What is Cosplay?

Cosplay generally stands for costume play and is a performance art where the participants who are called ‘cosplayers’ generally wave fashion accessories and costumes in order to represent a specific character. Cosplayers even interact to create a subculture and it is a term that can also be used to mean role playing.

There has been a rapid growth in the number of people who practice this today since 1990s and it is a phenomenon which has a significant impact specially in Japan and some parts of Asia and the western world. Cosplay events are common when it comes to fan conventions and there are also dedicated conventions and international competitions which are centred around cosplay activities.

History of Cosplay/ Where & When Did Cosplay Originated?

The term cosplay was coined in Japan in the year 1984 and it is a very popular thing among all genders. Cosplay costumes actually grew out from costuming conventions created in the first world science fiction convention in 1939.

Here is the History of Cosplay:

  • - Masquerade balls became a common thing in the 15th century and it always involved elaborate procession switch celebrated marriages and other dynastic events of the late medieval court life.
  • - They were extended into public costume festivities in Italy during the Renaissance. Elaborate dances were held by members of upper classes which were particularly popular in Venice.
  • - Costume parties or fancy-dress parties also became famous in the 19th century in Britain and costuming guides of the period feature mostly generic costumes whether that was national costumes or abstract concepts etc.
  • - Then came the era of fan costuming and the first people to wear a costume to attend a convention wore science fiction pants and they attended the convention in 1939 dressed in futuristic costumes which were green and keep as well as breaches.
  • - In Japan costuming at conventions was considered as a fun activity with started in the 1970s and the first documented case of costuming at a fan event in Japan was in Hakoneat which future science fiction critique or costume which was based on cover art. This is how cosplay anime began.
  • - Next costume contest was held at comic book convention at the first Academy corn at Broadway central hotel in New York.

All You Need to Know About Cosplay

  • - Cosplay is the practice of dressing up as a character from either a video game or a movie or a book. This is especially done from the Japanese genres of anime and manga. It started in 1984 by the founder of Studio Hard when they attended the 42nd Worldcon in LA.
  • - He was extremely impressed by the masquerade and reported it on “My Anime” coining the term “kosupure” from which the term cosplay has emerged, and this means costume and play is very popular among all genders.
  • - Costuming has been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s and it became even more popular with the report of Takahashi. The term did not catch on immediately but however with time it became more and more popular and got the exposure through television and magazines in the 1990s.
  • - The first world cosplay summit was held in 2003 at the Rose court hotel in Japan with 5 Cosplayers who were invited from Germany, France and Italy.
  • - Cosplay costumes can range greatly from simple themed clothes to highly themed costumes. It is generally considered different from that of Halloween costumes as the intention is to replicate a specific character and not to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event.
  • - The characters that are chosen to be cosplay could be sourced from a TV series, a book or comic book or even a video game. Some cosplayer even chooses to cosplay original character of their own design with a fusion.
  • - Cosplayers can get their apparel through different ways like manufacturers and producers sell packaged outfits for the use of cosplay and they're often sold online or can be purchased from dealers or they can also take the help of wigs store. Japanese manufacture of cosplay costumes has reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008.
  • - Cosplay actually represents an act of embodiment and has been closely linked with the presentation of self, yet cosplayers also have the ability to perform with their physical features. The accuracy of any cosplay is judged on the basis of the ability to represent a character through the body and individual cosplayers frequently are faced by their own body limits such as the level of attractiveness, size of body and disability.
  • - Their authenticity is judged through the ability of the person to translate on screen manifestation to the cosplay itself. Some even argue that cosplay could never be a true representation of the character and it can only be read through the body and that true embodiment of a character is judged on the basis of how near to the original character form the cosplay is.
  • - Many cosplayers create their own outfits by getting references from images of the characters in the process. In the creation of the outfits much time is given to detail and quality as well. Because of the difficulty of replicating some details and materials, cosplayers often educate themselves in crafting specialities such as textile sculpture etc and also uses other materials in the effort to get the feel of the costume.
  • - To know more about the characters, they might engage in forms of body modification and can opt for changing of their skin colour or utilise makeup so that they can match the ways of the culture that they are adopting. Contact lenses are also used to match the colour of their character. Contact lenses that can make the pupil look enlarged is also used by them and another form of body math modification which they use is to start taking copy and tattoos for special markings which the character may have. Temporary tattoos or body paint can also be used.

If you are specifically looking for cosplayer costumes then you can get them easily and get the best idea to choose from a range of costumes that could suit your situation and your mood.