, straight blond hair and blue eyes. She's thin and considered by most to be an attractive girl. And maybe you can argue she's got a high forehead like Eighteen's. However, how exactly does being blond haired and blue eyed make you look exactly like #18? I'm not sure, really. People see what they want, I guess. More than once, I've received compliments from people that I look JUST like 18 when I'm cosplaying her. It's a big compliment. And while I'd like to believe it's true, in the back of my head I'm wondering to myself if I can resemble her at all. I'm dressed like her and doing my best to portray her, but facially...I'm not so sure I'm her real life persona.

Think about how she looks for a moment - a petite girl with a high forehead, slanted blue eyes, and a blond bombshell hairstyle that always stays in place. While the slanted eyes are arguable, the rest of her appearance is pretty general. "Yeah, uh, I saw that girl, officer. She had blue eyes...uh, blond hair, and a high forehead." Great. That describes a good chunk of the populace of Earth, my friend.

Check out this picture from the Yahoo! Groups C18 Club:

Look. The real life person juxtaposed next to #18 does actually resemble her. But why? There's no real facial resemblence. Sure, the hair is brushed to the same side and the both have similar expressions (and they're both wearing black turtlenecks), but what else is there? The model has large, full lips and a sizeable nose in comparison to 18's, who has er, no lips and a tiny nose. In reality, there isn't any real resemblence - the model is just another skinny, blue eyed, blond haired beauty.

So I guess what I'm getting at, my fellow fans, is that anyone can easily make themselves look like Juuhachi. Apparently, I do it pretty well and all I do is throw on a blond wig. There's not much to it. If Juuhachi is going to be in the live-action Dragonball Z film Hollywood is making, I don't think it's going to matter who they cast in her place. Not Cameron Diaz, Kristianna Loken, Sarah-Michelle Gellar, or any other pretty, blond actress in this world. With a little primping, nearly anyone can look like Juuhachigou.