Saturday, August 1, 2009

Japanese Cosplay Characters and Costumes

By Michele Hiromi

The twenty first century has brought a new meaning to Japanese cosplay globally. Cosplay originated in Japan, and today many Japanese think this practice is silly. The younger Japanese generation have given a whole new meaning to cosplay, introducing parties as well as clubs that are dedicated to cosplay.

All over the world in modern day subcultures are forming, concentrating on wearing specific costumes and act out the chosen characters behaviour. Many of the cosplayers take characters from fantasy films, books, comic characters, and science fiction roles, and in instances they imitate the animal kingdom representing mostly mythical creatures such as dragons and unicorns.

Japan and most other countries have participated in cross dressing as well as cosplay in the sex industry. This is an age old practice where costumes have been used for sexual practices, and dressing up is used for sexual play which is commonly known as a sexual fetishism.

Tailors and seamstresses are now cashing in on this opportunity and make excellent livings from the Japanese cosplayer fanatics. Costumes are made to specification even down to the finest details of the character portrayed; nothing is changed from the original item and design. The finer details are exact matches, like the thread used, ribbons, and colours and so on.

In recent years role playing rather than cosplay of a favourite character has become popular whereby participants are photographed and these photographs are used for magazines, TV, film production and are also shared with other players of social groups and networks.

There are special Japanese cosplay agencies and video game companies that have models, modelling only cosplay costumes. Many film and video companies are scrambling to hire cosplayers. The cosplayers are seen as fictional characters in flesh. Cosplayers have virtually replaced the agency models, as they have the ability to re-create the character they portray with accuracy, and are able to stand apart from standard models.

Japanese cosplay originated in Japan, and majority of cosplay still takes place in Japan. Cosplay is considered to be typical behaviour in Japan, and has spread across the globe just as anime has becoming a popular hobby and various print media features cosplayers.

However there are costumes worn without any conviction by Japanese cosplayers that westerners would not consider wearing as it would be culturally not correct like a Nazi uniform or any other uniforms worn by dictators in the past. Japanese cosplay does not only cover specified role playing but covers all kinds of obsessive fandom.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment