What is This Cosplay Anyway?

Cosplay idea

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade or so, you have probably heard the term cosplay a time or two. Do you know what it means and how much a hobby like this could end up costing a cosplayer? If not, read on as we are going to explain the ins and outs of cosplay and what it takes to get started.

Cosplay is literally the combination of the words “costume” and “play” and it is the dressing up as one’s favorite characters from comics, video games, anime, manga, movies and television shows. The origin of the word says that in 1984, Nov Takahashi, founder and writer for the anime publishing company Studio Hard, was sent to Los Angeles to cover the World-Con science fiction convention. He was impressed by the fans' costumes and the elaborate displays at the masquerade, and when he returned to Japan, he coined the term to describe what he saw.

Today, almost everyone that attends a Comic Con event participates in cosplay and just as the people vary greatly, so do the costumes. Some resourceful cosplayers repurpose clothing and props they already own while others can spend hundreds of dollars to get just the right look.

The cosplayers who choose to go above and beyond to create something totally unique have been known to commission costumes from specialists or shop costume retailers online and get the costumes and accessories they need for their upcoming “adventure”.

One example of a cosplayer who went a little out of the way to get the costume she wanted is a woman who wanted a Giselle costume from Disney's animated movie "Enchanted." She requested a price quote from an online commissioner asking for specific, high-quality materials and hand-embroidered flowers and soon discovered that the price would be upwards of $850!

Now that may seem exorbitant, but cosplayers take their craft as seriously as golfers take their game and they don’t have any problem spending the extra money to pull it off. For cosplayers, the experience is nearly always worth the

stress of choosing a costume and dropping the money. It's an opportunity to be a hero, princess or otherworldly creature for a while and it might even be considered therapeutic to many of the world’s more serious cosplayers.

Now that you know what cosplay is, the costs that must be endured and the seriousness of the players, maybe you can see yourself as the next great cosplayer saving the galaxy from the evil squirrel horde from outer space. Or maybe just dress like your favorite TV character and have less of a back story.