CosPlayWiki, Wikipedia for CosPlayer!

If you are here there is a good chance you are interested in learning about cosplay or already a member of the cosplaying community. If you are new to cosplaying you might want to check out the Beginner's guide.

CosplayWiki is someplace where you can share your knowledge, be an expert in the field. But why a wiki when there are so many other resources dedicated to cosplaying out there? The answer to that is simple: With the vast amounts of information that is associated with cosplaying a wiki is a great way to organize that information. Want to find out how to make armor for your costume? We have information on that! But as you are building your project you might decide you need more information on the materials you need or the various different tools to work with those materials. Information is all webbed together with common associations.

You can find and CREATE that information here. You can be the editor, you can be the expert. We do ask that you register before editing, but you can browse and use the information as much as you want if you dont. You only have to register if you want to edit and contribute to the community. A wiki is a community driven project - it doesn’t belong to a single person, it is owned by everyone who wants to contribute and help. As you are reading through CosplayWiki and come to a page where you have something to share, or even come to a page that doesn’t exist, please edit, make chances and have fun. Do you have a tutorial you have put together? Do you want to share it? Head over to the tutorial's page

If you are new to wikis I suggest that you take a look at the help page to learn about the basic editing techniques. It is amazingly simple to do. If you want to practice your editing skills, head over to the sandbox and make some simple edits and practice your coding skills.

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Cosplay Restaurant

Cosplay restaurants (コスプレ系飲食店, Kosupure keiinshokuten) are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the beginning of 21st century. They include maid cafés (メイドカフェ, Meido kafue) and butler cafés (執事喫茶, shitsuji kissa), where the service staff dress as elegant maids, or as butlers.

Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared with service at normal cafés, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters and mistresses in a private home rather than merely as café customers.

Meido (メイド Japanese phonetic of maid) is also a jargon term amongst some otaku to refer to a type of stock female character in manga and anime. The characterization can have a cute or ecchi connotation depending on the writer. Most address their employers as goshujinsama(ご主人様) or ojousama（お嬢様） (especially the former. The latter is generally used for the employers' daughter).

The character differs from the traditional image of a typical housekeeper in being young, highly attractive, and usually wearing a maid outfit vaguely similar to a classic English or French design . In shōnen and seinen the outfit is almost universally fetishized: low-cut to show off the legs and chest, excessively colorful and/or frilly, and usually with white apron of variable length.

The types of characters who wear the costumes are often viewed dimly by fans as being an extreme take on the fetish combo of an 'ideal' housewife and an obedient servant, often with sexual connotations. In more wholesome terms, a fairly common device are meido harboring romantic feelings for their master or their wards (especially if they are younger).

Meido are often written in a comedic light, having employers with variably subtle embarrassing personality quirks which they put up with, having completely different personalities when "off the clock", or reprimanding their masters like children.

Many bishojo shows which contain scenes of characters in large households or doing spring cleaning inevitably produce art with the characters in these sorts of outfits.

The maids are often dressed in a combination of french maid-styled uniforms in attempt to look "moe". They also behave in a "cute" and "moe" manner. Sometimes, the maid outfit is augmented with cat or bunny ears. At maid cafes, most service staff members are female, and male jobs are typically limited to bar-backing and janitorial duties.

When a customer enters the café, the maids typically give an extraordinarily humble greeting, such as "Welcome home, Master" (お帰りなさいませ、ご主人様！, Okaerinasaimase, goshujinsama) in order to play the role of a house servant. In order to enhance the illusion that the customer is indeed the master, they often serve the customer in a very deferential fashion. For example, staff sometimes kneel to mix sugar or milk in teas or other drinks. The purpose of the maid cafés and their service is to make customers feel as though they are at home and to encourage them to relax. Although exemplary customer service is typical of Japan, maid cafés take special care to pamper patrons.

Recently, with the maid cafe scene booming, additional related services have become popular. These include ear cleaning (耳かき, Mimikaki), a foot or hand massage, or a photography session (the customer typically rents time in a studio during which he can tell a maid which costume to wear and how to pose). Not only can you take pictures with the maids but also, certain cafe's have special performances. With the new game consoles, some cafes also have gaming time when you can ask your favourite maid to play with you but there are also traditional games such as "Jankenpon" (じゃんけんぽん）), which is rock paper scissors. Akihabara even features a "maid megane" (maid optician).

In imouto (younger sister) cafés, waitresses in uniform role play as the customer's fantasy younger sister. Similar to maid cafes, when a customer enters an imouto café, the "younger sisters" typically give an extraordinarily friendly greeting, such as "Welcome home, older brother / older sister!" (お帰り、お兄ちゃん／お姉ちゃん！, Okaeri, oniichan / oneechan), dropping the Japanese honorifics keigo from speech (extremely unusual for waitstaff in Japan).

While most cosplay restaurants and maid cafes cater mostly to men, there is also a type for women called the butler café (執事喫茶, shitsuji kissa). The butlers in these cafes are well-dressed male employees and may wear either a typical waiter's uniform or even a tuxedo or tails. There are also cross-dressing (male disguise style - 男装系, dansō-kei) butler cafes, where female staff dress up as butlers, instead of actual men.

International Cosplay

Cosplay in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom differs from Japanese cosplay culture in some ways. Cosplay concerning Star Trek, Star Wars, other science fiction worlds, Renaissance-era characters, and historical re-enactments (e.g. Civil War battles), especially at science fiction conventions, are far more popular in America than they are in Japan. Alternatively, some costumes that might be seen as in bad taste in America (such as Nazi uniforms from certain comics or games) may be seen at events in Japan.

For almost 50 years, costume fandom has had a consistent and widespread following with costumers in the west, from the first Worldcon onward, with the influx of anime costumes, the word cosplay is becoming a more and more commonly used term to describe costumes of specifically japanese media origins.

An issue with cosplaying anime and manga characters is that these characters generally do not have bodily proportions that can easily be mimicked by many typical cosplayers (e.g. incredibly long legs, huge muscles or giant breasts), and there is debate among fans about how important or not this element is when cosplaying.

In Mexico, cosplay is commonly seen inside conventions that can be video game, science fiction or anime themed. It is common that cosplayers will also organize their own reunions which can be themed or free for the sake of taking pictures together. Cosplay in Mexico is competitive in a healthy level, with well established representatives. This phenomenon also can be viewed in other Latin American countries, like Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

In Australia, the trend mirrors the American in that the subject costumes may be selected from sources other than manga or anime. Sources include American comics, computer games, science fiction/fantasy movies and TV shows, animation shorts or features, period drama, novels - any source that provides vivid and graphic inspiration of a character and their costume. Usually the term "cosplay" is not used to cover historical recreation as the focus is on representational accuracy, not historical accuracy. In general, Australian cosplay is most commonly seen in the larger population centres such as the capital cities and major regional centres, as these have the population base to support the diversity among fringe interests. The display of the costumes is not limited to conventions, although it is not unusual for dedicated cosplayers to travel extensively throughout Australia following the convention trail during the year. In addition to the social convening at conventions, many smaller social groupings exist, hosting their own local events.

In France, cosplay is a widespread activity in anime and manga conventions. Large conventions like Japan Expo can attract more than 500 cosplayers. While the majority of French cosplayers choose anime and manga for inspiration, many people like to dress like movie characters, famous singers or even TV show actors even if it's not directly related to the theme of the convention. Unlike the Japanese, French cosplayers use almost exclusively hand made costumes which are often used only once. Buying or reusing costumes is seen as unfair competition ( in some contests they can't compete). French cosplayers are mainly focused on the cosplay contest, which take place in nearly all manga, science fiction, fantasy or role playing game conventions. They are not really competitive, they're more of an occasion to show off the costume and appear as good as possible instead (e.g. scene, lighting, soundtrack, etc.). Acting and singing skills are highly valued in contests, and some groups reenact fighting or musical comedy scenes also. For example being able to do a cartwheel stunt in costume is part of the Japan expo tradition and one of the most valued figures in the contest.

In Belgium, cosplay plays an increasingly important role in the F.A.C.T.S. convention with hundreds of people dressed up in costume from different anime series.

Cosplay is rapidly entering the mainstream in the Philippines, where cosplay events are often held within an anime, manga, gaming, or sci-fi convention. More often than not, these conventions and events are sponsored, and debates have raged on whether or not judges' perspectives are influenced by the organizers of a cosplay event. Also Filipino cosplay rules overlook and allow professional fully commissioned costumes to participate in competitions.

Cosplay also has followers in other parts of Asia such as South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. As well as attending comic festivals and events, cosplayers there also frequent districts popular with teenagers. ***Source: Wikipedia

Cosplay Trends

A recent trend at Japanese cosplay events is an increase in the popularity of non-Japanese fantasy and science fiction movie characters, perhaps due to the international success of such films as The Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Characters from the Harry Potter films have a particularly high number of female fans in Japan, with female cosplayers playing either male or female characters, Draco Malfoy being an extremely popular choice.

The act of cosplaying as characters of the opposite sex is called "crossplay", whereas the act of cosplaying as characters who dress as the opposite sex as the cosplayer is called "cross-dressing". Crossplaying and cross-dressing may be the same in some cases; however, they could be different. For example, a female cosplayer cosplaying as a male character who dresses as a normal male (such as Kira Yamato from Gundam SEED) would be cross-dressing and crossplaying; a male cosplayer cosplaying as a female character who dresses as a normal female (such as Lacus Clyne from Gundam SEED) would also be cross-dressing and crossplaying. However, a female cosplayer cosplaying as someone like Mana (male artist from the Visual Kei band Malice Mizer known for dressing in female clothes) would be crossplaying, but not cross-dressing (since the cosplayer is cosplaying someone of the opposite sex but is wearing clothes of her own sex); a male cosplayer also cosplaying as Mana would be cross-dressing, but not cross-playing (since the cosplayer is cosplaying someone of the same sex but is wearing clothes of the opposite sex).

A small niche group in the crossplaying field are dollers, a subset of kigurumi cosplayers; usually male, they wear bodysuits and masks to fully transform into female characters.

Another recent trend in cosplay is a blurring of the distinction between costumes based on characters from games and anime, and "original" costumes based upon a general theme or existing fashions. In particular, the Tokyo teen-fashion trend of Gothic Lolita has attracted some cosplayers who might not have the inclination (or possibly courage) to wear such distinctive clothes around town, but who would like to dress in such a manner on some occasions. Other popular trends include the "original Visual Kei cosplaying", "original punk cosplaying", "original Super Dollfie cosplaying", et cetera.

COSPLAY Introduction

Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure - pronounced coz-play) is Japanese term short for "costume play."

This is a Japanese sub-culture to act of dressing up in costume as favourite anime/manga characters. Those fans often make their costumes themselves. Cosplay is very popular and it is practised especially at anime conventions.

In Japan, cosplay as a hobby is usually an end unto itself. Like-minded people gather to see others' costumes, show off their own elaborate handmade creations, take lots of pictures, and possibly participate in best costume contests.

Cosplay competitions held at conventions (con) allow fans (known as 'cosplayers') dress up as their favourite characters, pose for pictures and win prizes. Hardcore fans can treat cosplay very seriously, sometimes spending months making their costumes. In Japan Cosplay Cafés - where the staff (and occasionally the visitors) dress up as anime and manga characters - are quite popular too, and many merchandise companies have twigged that making replica costumes and accessories for cosplayers is a useful source of extra income.

Cosplay can be seen at public events such as video game shows, as well as at dedicated cosplay parties at nightclubs or amusement parks. It is not unusual for Japanese teenagers to gather with like-minded friends in places like Tokyo's Harajuku district to engage in cosplay. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a large number of cosplay cafés, catering to devoted anime and cosplay fans. The waitresses at such cafés dress as game or anime characters; maid (or meido) costumes are particularly popular.

Possibly the single largest and most famous event attended by cosplayers is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comiket. This event, held in summer and winter, attracts hundreds of thousands of manga otaku and many thousands of cosplayers who congregate on the roof of the exhibition center, often in unbearably hot or cold conditions.

Cosplayers in Japan refer to themselves as reyazu; pronounced layers (by writing the word cosplayers in katakana, it is possible to shorten it in this way). Those who photograph players are called cameko, short for "Camera Kozo" or "Camera Boy". The cameko give prints of their photos to the players as gifts. Tensions between players and cameko have increased due to perceived stalker-like behaviour among some obsessive males who push female cosplayers to exchange personal email addresses or do private photo sessions. One result of this has been a tightening of restrictions on photography at events such as Comiket.

While Cosplay arguably originated in Japan, one should not be confused with the idea that Cosplay is considered typical behavior in Japan. While some do attend Cosplay functions that are held in districts such as Akihabara, most Japanese people find Cosplay to be rather silly. In addition, because Cosplay in Japan has adapted such a negative sexual connotation, many Japanese have come to feel that Cosplay is reprehensible. In addition, North Americans who Cosplay typically refer to themselves as "otaku", which is essentially the Japanese word for "geek", but wrongfully use this word in an attempt to embody themselves in a sociological group that they can be proud of. To contrast, in Japan actual otaku refuse to admit that they are otaku because the idea of otaku it is not looked at as a group of people who are engaging in activity that may seem "just a little different". In fact, being an otaku in Japan entails standing on one of the bottom rungs of the Japanese social ladder.

See Also: Cosplay Trends | International Cosplay | Cosplay Restaurents (Meido Cafe/Maid Cafe)
Other Cospledia (Cosplay Encyclopedia) Topics | Recent Cosplay News | Cosplay Picture Galleries