Cosplayers

Cosplayers: An Outfit For Every Occasion

Cosplaying fascinates thousands of young people all over the world. The travel faithfully from convention to convention to present their latest masterpiece, meet with old friends, and to check the competition out. Is their Naruto costume the best around? A convention without the rainbow of hundreds of different characters from anime, manga, videogames, fantasy movies or comics seems unimaginable. Everyone that is not attached to the anime and manga scene seems to smile down on the kids in their costumes, or is simply “weirded out.” But why does cosplay offer such great attraction to young people? The first reason you might hear when asking that question is: It’s Fun! Of course it’s fun to dress up as a completely different character, wear unusual clothes, masks, accessories. But naturally there is much more to it than that.

Cosplaying means to “live your character”, talk like them, act like them. This way, it is very easy to get in contact with other people. Even a person that is very shy and insecure in real life gets the chance to talk and receive attention. They are asked for photos. Cosplay seems to be a way to put the focus on your body and your sewing skills. It is an escape from the daily life, offering comfort and reassurance from other cosplay fans. This kind of attention is harder to achieve in real life. But even in the Cosplay scene exists a certain pressure; the pressure to look as good as possible, have a perfect costume, make up, and of course, the perfect body for their character.

This can trigger a feeling of insecurity, especially when the Cosplayer compares themselves to Cosplayers from Japan, where “perfection” in both costume and body often can be found. In Japan, were it’s origin lies, Cosplay can be called a subculture – it is very popular and common. In fact, cosplay is very famous throughout Asia, for example China, Thailand, South Korea or the Philippines and Indonesia. But it is also getting more and more popular in North America and parts of Europe, where the focus lies not only and Manga & Anime related costumes, but also on science fiction, American comics or movies.