Cosplay (kosupure, etymologically from the English costume play, costume play) consists of dressing up as a character (real or inspired) from a manga, anime, movie, book, video game or even singers and musical groups and trying to interpret it to the best of your ability. the possible. Those who follow this practice are known as cosplayers, being for them one of their main hobbies.
The cosplay phenomenon arose around the '70s at the Comic Market in Japan, places to buy/sell Dôjinshi. There, groups of Japanese dressed as their favorite manga, anime and video game characters. So this practice has always been closely related to these products, but over the years, it spread to cross the borders of the country of the rising sun and cover other fields.
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The number of followers of cosplay has always been increasing, it is increasingly common to see people dressed up at any convention and it is starting to become normal for some groups to gather dressed in their best clothes at the premieres of major film productions. to the theaters. Cosplay contests are very common at comic book conventions and in some you have the opportunity to enter without paying admission just by going in your costume. Of course, at these events there are plenty of so-called kameko (kamera kozo, camera boy) who are dedicated to taking photos of the cosplayers, after which they offer them copies as gifts.
Those who feel like a cosplayer and who do not do it for simple fashion, try to resemble the character as much as possible, they can spend a whole year planning how to make the costume, what materials to use, what parts it is divided into, what its physical constitution is like, their hairstyle, their makeup... it's more than a hobby, it's almost a way of life, because they feel in the moral obligation to attend all the possible events and if possible wearing a new dress.
In general, a cosplayer will make their own costume, although those who do not know how to sew or do not want to learn hire the services of a seamstress or ask the family for help. In general, all the accessories are made by themselves, mainly because of the difficulty of getting some of the things that the characters carry or how expensive they can be.