Cosplay

Cosplay—a blend of "costume" and "play"—describes a performance art where participants, known as cosplayers, dress in costumes and accessories to embody a particular character. These cosplayers often engage with one another, forming a subculture, and the term has expanded to cover any costumed role-playing outside of a theatrical stage. Almost anything open to dramatic interpretation can serve as inspiration, with popular sources including anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, television series, musicians, video games, memes, and occasionally original characters. In slang usage, particularly in politics, "cosplay" can refer to 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 coined in 1983. Since the 1990s, a sharp rise in hobbyist cosplayers has turned the phenomenon into a major element of popular culture in Japan, other parts of East Asia, and the Western world. Cosplay events are now common at fan conventions, and there are dedicated conventions, competitions, social networks, websites, and other media centered on the activity. Cosplay attracts people of all genders, and crossplay—also called gender-bending—is common.

**Etymology**

The word "cosplay" is a Japanese blend of the English terms "costume" and "play." Nobuyuki Takahashi of Studio Hard created it for a June 1983 article in the Japanese magazine *My Anime*. He chose a new word over the existing translation of "masquerade" because that term implied nobility and felt old-fashioned. The coinage follows a common Japanese abbreviation method: the first two moras of each word combine to form an independent compound—"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 that celebrated marriages and other dynastic events in late medieval court life. These evolved into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th-century Renaissance, generally elaborate dances for the upper classes, especially popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent out nearly 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several guests arrived dressed as characters from his novels. Costume parties (American English) or fancy dress parties (British English) gained popularity from the 19th century onward. Costuming guides from the period, like Samuel Miller’s *Male Character Costumes* (1884) or Ardern Holt’s *Fancy Dresses Described* (1887), mostly feature generic costumes—period outfits, national dress, objects, or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night." Most specific costumes described are for historical figures, though some come from fiction, such as characters from Alexandre Dumas’ *The Three Musketeers* or William Shakespeare’s plays. By March 1891, Herbert Tibbits advertised what would today be called "cosplayers" for an event held 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London: the Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete, based on a science fiction novel and its characters published two decades earlier.

**Fan costuming**

The 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 dressed as Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles. 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, US, dressed in "futuristicostumes"—including a green cape and breeches—based on pulp magazine artwork by Frank R. Paul 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: the 2nd Worldcon (1940) featured both an unofficial masquerade in Douglas’s room and an official masquerade as part of the program. David Kyle won 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), which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt’s works).