What is Cosplay?

There’s no denying that anime characters are incredibly cute, beautiful, and handsome. Disproportional their facial features and body builds may be, they’re still magnificently good looking. In fact, it’s probably these imperfections that turn them into such good looking things. There are even times when they’re even more perfected than people both in their physique and face. And because of this, they often become objects of our adoration. And since imitation is the best form of flattery, there are people who just love to imitate anime characters… even going so far as to dress up as one. Dressing up as an anime character is what we call cosplaying.

However, you can’t just cosplay any time you want because people would think you were crazy. There’s a time and place for everything and for cosplaying; in the US it’s usually done during an anime convention while in Japan there are pockets of people that does them regularly in various cities or special cosplay cafes.

The Costumes

As you probably noticed, anime characters are usually clothed with very weird outfits. They sometimes wear clothes that are virtually impossible to be made in real life; after all, they can afford this since they’re simply ink on paper. This poses as a primary challenge for all cosplayers. But somehow, people are resourceful and they can always manage. Even the most complex of costumes can be duplicated by the means of some cardboard and some fabrics. Some cosplayers are so good that they’ve even managed to dress up as a real human robot from ‘transformers’ and is able to transform from a robot to a car. That must have taken a lot of time, effort, and brains.

Some of the more popular subjects for cosplay are the Naruto as well as the Naruto Shippuden characters. In every cosplay convention, there will always be people dressing up as the Naruto characters, even the minor ones. There’s an especially large number of Akatsuki Cosplayers because those black cloaks with red clouds are incredibly easy to make and to wear.

The Look

The costumes are a breeze as compared to emulating an anime character’s look. You’re lucky if the one you’re cospaying as looks like a normal human being. But try copying those anime characters that have out of this world hair and inhuman skin! Just imagine trying to cosplay as Freeza or Cell from Dragon Ball Z! The anime look is incredibly hard to pull off.

And to top it all off, you need to be relatively good looking yourself if you don’t want to be a laughing stock. It also helps if you’re of Asian descent because Asians are naturally better at cosplaying anime characters, even those anime characters who are supposed to be European.

The Attitude

Emulating a characters attitude is a huge plus when you’re in an anime convention. It adds to the overall feel if you’ve adopt the attitude of the character you’re cosplaying as well. Imagine cosplaying as Sasuke and acting like Naruto! That would be totally inappropriate. Just never take the assimilation of the character’s attitude too far or else you might just end up scaring people.

During cosplays, those who are able to emulate a character as accurate as possible are usually lauded with awards and praises. And there are several people who go to cosplays just to have their picture taken with other cosplayers, surprisingly? To the most of us yes it is, but then that’s the world of cosplaying.