What Does Cosplay Mean?

COSPLAY, is abbreviated to COS, Cosplay = Costume + Play of the composite word, generally interpreted as “live-action parody”, similar to role-playing. Performers wear the same clothes, makeup, and props as characters from manga, games, or Japanese visual rock bands, and act out their own shows.

COSPLAY rough to classify, the most common is to play the role of ACG (anime, comic, game) in the role; followed by playing some of the members of the Japanese visual band, the popularity of the band is more popular by the cos of the medieval aristocratic style of MM (tragedy and malice) band; in addition to some of the characters in the movie, such as Harry Potter; the most special to be counted as a number of Alternative COSPLAY, from cos robots, to cars are there, some celebrity cos is also regarded as alternative, because there are obvious traces of spoof. From here can be seen in the positioning of COSPLAY contains a fairly broad space to play, and can even say that as long as there is a COSPLAYER in the place, this field is absolutely today’s youth pop culture mainstream.

Speaking of which, COSPLAY has a long history. It can even be traced back to the ancient stage actors. They wore special clothes and played mythological characters, which is similar to the spirit of modern cosplay, but the difference is only the occasion and characters of cosplay. The birthplace of modern animation COSPLAY should belong to Mickey Mouse’s hometown – the U.S. In the 50’s, in Disneyland, “Mickey Mouse” dresser is the real ancestor of the present era of the world’s COSPLAYER. It can be said that it is the COSPLAY as a commercial means of promotion, COSPLAY itself can get a long development and understanding.

Cosplay started to take shape along with the rapid maturation of the game industry and the proliferation of visual bands in Japan’s ACG industry, and has become an extremely large-scale subsidiary culture of the ACG industry. Whenever the Japanese ACG industry organizes anime and manga exhibitions and game shows, the manga and game producers at each booth will hire booth girls to cosplay as their own company’s ACG characters in order to attract the audience. Take the Tokyo Game Show as an example, Miss Comic Show is always an indispensable part of the scenery at the show, and there are even magazines that select various Miss Show awards every year.

There is basically no gender concept in the COS world, so don’t be surprised if you see someone calling a beautiful woman “brother”!

Common COSPLAY Terminology:

• Cosplayer—-Cosplay performer or cosplayer.
• BT—–pervert
• BL—–Boy love A euphemism for male homosexuality.
• GL—-Girl love is, of course, lesbianism~~
• SM—-Sado-masochism Abbreviation for violent or sadistic masochism.
• Spoof (kuso) – A game often played by COSPLAY, where the original cartoon is changed beyond recognition, such as a scene showing Yagami and Rangaku Kenshin sparring.
• Voice actor —– A voice actor in a Japanese cartoon.

Here are some reference:  Anime Cosplay, Game cosplay, Movie Cosplay