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Revision as of 16:56, 11 October 2004 by Che fox (talk | contribs) (Sp: layers -> players)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Cosplay (コスプレ) is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime and video games, and, less commonly, live action television shows, movies or Japanese pop music bands.
The term cosplay (pronounced kosupure in Japanese) is a contraction combining the words "costume" and "play" which accurately describes the hobby of having fun by dressing up as one's favorite characters. Besides dressing up for public events such as anime conventions, it is not unusual for teens in Japan to gather with like-minded friends just to do cosplay. Since 1998 in Tokyo Akihabara district there is a large number of cosplay cafes, catering to otaku - anime and cosplay fans. The waitresses there dress as game or anime characters. Maid costumes are particularly popular.
Cosplay has spread across the world in recent years, joining with costuming at science fiction conventions in North America and Europe. The main difference between cosplay and costuming in the United States and Europe is that in Japan people typically dress up as characters from Japanese animated films (anime), Japanese comics (manga), or Japanese video games, as compared to dressing up as Star Trek characters or in Renaissance-era costumes. The other difference is that most costuming in the United States and Europe is centered on particular events such as conventions or festivals.
One such small niche of this field are dollers, the term for an amateur kigurumi player. These cosplayer wear masks to fully transform into their characters.
Cosplayers are often called "layers" and the otaku who photograph the layers are called cameko, short for "Camera Kozo" or "Camera Boy". The cameko give prints of their photos to the players as gifts.
In North American otaku culture, cosplayers at conventions often find themselves on the receiving ends of glomps, a type of high-powered hug.
In 2004, there's been a rise of people filming cosplay events at anime conventions and then uploading and hosting them on their personal websites. Deathcom Multimedia and Cosplay Memories are two examples. On October 1st 2004, Otakon, the largest anime convention in the United States, released a statement that can be found here stating that they sent a request to Deathcom Multimedia to remove all Otakon cosplay recordings from their website and Deathcom had removed all Otakon cosplay recordings. Otakon states their reasoning behind the move is in that fair use standards permit excerpts of Otakon's cosplay events for journalistic/review purposes but it does not allow for distributing the entire cosplay event on the internet, Otakon's interpetation of fair use standards can be debated and could be controversial. Otakon continues to state that if a site wants to distribute their cosplay event online, they must not only obtain Otakon's permission, but the permission from the cosplayers who were recorded and the copyright holders of the character who the cosplayer is cosplaying as, Otakon states that gaining permission from the cosplayers and copyright holders are the main reason why they are unable to host the event themselves, Otakon states that if they and Deathcom just host the cosplay events without doing the required things, they are subject to the risk of legal action by either or both the cosplayers and the copyright holders. Otakon continued that it is their hope to "come to some sort of arrangement going forward, but at this time it is not possible for Otakon to condone the redistribution of our cosplay and masquerade contests (or any other event)."