Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure?), short for "costume play", is a subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, and video games, and, less commonly, fantasy movies, Japanese pop music bands, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories (such as stories by the band Sound Horizon), novels, and anything in the real world being unique and dramatic (or their moe anthropomorphic form). However, in some circles, "cosplay" has been expanded to mean simply wearing a costume.
The most specific anecdote about the origin of the word "cosplay" was that Nov Takahashi (from a Japanese studio called Studio Hard) coined the term "cosplay" as a contraction of the English-language words "costume play" while attending the 1984 Los Angeles Science Fiction Worldcon. He was so impressed by the hall and masquerade costuming there that he reported about it frequently in Japanese science fiction magazines. The word fits in with a common Japanese method of abbreviation: combining the first two moras of each word. "Cos" becomes kosu and play become pure hence becoming the nearest Japanese approximation of cosplay, which is kosupure.
Cosplay can be seen at public events such as video game shows, as well as at dedicated cosplay parties at nightclubs or amusement parks. It is not unusual for Japanese teenagers to gather with like-minded friends in places like Tokyo's Harajuku district to engage in cosplay. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a large number of cosplay cafés, catering to devoted anime and cosplay fans. The waitresses at such cafés dress as game or anime characters; maid (or meido) costumes are particularly popular.
Possibly the single largest and most famous event attended by cosplayers is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comiket. This event, held in summer and winter, attracts hundreds of thousands of manga otaku and many thousands of cosplayers who congregate on the roof of the exhibition center, often in unbearably hot or cold conditions.
Sam Iun 07, 2008 11:23 pm