Japanese Gothic Dresses (& other related frillies) Gallery - Page 17

Cosplay, a contraction of the English words "costume" and "play", is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, and video games, and, less commonly, Japanese live action television shows, fantasy movies, or Japanese pop music bands.

However, in some circles, "cosplay" has been expanded to mean simply wearing a costume.

In Japan, "cosplay" as a hobby is usually an end unto itself. Likeminded people gather to see others' costumes, show off their own elaborate handmade creations, take lots of pictures, and possibly participate in best costume contests.

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 he was 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.

A recent trend at Japanese cosplay events is an increase in the popularity of non-Japanese fantasy and science fiction movie characters, perhaps due to the international success of such films as The Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Characters from the Harry Potter films have a particularly high number of female fans in Japan, with female cosplayers playing either male or female characters, Draco Malfoy being an extremely popular choice.

The act of cosplaying as characters of the opposite sex is called "crossplay" (cross-dressing cosplay). A small niche group in this field are dollers, a subset of kigurumi cosplayers; usually male, they wear bodysuits and masks to fully transform into female characters.

Another recent trend in cosplay is a blurring of the distinction between costumes based on characters from games and anime, and "original" costumes based upon a general theme or existing fashions. In particular, the Tokyo teen-fashion trend of Gothic Lolita has attracted some cosplayers who might not have the inclination (or possibly courage) to wear such distinctive clothes around town, but who would like to dress in such a manner on some occasions.

Convention activity in the United States and Canada has become a much larger and much more popular trend in the 2000's. Larger conventions such as Anime Boston, Otakon and Sakuracon have become renowned internationally. With the added public attention coming from such popular animated cartoons imported from Japan (see anime) including Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, and now the popular BLEACH, cosplayers and the anime world have peeked their heads into the world of mainstream pop-culture, on at least a relatively underground scale. More and more convention goers cosplay as their favorite characters from their favorite anime, and thus, the cosplay and anime subcultures have been able to have enough influence to further the creation of anime conventions to accommodate for the increasing number of cosplayers. Many cosplayers jokingly refer to Halloween as "National Cosplay Day".