Term · Anime fandom
Cosplay
A word invented by a Japanese reporter watching Americans dress up, which then travelled back the other way.
In Otakana the clue reads: Dressing up as a character at a convention
- Type
- Term
- Series
- Anime fandom
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- 7 · Easy
Nobuyuki Takahashi went to the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles, watched the masquerade, and wanted to describe it for readers at home. Masquerade translated badly, so he squashed costume and play together and wrote kosupure. The word stuck in Japan, returned to English as cosplay, and now covers everything from a wig and a school uniform to armour built over six months.
The craft splits into skills that rarely live in one person. Sewing and pattern drafting. Wig styling, which involves more heat and hairspray than anyone expects. Foam armour, resin casting, and increasingly 3D printing for props. Then the part that has nothing to do with making: standing in character, holding the pose, and knowing which angle the photographer needs before being asked.
Conventions run judged masquerades, and the largest feed into international finals such as the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya. Away from competition the culture is mostly hallway photography and repair kits. Cosplayers carry safety pins and hot glue for other people's emergencies, which is the closest the hobby has to a rule anyone enforces.
Spelling COSPLAY
COSPLAY is two English words with their ends cut off, costume and play, so the spelling follows English rather than Japanese. Seven letters, one S, and the P sits in the middle where the seam is. The Japanese コスプレ reads kosupure across four beats, which is the version you hear in interviews and which will not fit the row.