Already massive in Japan, cosplay is now becoming more and more popular the world over

Cosplay, the art of dressing up as and role-playing as popular characters from games, TV, movies and comics is becoming a huge deal. Play Magazine takes a closer look at the phenomenon to find out what is driving the movement.

Cosplaying has become a major force at gaming events around the world in recent years. There is no public venue celebrating games, movies, comics or TV shows that does not feature a multitude of expertly crafted and presented young men and women dressed as their favourite characters. The term ‘cosplay’ is a compound of the words costume and play, which essentially summarises the whole culture in one swoop, but as we discovered, the subculture of cosplay runs much deeper than you might imagine.

The consensus seems to be that the term cosplay first gained popularity from a Japanese writer named Nobuyuki Takahashi who used it to describe costumed fans attending a Worldcon in Los Angeles around 1984. The fact is that dressing up as various characters is presumed to have started long before that, though, and as videogame characters have become more human in appearance, so they have become more common objects of interest to cosplayers. Indeed some wouldn’t have got involved at all if it hadn’t been for a love of games. “I became aware of cosplay through my love of gaming,” Laura ‘Sands’ Sindall, a semi-professional cosplayer revealed to us. “I stumbled across the hobby through a random internet search for Final Fantasy and discovered that people get dressed up as the characters for fun!”

It takes more than a casual interest in games to really get into the core of what cosplay is all about, though, according to fellow cosplay veteran Kaman Fong. “When wearing the costume of the character from a game, I do like to know as much about the character as possible; like how they react to people and the surroundings,” she told us. “This is so that I don't just dress as the person but actually act and pose like the person as well. That way I find I don't just feel like I'm wearing a blanket over my head. It is more fulfilling and I feel that I have achieved my goal in being that character.”

This idea of inhabiting and mimicking the character as well as dressing up as them is what makes cosplay different from fancy dress. This is role-playing as well as homage and that means a whole new level of commitment to the cause, and competition has become a big issue. “Some people just cosplay for fun and aren’t that bothered by the accuracy and often buy their costumes,” Sindall explained to us. “Others get really passionate about a character and will spend a lot of time and money on making their outfit as accurate and spectacular as possible.” But for her part, Fong seemed concerned at the direction this was taking things. “Yes, creating a costume with some detail of accuracy is good, but sometimes I do believe spending all your money and time on a costume to win a competition is taking competitiveness over the top,” she said.

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