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Balkan Beats
Cosplay, from fiction to reality The art of becoming someone or something else
by Elena Mullor
How many times have you thought you would like to be the character in a movie, game,
comic or series? For sure, since you were a child, this thought has come to your mind more than once. Sometimes, when we watch movies or tv shows or we play games, we want to become (for a while) the character that we like the most. We would like to think, to talk and to act like them. That’s why cosplaying has become so famous during the last years. Cosplay is a really cool form of self-expression and it’s practised all over the world.
The word comes from the contraction of ‘cos-
recreate a subculture, focusing on role-playing. tume play’. It is a ‘different fashion’ in which par- It has a specific cultural focus dedicated to the ticipants, also called cosplayers, wear costumes, accurate representation of characters or ideas accessories and outfits that represent a specific from fiction worlds. character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to The first cosplay appeared in 1970, at the Comic Market in Japan. Groups of people went to the event dressed up as their favourite manga, anime, comic and game characters. That’s why this practice has always been related to this kind of content, but, over the years, it has spread around the world, crossing borders and genres.
Over the years, a lot of different events of this
Zoro Roronoa’s Cosplay from One Piece
Source: Gaudencio Garcinuño
kind have been appearing, and the number of people interested in them was increasing. Comic-Con, Expocomic, Japan Weekend, FreakCon are some of these events, which welcome thousands of people and prepare everything to give them a good time. The Comic-Con in San Diego is the most famous, and the first one to appear, in the 1970s. This event has presented thousands of special guests at its conventions over the years, like comic creators, fantasy authors, film and series directors, producers and writers. The number of cosplay fans has always been increasing as well, and every year it is more common to see cosplayers in any celebration, or even in cinema premieres.
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