Cosplay

• 1. Introduction

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  Cosplay is the activity of wearing costumes and accessories to embody a specific character, and in 1939, two science fiction fans in New York City started something neither of them fully understood. Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known to fellow fans as Morojo, arrived at the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in costumes Douglas had designed and built herself. They were based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come, and they called them "futuristicostumes." Ackerman later admitted he thought everyone was supposed to dress up. They were the only ones who did.

  What grew from that moment would eventually reach hundreds of thousands of people gathering on the roof of a single exhibition hall in Japan. It would generate billions of yen in annual sales, prompt rule changes about peanut butter and open flame, and inspire three people to coin a phrase that would slip into political discourse. How did a pair of costumes at a convention in 1939 become a global cultural practice with its own magazines, championships, and professional careers? And what does it mean when someone says cosplay is not just about the costume, but about the body itself?

• 2. A Word Coined in 1983

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  The term that names the entire practice was invented by someone at Studio Hard who published an article in a Japanese magazine in June 1983. The coinage was deliberate. The existing Japanese translation of the English word "masquerade" was rejected because it implied nobility and felt old-fashioned. Instead, the word was built using a common Japanese method of abbreviation: the first two moras of each word are joined, so "costume" becomes kosu and "play" becomes pure, producing a new compound that sounded fresh to fans.

  The term did not spread overnight. A year or two passed before it circulated commonly among fans at conventions. It was in the 1990s, after appearing on television and in magazines, that cosplay entered common knowledge across Japan. Outside Japan, the practice had been happening under different names entirely. American fans called the same events "masquerades." British fans used "fancy dress." The arrival of a single shared word helped unify a scattered international activity into something with a common identity.

• 3. Before the Term Existed

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  Masquerade balls appeared in the Carnival season as far back as the 15th century. They spread into Italian public festivities during the 16th century Renaissance, holding particular popularity in Venice. These early celebrations were elaborate dances for the upper classes, not the fan-driven events that would follow centuries later.

  The thread connecting those courtly dances to modern conventions runs through a series of incremental steps. In April 1877, Jules Verne sent out nearly 700 invitations to a costume ball where guests arrived dressed as characters from his novels. Costuming guides published in the 1880s, including Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes from 1884 and Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described from 1887, show a world where historical figures and generic concepts dominated. Fictional characters were the exception. By March 1891, that was beginning to shift: an advertisement called for participants to dress as characters from a specific science fiction novel for an event at the Royal Albert Hall in London. That event, the Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete, ran from the 5th to the 10th of March that year.

  The tipping point toward fan costuming came from a comic strip. A.D. Condo's character Mr. Skygack, from Mars, a Martian ethnographer who comically misread Earthly customs, drew devoted fans willing to dress as him. In 1908, a Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Two years later, an unnamed woman won first prize at a masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, dressed as Skygack. These are the earliest documented instances of people costuming as a specific fictional character.

• 4. The Worldcon Laboratory

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  At the 2nd Worldcon in 1940, an official masquerade became part of the program. David Kyle won the competition wearing a Ming the Merciless costume made by Leslie Perri. Robert A. W. Lowndes took second place in a Bar Senestro costume from the novel The Blind Spot by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint. Ackerman and Douglas wore their futuristicostumes again. A pattern of escalation, competition, and community had begun.

  Early Worldcon masquerades included a band, dancing, food, and drinks. Contestants walked across a stage or a cleared section of the dance floor. Over the years, the costumes pushed at every boundary the organizers set, and those limits became rules. In 1952, the first nude contestant appeared at a Worldcon masquerade. By the 1970s and early 1980s, partial nudity was common enough each year that it eventually prompted the "No Costume is No Costume" rule. At the 30th Worldcon in 1972, artist Scott Shaw arrived wearing a costume made largely of peanut butter to represent his underground comics character. The peanut butter transferred onto soft furnishings and other attendees' costumes before going rancid under the stage lights. Food, odious, and messy substances were banned thereafter. A blaster prop at the 20th Worldcon in 1962 discharged real flame, and fire was banned as a costume element.

  One mask-maker threaded through these early years: Ray Harryhausen, who designed Ackerman's "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" mask for the 3rd Worldcon in 1941 and Douglas' Akka mask for the same event. Outside the convention circuit, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, released in 1975, generated its own parallel tradition: within roughly a year, audience members began dressing as characters from the film, initially because it earned them free admission.

• 5. Japan Reinvents the Practice

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  The first documented instance of costuming at a fan event in Japan took place at Ashinocon in 1978, in Hakone. Future science fiction critic Mari Kotani arrived wearing a costume based on cover art from Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Fighting Man of Mars. In an interview, Kotani recalled approximately twenty costumed attendees at the convention's costume party, drawn from her Triton of the Sea fan club and a group that would become the Gainax anime studio. One attendee fashioned an impromptu Tusken Raider costume from a roll of toilet paper borrowed from the hotel.

  Costuming at Japan's Comiket convention, launched in December 1975, became a growing fan activity through the 1970s. By 1980, costume contests were a permanent fixture at Nihon SF Taikai conventions, beginning with Tokon VII. The practice grew alongside the post-1983 vocabulary that named it. The first cosplay cafes appeared in Akihabara in the late 1990s. A temporary maid cafe opened at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2. Permanent establishments followed, with Cure Maid Cafe opening in March 2001.

  The Comiket convention, held twice a year in Japan, became the single largest event featuring cosplay anywhere in the world. Hundreds of thousands of manga and anime fans attend each event; thousands of cosplayers gather specifically on the roof of the exhibition center. A 2014 survey conducted for Comiket reported that approximately 75% of cosplayers attending were female. Japanese manufacturers of cosplay costumes reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008. The World Cosplay Summit, first held on the 12th of October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, opened with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France, and Italy. No competition existed until 2005; the first World Cosplay Championship was won by the Italian team of Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia.

• 6. The Art of Embodiment

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  Accuracy in cosplay is not measured by the costume alone. Judges and fellow cosplayers assess how well a person translates a character's on-screen form through their own body. The World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX all evaluate contestants on four criteria: accuracy, craftsmanship, presentation, and audience impact. Accuracy covers hair color, makeup, costume, and props. Craftsmanship examines the quality of materials, level of detail, and what percentage of the costume was made by hand.

  Many cosplayers build their own outfits from scratch, developing skills in textiles, sculpture, face paint, fiberglass, fashion design, and woodworking. When a character's hair is an unnatural color or shape, wigs are required. Contact lenses that change eye color are common, and lenses that make pupils appear enlarged are used specifically to echo the large eyes of anime and manga characters. Body paint, temporary tattoos, permanent marker, and in rare cases permanent tattoos, are used to replicate a character's markings. Eyebrow removal is also common.

  A competing view within the community holds that cosplay can never truly represent a character, only be read through the body that performs it. Cosplayers regularly encounter what the source material describes as "bodily limits," including body size, physical features, and disability, that affect how their accuracy is perceived. The ethos running counter to this is explicit: anyone can be anything. Genderbending, crossplay, drag, a cosplayer portraying a character of a different ethnicity, a hijabi portraying Captain America, a steampunk version of a character from a contemporary setting, all fall within what practitioners describe as the core spirit of cosplay.

• 7. Community, Commerce, and Consent

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  The "Cosplay Is Not Consent" movement was started in 2013 by Rochelle Keyhan, Erin Filson, and Anna Kegler in response to sexual harassment within cosplay communities. Harassment documented in the community includes photography without permission, verbal abuse, touching, and groping. Male cosplayers reported being bullied for failing to fit certain costumes or characters. Starting in 2014, New York Comic Con placed large signs at entrances stating that cosplay is not consent, and reminded attendees to ask permission before photographing anyone.

  Photography had been reshaping cosplay since the late 1980s, when a distinct practice emerged of cosplayers attending events primarily to be photographed rather than to participate in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette formalized the relationship: photographers are not to press cosplayers for personal contact information, follow them out of a designated area, or take images without permission. The two groups work in a collaborative arrangement that requires those norms to function.

  The commercial side of cosplay runs parallel to its community culture. Yaya Han was described as having emerged as a well-recognized figure both within and outside cosplay circuits. Jessica Nigri used her recognition in cosplay to obtain voice acting work and her own documentary on Rooster Teeth. Liz Katz built a business from her fanbase, sparking debate within the community about whether profiting from cosplay is legitimate. Platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans have made full-time cosplay careers viable since the 2000s. A cosplay model known as a cosplay idol can become a brand ambassador for companies like Cospa, with some appearing in magazines like Cosmode, which holds the largest market share among Japanese cosplay publications and carries an English-language digital edition.