Cosplay Subculture

Cosplay, short for costume play, is a subculture where the participants dress as characters- either well known or obscure- from cartoons, computer games or anime. The movement is widespread but seems to originate from the comic conventions in the US which inspired fans from other parts of the world to dress up. The movement then spread to Asia where it got taken to a whole new level then the new Japanese version came back around to Europe and the US where it remains popular. In her book "Costuming the Imagination: Origins of Anime and Manga Cosplay" Theresa Wing discusses two conflicting ideas:

"One side speculates that cos-play began in North America, during the 1960s, when people dressed as and role-played their favorite science fiction and fantasy characters, such as Spock from Star Trek and Robin from Batman (Bruno 2002a). This type of costumed role-playing (not yet called cosplay) spanned a variety of genres and may have inspired Japanese anime and manga fans to dress as their favorite characters. On the other side of the debate are those who speculate that cosplay was imported from Japan, coming to North America with the formations of anime and manga fan clubs (Bruno 2002a; Ledoux and Ranney 1997)."

However I believe that this only proves my boomerang theory that the Japanese who are known to appreciate western culture and let it inspire their own adopted the subculture from the American comic conventions. Then more recently western cultures have been inspired by modern Japanese culture as the popularity of Japenese game series such as Final Fantasy and anime's such as Bleach rises.

American comic convention goers in fancy dress

Modern Day Japanese cosplayer

However I believe that this only proves my boomerang theory that the Japanese who are known to appreciate western culture and let it inspire their own adopted the subculture from the American comic conventions. Then more recently western cultures have been inspired by modern Japanese culture as the popularity of Japenese game series such as Final Fantasy and anime's such as Bleach rises.

I attended the MCMEXPO in London to meet some Cosplayers and I was surprised by the wide variety of people involved. It was also interesting to see how they build a social life through this attend conventions, enter competitions and even club together with cosplayers from the same series or game to participate in photo shoots which they can then go on to post on forums where cosplayers can interact on an international level.

There are also idols for cosplayers to look up to such as Francesca Dani and Alodia Gosiengfiaowho are almost considered as supermodels of the cosplay world. They achieved fame through winning a series of competitions and gathering a vast online following, they both now make a living through being cosplayers as Dani charges a membership fee to her website to allow fans to access exclusive content and both Dani and Gosiengfiao are paid by games companies to dress up to promote new games and products.

The costume is obviously the most important part of being a cosplayer. The way that different people go about it is vastly different, some people just have one costume which they add to and perfect over time and show a complete devotion to that character and the cartoon or game that they originate from. Another approach is to try a number of different characters and collect costumes, I came across a number of these kind of cosplayers on Tumblr who share their different creations and purchases for different costumes online with fans and friends. The final method seems to be to Cosplay as a team, where several people dress up as characters from just one show or game and stay in character whilst dressed up interacting with each other as the characters would. There are also sub-subcultures within the Cosplay community as those who will only dress as final fantasy characters form one group, another specifically dress as only disney characters and others will dress only as Japanese musicians.

There is definitely a sense of pride amongst Cosplayers which originates from their costumes, the majority of which are either made by the Cosplayers themselves or made specifically for them. Some Cosplayers who Cosplay characters with simpler outfits also make up their costumes from found items. The look of Cosplayers is hard to define but generally they tend to be inspired by Japanese culture, taking much of their influence from anime cartoons. When it comes to hairstyles they tend to be either choppy and short or long and styled similarly to their characters, wigs are also a big part in changing their appearance and achieving the hairstyles of cartoons and video game characters which cannot be constructed in reality with real hair.

Cosplay is a truly unique subculture for not being based entirely on music. It's gatherings are not music concerts or gigs but instead conventions based on art that can take many forms such as graphic novels, cartoons, films or even just the aesthetic of real people.