Cosplay is a combination of the words costume and play.  It is a performance art in which participants called cosplayers to wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character, typically within the genres of anime, cartoons, comic books, manga, cinema, television, and video games.  This is a performing art form with no age restriction.  In fact, far more adults participate in cosplay than children.

​

         The rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture all over the world.  Cosplayers are primarily seen at major comic book/pop-culture conventions such as the world-famous New York City Comic-Con ( https://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/ )  and San Diego Comic-Con ( https://www.comic-con.org/ ).  This is where major publications like Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Hollywood actors like Robert Downey Jr., video game companies like Nintendo and etc. go to promote their new products, movies, technology, comics and more to its demographic audience.   These conventions are also open for underground artists of all mediums to present their work, as long it’s relevant to the theme of the convention.

        The term "cosplay" was coined in Japan in 1984. It was inspired by and grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristic costumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in 1939.  Some can say that an earlier example of cosplay is during the 16th-century renaissance in Venice, Italy.

​

​