Cosplay

A cosplayer (left) and the anime character she's representing (right).

A model cosplaying Ciri, one of the main characters of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt^[wp].

Cosplay of Lara Croft^[wp] by Tatiana DeKhtyar at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles 2016

Cosplay (コスプレ kosupure), a contraction^[wp] of the words costume play, is a performance art^[wp] in which participants called cosplayers wear self-made costumes^[wp] and fashion accessories^[wp] to represent a specific character^[wp].

The term cosplay was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi^[wp] of the Japanese studio Studio Hard in 1984. Cosplay is part of the popular culture in Japan and some other parts of Asia and in the Western world.

Favorite sources include manga^[wp] and anime, comic books, video games and films. Cosplay is generally considered different from Halloween^[wp] and Mardi Gras^[wp] costume wear as the intention is to accurately replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, cosplayers will often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms and body language of the characters they portray. Almost all cosplayers wear wigs in conjunction with their outfit in order to further improve the resemblance to the character. This is especially necessary for anime and manga characters who often have unnaturally coloured and uniquely styled hair.

Common Cosplay Judging Criteria

This table contains a list of the most common cosplay competition judging criteria, as seen from World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX.

Criteria	Description	Example
Accuracy	Resemblance to the original character in terms of appearance.	Hair color/styling Make-up Costume Props Stage props
Craftsmanship	Quality and details of the costume and props.	How well the costume is made Maneuverability/functionality of the costume Quality of materials Level of detail Amount of effort Percentage of costume that is handmade Technique
Presentation	Likeliness in terms of character portrayal and performance.	Acting Posture Movement Talking with iconic phrases and tones of the character Facial expressions Interaction with other characters Faithfulness to the story
Audience Impact	Stage presence and connection with the audience.	Eye contact Making full usage of the stage space Engaging with the audience

See also

• Lolita, Lolita fashion
• Gor, Gorean subculture

Weblinks

• Wikipedia has an article about Cosplay, Costume party^[wp], Fandom^[wp], Furry fandom^[wp], Lolita fashion^[wp], Uniform fetishism^[wp]

This article based on an article Cosplay (2 November 2016) from the free Encyklopedia Spanking Art Wiki. The Spanking Art Wiki article is published under GNU-License for free Documentation. In Spanking Art Wiki is a List of Authors available those who worked on the text before being incorporated in WikiMANNia.