Cosplay

Cosplay, a blend of "costume" and "play," is a performance art where participants, known as cosplayers, dress in costumes and accessories to portray a particular character. These cosplayers often form a subculture through their interactions, and the term has expanded to cover any costumed role-playing outside of a theatrical stage. Almost anything open to dramatic interpretation can inspire a cosplay, with common sources including anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, TV series, musicians, video games, memes, and original characters. The word has also entered slang, especially in politics, to describe someone insincerely pretending to adopt a role or personality.

The practice grew from fan costuming at science fiction conventions. It began with Morojo’s "futuristicostumes" for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in 1939. The Japanese term "cosplay" (コスプレ, kosupure) was created in 1983. Since the 1990s, a surge in hobbyists has made cosplay a major part of popular culture in Japan, other parts of East Asia, and the Western world. Cosplay events are common at fan conventions, and today there are dedicated conventions, competitions, social networks, websites, and other media focused on the activity. Cosplay attracts people of all genders, and crossplay, or gender-bending, is common.

**Etymology**

The word "cosplay" is a Japanese blend of the English words "costume" and "play." Nobuyuki Takahashi of Studio Hard coined it in a June 1983 article for the Japanese magazine *My Anime*. He chose to invent a new term rather than use the existing translation of "masquerade," which he felt implied nobility and was outdated. The coinage follows a common Japanese abbreviation method where the first two moras of each word are combined: "costume" becomes *kosu* (コス) and "play" becomes *pure* (プレ).

**History**

**Pre-20th century**

Masquerade balls were part of Carnival season in the 15th century, featuring elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. These evolved into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th-century Renaissance, often elaborate dances for the upper classes, especially popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent nearly 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several guests arrived dressed as characters from his novels. Costume parties (in American English) or fancy dress parties (in British English) were popular from the 19th century onward. Costuming guides from the period, such as Samuel Miller's *Male Character Costumes* (1884) or Ardern Holt's *Fancy Dresses Described* (1887), mostly feature generic costumes—period costumes, national costumes, objects, or abstract concepts like "Autumn" or "Night." Most specific costumes described are for historical figures, though some come from fiction, like Alexandre Dumas' *The Three Musketeers* or William Shakespeare's characters. By March 1891, Herbert Tibbits advertised what would today be called "cosplayers" for an event held from 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the so-named Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete, based on a science fiction novel and its characters published two decades earlier.

**Fan costuming**

A.D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars—a Martian ethnographer who comically misunderstands Earthly affairs—is arguably the first fictional character people emulated by wearing costumes. In 1908, Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, reportedly attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Later, in 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at a masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Nycon or 1st Worldcon) at Caravan Hall in New York, dressed in "futuristicostumes," including a green cape and breeches, based on Frank R. Paul's pulp magazine artwork and the 1936 film *Things to Come*, designed and created by Douglas. Ackerman later said he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume to a science fiction convention, though only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, and the 2nd Worldcon (1940) featured both an unofficial masquerade in Douglas's room and an official one as part of the program. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes took second place with a Bar Senestro costume (from the novel *The Blind Spot* by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint). Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith (from C. L. Moore's short story series) and both Ackerman and Douglas in their futuristicostumes again. Masquerades and costume balls became a tradition at World Science Fiction Conventions thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls included a band, dancing, food, and drinks. Contestants either walked across a stage or a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon (1941), with a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt's work).