Anime fans transform into their favorite characters.
Each summer, in the dry, shimmering heat of Southern California, 40,000 people gather for the country’s largest anime convention, Anime Expo. Two-thirds of the attendees will not be sporting the sensible shoes and free swag bags typical of conventioneers. They will be dressed in cosplay regalia: carefully tailored, mostly handmade costumes, helmets, and tiaras based on anime cartoons, manga comic books, or video game characters.
You can catch them on their way to compete in the convention’s centerpiece, the masquerade competition, or simply to testify to their fandom by strutting their stuff in the suites and sidewalks of the convention center.
Cosplay, a term that combines the words costume and play, is a thriving subculture with unique Japan-Los Angeles roots. In the late 70s and early 80s, sci-fi fans exchanged videos and anime by day, and partied by night, often dressing up as their favorite characters. These parties came to be called “masquerades.” Japanese critics familiar with the California scene popularized the masquerade at events like Comiket, the huge DIY zine and comic market held twice a year in Tokyo.
But cosplay differs between Japan and North America. In Japan, people dress up for special events like Comiket. But the masquerade — a competition showcasing the artful making of costumes — is a North American invention. The cosplay masquerade has its roots in two traditions: 1) the aristocratic masked ball, familiar to cosplayers from The Rose of Versailles, the phenomenally popular girls’ manga that emerged in the 70s; and 2) the talent contest. During a masquerade, a cosplay team will compete for two prizes — craftsmanship and presentation — by performing a choreographed routine to a prerecorded song or skit, which is often a parody of or homage to a known anime scene.
“Around 2002, the bar really rose for [cosplay]
costume design,” says Mandy Mitchell, who’s been
involved in cosplay since 1999. No longer could people sport store-bought costumes, or disposable Halloween swords. People began learning how to sew, and to scavenge garment districts and hardware stores for unusual fabrics, patterns, and industrial materials. These days, Mitchell explains, by venturing into unexplored areas of pattern catalogs — such as figure skating designs to adapt for the Sailor Moon bodice — “you can find a pattern for almost anything you want to make.”
The team of “magical” girls in Sailor Moon is a popular choice for costumes. The most beloved anime since the 90s, Sailor Moon features a team of ordinary girls who morph out of their everyday lives to take on the identities of heroic fighters. As each schoolgirl in the anime actualizes her identity as a soldier of love and justice, her uniform transforms into a dazzling version of its everyday self.
Lynleigh Benton, a costumer with a background in fashion design, notes that because of the variety of characters and its popularity, “everybody does a Sailor Senshi [warrior] once in their life.”
For a cosplayer, the magical transformation into a sexy warrior takes place through the detailed design and crafting of costumes, highlighting the independence and creativity that define each character. Benton’s Sailor Uranus costume features a satin skirt, fitted spandex bodice, and platform boots. It took 100 hours to make, and demanded that she draft special patterns for the sleeves and bow, as well as make a skirt of flounces that look pleated, almost two-dimensional. For some, this may seem tedious, but not when anime is your passion. To participate in cosplay, says Benton, who makes, on average, ten costumes a year, “first and foremost, you have to be a fan” of the character you are cosplaying. ×
Anne McKnight writes and teaches about Japanese literature and subculture at USC in Los Angeles.
Photography by: Yas Satô ( 2 and 7), and Kyle Johnson of cosplay.com ( 4 and 6). Illustrations by: Ikeda Riyoko ( 1) from Rose of Versailles All Color Illustration Book, and Takeichi Naoko ( 3 and 5) from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Original Picture Collections Volumes 4 and 5.
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