97 Fun Facts About Cosplay

The word 'cosplay' is a blend of which two English words?

Costume and play: Japanese clips the front of each borrowed word, kosu and pure, into one new word, just as it made 'anime' out of 'animation'.

Who coined the term 'cosplay', in a June 1983 magazine article?

Nobuyuki Takahashi used the word in a June 1983 My Anime piece on costumed fans at Comiket; few people knew it that year, but within a year or two it was in wide use among fans.

Why did the writer who coined 'cosplay' reject the Japanese word for 'masquerade'?

It implied nobility and sounded old-fashioned, he recalled, so he and his friends clipped two English loanwords into one new word, a common Japanese habit.

The first Worldcon, where convention costuming began in 1939, was timed to coincide with which New York event?

The World's Fair of 1939, themed 'The World of Tomorrow', drew science-fiction fans to New York that July; Forrest J Ackerman and Morojo arrived in costume, and a tradition began.

What did fans Forrest J Ackerman and Morojo call their 1939 Worldcon outfits?

Futuristicostumes, with their capes and breeches, were modelled on pulp artist Frank R. Paul's artwork and the film Things to Come; Morojo designed and made both outfits.

What did Ackerman later admit he had thought about costumes at the 1939 convention?

That everyone was supposed to wear one was Ackerman's later account; in the event only he and Morojo came in costume, and the next year's Worldcon added an official masquerade.

The fan nickname Morojo, used by a 1939 costuming pioneer, spells out initials in which language?

Esperanto names each consonant by adding an 'o', so M, R and J became Mo-ro-jo: her own first two initials plus the middle initial of her partner, whom she met in an Esperanto class.

Which US city has hosted the furry convention Anthrocon since 2006?

Pittsburgh has hosted Anthrocon since 2006, when the convention left the Philadelphia area; its annual fursuit parade now musters more than 1,000 costumed marchers.

Anime Expo has been held at which city's convention center since 2008?

Los Angeles has housed Anime Expo at its convention center since 2008; the show began in Northern California in 1992 as the successor to a fan-run event called AnimeCon.

Worldcon's first masquerade winner, in 1940, dressed as Ming the Merciless, villain of which comic strip?

Flash Gordon's foe Ming the Merciless won the first official Worldcon masquerade, staged after two fans had turned up in costume the year before.

Who made the mask for Ackerman's 'Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame' costume at the 1941 Worldcon?

Ray Harryhausen was then an unknown young fan from Ackerman's local club; Ackerman recalled a 'hideous latex mask', made two decades before Harryhausen animated Jason and the Argonauts.

What rule did Worldcon adopt in response to a wave of nude contestants?

'No Costume is No Costume' ruled out full nudity on stage, though partial nudity stayed allowed, and common, when it was true to the character.

What did artist Scott Shaw's 1972 Worldcon costume 'The Turd' consist mostly of?

Scott Shaw coated himself in peanut butter for 'The Turd' at the 1972 Worldcon; it went rancid under the stage lights and food was banned from costumes afterward.

Disney's parks normally bar adults from wearing costumes, so fans go 'Disneybounding' instead, which means dressing how?

In a character's colours: the parks bar adult costumes so no guest is mistaken for an official character. The name comes from Leslie Kay's 2011 blog, begun when she was literally Disney-bound for a holiday.

Which costume style, a convention favourite, mixes nineteenth-century fashion with brass goggles, gears and clockwork gadgets?

Steampunk got its name from novelist K. W. Jeter, who suggested it in a 1987 letter to Locus magazine as a joke on 'cyberpunk' for the nineteenth-century fantasies he and two friends were writing.

Mr. Skygack, a comic-strip visitor fans dressed as in 1908 in arguably the first cosplay, came from which planet?

Mars sent Mr. Skygack to take notes on earthlings in A. D. Condo's newspaper strip; a Cincinnati couple wore Skygack and Miss Dillpickles outfits to a skating-rink masquerade in 1908.

Which French novelist threw an 1877 costume ball where guests came dressed as characters from his books?

Jules Verne gave the ball in Amiens; his friend the photographer Nadar, the model for the hero of From the Earth to the Moon, came dressed as that very character.

Which London venue hosted the 1891 Vril-Ya Bazaar, where visitors were urged to dress as characters from a popular novel?

Royal Albert Hall was decked out as the world of Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race, with winged mannequins overhead; the public stayed away and the venture bankrupted its organiser.

What was fan costuming called in Japan in the 1970s, before 'cosplay' caught on?

Kaso, the everyday Japanese word for a costume or disguise, was what fans called it in the 1970s; the man who coined 'cosplay' felt the old word missed the spirit of the hobby.

Friends who dressed up at a 1978 Japanese fan convention later founded which anime studio?

Gainax, later the maker of Neon Genesis Evangelion, grew out of the Kansai fan group that costumed at Ashinocon in 1978; critic Mari Kotani, also in costume, recalled almost everyone else at the party in ordinary clothes.

At Ashinocon 1978, what was one impromptu Tusken Raider costume made from?

A hotel's roll of toilet paper mummified one of fan Yasuhiro Takeda's friends; Takeda recalled cutting the cardboard tube in half and taping the halves over his eyes.

Future scream queen Brinke Stevens won Comic-Con's first Masquerade in 1974 dressed as which comic-book heroine?

Vampirella, co-created by Forrest J Ackerman, won her first place; Stevens went on to help run the Comic-Con masquerade for years afterward.

Fans began dressing as characters from which 1975 film about a year after its release?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show flopped and was shelved, then found its crowd at midnight screenings from April 1976, where regulars began talking back to the screen and dressing as its characters.

US federal rules approve a muzzle plug of which colour to mark toy and imitation guns, staples of costume props?

Blaze orange plugs are only one marking the federal rule approves: a toy gun needs no plug at all if it is transparent, or coloured all over in a bright shade such as pink or green.

At Comiket, where thousands of cosplayers gather, what are they expected to do before travelling home?

Change out of costume: Comiket tells cosplayers to arrive and leave in plain clothes, so they register on site and dress in its changing rooms, and changing in the toilets is banned too.

Which European country won the first World Cosplay Championship in 2005?

Italy won overall in 2005, with Giorgia Vecchini taking the individual prize; it was the first year cosplayers had to qualify through playoffs at home, where earlier summits had simply invited a handful of guests.

'Cosplay' was clipped together like 'rimokon', the Japanese word for which household gadget?

Remote control becomes 'rimokon' by keeping the front of each English word, the same clipping that turns 'personal computer' into 'pasokon'.

At Japan's maid cafés, what do the costumed waitresses use to draw pictures on a customer's omelette rice?

Ketchup is the maid's drawing ink: she decorates the omelette rice at the table, often with a picture or word the customer has asked for.

Comiket, the Tokyo fair where thousands of cosplayers gather twice a year, exists mainly to sell what?

Fan-made comics, or doujinshi, are the point of Comic Market, which fans launched in 1975 as a place to sell self-published work; Japan's cosplay scene grew up around it.

How many people attended the first Comiket in December 1975?

About 700 people came to the first Comiket in December 1975; by 2019 its turnstile attendance had reached an estimated 750,000.

Where has Comiket been held since 1996?

Tokyo Big Sight first hosted Comiket in 1996, after years in which the fast-growing fair had struggled to keep a regular venue, and it remains its home each August and December.

A 2014 survey at Comiket found that about three-quarters of the cosplayers there were what?

Women made up roughly 75% of Comiket's cosplayers in the organisers' 2014 survey, even though the fair's general visitors lean male.

Armageddon Expo, New Zealand's long-running pop-culture and cosplay show, began in 1995 in which city?

Auckland hosted the first Armageddon in 1995, a show built on comics and trading cards; it now tours several New Zealand cities with cosplay as a fixture.

Which Silicon Valley city hosted the first Anime Expo, at a Red Lion hotel, in 1992?

San Jose had hosted a fan-run show called AnimeCon at the same hotel a year earlier; Anime Expo grew out of it, then moved to Southern California in 1994.

Otakon, a major anime convention, left Baltimore in 2017 for which city?

Washington, D.C. has been Otakon's home since 2017, a far cry from its 1994 debut, when about 350 fans gathered at a hotel in a Pennsylvania college town.

Where in a hotel was the first full Comic-Con held, in 1970?

Basement space at San Diego's U.S. Grant Hotel was room enough for all 300 or so fans in 1970; by 2010 Comic-Con was filling the city's convention center with some 130,000.

Which venue is home to New York Comic Con?

Javits Center has housed New York Comic Con since its first edition in 2006; the show is run by the events company ReedPop and has no connection to San Diego's Comic-Con.

Over which holiday weekend is Atlanta's Dragon Con held?

Labor Day weekend brings Dragon Con to downtown Atlanta, where it spreads across several hotels and stages a Saturday parade of thousands of costumed fans.

Dragon Con's Saturday-morning parade of costumed fans marches down which famous Atlanta street?

Peachtree Street carries the parade on the convention's Saturday morning; added in 2002, it now sends thousands of costumed fans through downtown Atlanta.

What colour are the twin-tails of Hatsune Miku, a perennial cosplay favourite?

Teal, officially 'blue-green', is the colour of Hatsune Miku, who is not a performer but voice-synthesis software Crypton released in 2007: anyone who buys it can make her sing.

What do cosplayers call portraying a character of the opposite sex?

Crossplay blends 'cross-dressing' and 'cosplay'; manga's many delicate-featured male leads have helped make it a common sight at conventions.

What does 'bishonen', a common type of male manga character, literally mean?

Pretty boy, or more literally 'beautiful youth': the word joins 'beautiful' and 'boy', and the type's androgynous looks make such characters easy for cosplayers of either sex to portray.

What do animegao kigurumi players wear to reproduce anime faces literally?

A stylised mask and zentai bodysuit hide the wearer completely; the style comes from the official stage shows put on for anime, and hobbyists adopted it.

Anime Central, a major Midwest anime convention, is held just outside which city?

Chicago's suburb of Rosemont hosts Anime Central, which a local anime club began planning in 1996 and first staged in 1998; it calls itself the Midwest's largest anime convention.

Ishoku-hada cosplayers change what about themselves to play non-human characters?

Their skin colour, using body paint: the name means 'unique skin', and Tokyo model Miyako drew attention to it in 2017 with a shoot of friends each painted a different shade.

Which Tokyo bridge by Harajuku Station, named for a nearby shrine, became a cosplay gathering spot?

Jingubashi means 'Shrine Bridge': it crosses the railway to Meiji Jingu, and the cosplayers and street-fashion fans who gathered on it drew tourists who came just to see them.

Which Tokyo district is known for its cosplay restaurants and maid cafés?

Akihabara made its name as 'Electric Town', a district of electronics shops; anime and game stores moved in beside them, and the costumed cafés followed their customers.

At the 1891 Vril-Ya Bazaar, the woman costumed as Princess Zee of The Coming Race wore a tiara that glowed with what?

Electric lights studded the tiara, a fitting touch for a novel about an underground people who command a mysterious energy called vril.

The first pop-up maid café, in 1998, promoted Welcome to Pia Carrot 2, a game in which genre?

Dating sim Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 has players courting the waitresses of a café, so the 1998 pop-up put its own staff in costume; ties to a single game kept such cafés short-lived until generic maids took over.

What does convention security do when it 'peace-bonds' a cosplayer's prop sword?

Ties it into its scabbard, so it cannot be drawn: checked props get bright zip ties or ribbon, so anything weapon-like without a tag stands out at once. Novelist C. J. Cherryh, narrowly missed before the custom spread, calls it a good idea.

World Cosplay Summit's craftsmanship judges have scored each costume on quality, technique and which third measure?

Accuracy to the original is judged by direct comparison with the character artwork, and a costume identical to it earns full marks; Cyprus Comic Con tells entrants to bring a printed picture of the character for the judges.

To be judged for a contest award, a cosplay often has to be what?

Self-made is a common rule, and some contests that admit bought outfits score them lower: Cyprus Comic Con's judges say they favour handmade costumes over anything else. A skit is optional, since entrants may simply pose.

The ECG, launched as the European Cosplay Gathering, stages its finals each July at which event?

Japan Expo in Paris hosts the ECG finals each July; the contest now calls itself the Extreme Cosplay Gathering, and teams from South Africa and Morocco have joined its line-up.

NärCon, long-time host of the Nordic Cosplay Championship finals, is held in which country?

Sweden's NärCon fills Linköping's university campus each summer; partner events across the Nordic and Baltic countries each send their best cosplayer, who compete solo for prizes that have included a trip to Japan for two.

Which movement, started in 2013, campaigns against sexual harassment of cosplayers?

Cosplay Is Not Consent became the rallying cry of Geeks for CONsent, a group three Philadelphia women formed in 2013; within a year their campaign against convention harassment was making national news.

Which city's Comic Con began posting large anti-harassment signs at its entrance in 2014?

New York Comic Con met its 2014 crowds with tall signs designed by comic artist Amy Reeder, the full anti-harassment policy printed on the back, after organisers said the problem seemed to be growing rather than declining.

Which cosplayer launched fabric and sewing-pattern lines with Jo-Ann and McCall's?

Yaya Han's McCall's patterns arrived in 2015 and her Jo-Ann fabrics a year later, meant to make cosplay materials easier to find; when Jo-Ann closed in 2025 the fabric line moved to other retailers.

Where was Yaya Han born?

Xi'an, China, was Yaya Han's birthplace; raised in Germany as a teenager, she moved to the United States in 1998, found cosplay a year later and taught herself to sew on a second-hand machine.

Which former MythBusters host is a devoted cosplayer who has roamed a comic convention inside a full Totoro costume?

Adam Savage built the collapsible suit himself; he says a cosplayer pours their own history into a costume, just as a film costume helps an actor find something of themselves in a role.

Which 2009 costume at San Diego Comic-Con made Jessica Nigri go viral?

'Sexy Pikachu' was Jessica Nigri's first cosplay: a Pokémon fan who had never heard of the hobby, she chose her favourite character, and photos from the 2009 convention spread online and launched her career.

Which game heroine did Jessica Nigri win a 2012 IGN contest to portray for Warner Bros.?

Juliet Starling of Lollipop Chainsaw, Suda51's game, came with an outfit so revealing that PAX East asked Nigri to leave.

Which company produced the 2018 documentary Becoming Jessica Nigri?

Rooster Teeth already knew its subject well: Nigri voices the villain Cinder Fall in the studio's animated series RWBY, and in 2018 it produced the documentary Becoming Jessica Nigri.

Where did Jessica Nigri grow up?

Christchurch, New Zealand, is her mother's home country, so Reno-born Jessica Nigri grew up there, with what she calls a little Kiwi accent, before moving back to the United States.

How much did professional cosplayer Enako say she made in two days at Comiket 2016?

10 million yen in two days of summer Comiket was the figure Enako gave a TV show in 2016, where she confirmed she lives on cosplay alone and usually earns over a million yen a month.

Which reality show about cosplayers premiered on Syfy in 2013?

Heroes of Cosplay hit trouble within weeks of its debut: a photo studio billed Syfy for eight pictures of its cast, saying the network had used them without asking the photographer who owned the rights.

Which Syfy costume-competition show premiered in 2017?

Cosplay Melee, hosted by Yvette Nicole Brown, set four cosplayers a small test piece and then a full character build in every episode; the earlier Call to Cosplay ran on Myx TV from 2014.

Cosplay Mania, a convention devoted entirely to cosplay, is held in which country?

The Philippines' Cosplay Mania began in 2008 as a one-day show in a Manila mall hall and outgrew it within two years, moving to a convention centre and adding a national tournament of regional champions.

Anime North, a fan-run anime convention packed with cosplayers, is held each year in which Canadian city?

Toronto has hosted Anime North since anime clubs started it in 1997; fans still run the event, which has grown to fill three days and several venues and draws tens of thousands of visitors.

Which Star Wars costuming group is nicknamed 'Vader's Fist'?

The 501st Legion grew famous enough that author Timothy Zahn wrote a 501st unit into a 2004 Star Wars novel; a year later the clone troopers who storm the Jedi Temple in Revenge of the Sith carried its name.

Who founded Vader's Fist, the Star Wars costuming group, in South Carolina in 1997?

Albin Johnson and Tom Crews began by posting photos of their homemade stormtrooper armour on a GeoCities page called Detention Block 2551; within weeks strangers around the world were emailing to be added.

Why was the Rebel Legion founded in 2000?

The 501st chose to stay 'Imperials only' in early 2000, so five of its own members announced a separate 'Rebels only' group that December for Jedi, pilots and the saga's other heroes.

Which 1989 gathering in Costa Mesa, California, is counted as the first furry convention?

Confurence 0 drew a sparse crowd to a Costa Mesa Holiday Inn in January 1989, but the test run persuaded its organisers to stage a full convention the next year, and the series ran annually until 2003.

Which science-fiction author joined Gene Roddenberry as a guest at the first major Star Trek convention in January 1972?

Isaac Asimov and Roddenberry headlined the convention in a rented ballroom at Manhattan's Statler Hilton; the organisers expected about 500 fans and more than 3,000 turned up.

Which costumed tradition grew out of the backyard children's theatre classes run by California teacher Phyllis Patterson?

The Renaissance fair in its modern form began when Phyllis and Ron Patterson turned their backyard commedia dell'arte classes into the first Renaissance Pleasure Faire, held over a weekend in May 1963.

What wrecked the 1839 Eglinton Tournament, a lavish revival of medieval jousting staged at a Scottish castle?

Torrential rain left the ground sodden and the grand parade more than three hours late; the standard history of the Earl of Eglinton's joust is titled The Knight and the Umbrella.

Which two historical fashion eras heavily influence Lolita fashion?

Lolita fashion draws heavily on Victorian and Rococo dress, with the manga The Rose of Versailles among its inspirations.

Which Malice Mizer musician founded the Gothic Lolita brand Moi-meme-Moitie in 1999?

Mana, Malice Mizer's guitarist, founded Moi-même-Moitié in 1999 and named its two lines Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat; the label is credited with helping to popularise the Gothic Lolita look.

Which magazine, first published in 2001, was central to spreading the frilly Harajuku style?

Gothic & Lolita Bible, a 2001 spin-off of the magazine KERA, carried the frilly look abroad: Tokyopop published five English-language issues in North America in 2008 and 2009.

Chun-Li, a cosplay staple since the 1990s, first appeared in which Capcom game?

Street Fighter II introduced Chun-Li in 1991; designer Akira Yasuda had only five weeks to finish her and swapped her trousers for tights at the last minute because the sprites didn't look right.

What is Wonder Festival, a twice-yearly Japanese hobby event that also draws cosplayers, mainly for?

Garage kits, figure models cast in small batches by amateurs, are Wonder Festival's core: rights holders grant one-day licences so hobbyists can legally sell kits of copyrighted characters at the event.

Which stretch fabric, developed at DuPont in the 1950s, do cosplayers sew into skin-tight superhero suits?

Spandex is an anagram of 'expands': chemist Joseph Shivers was looking for something to replace the rubber then used in garments such as girdles, and his fibre stretches to about five times its length.

Why is EVA foam popular for cosplay armour?

It is easy to work, durable and comfortable, which is why cosplayers use EVA foam in place of rigid plastic and even leather: warmed with a heat gun, it takes curves and pressed-in textures.

What is Worbla?

Worbla is a brand of thermoplastic modelling material: warmed to about 90°C the sheets can be draped and moulded by hand, and offcuts knead back into a putty, so very little is wasted.

Anime Friends, a South American anime and cosplay festival, began in 2003 in which city?

São Paulo has hosted Anime Friends since its first edition at a school in 2003, and the festival later spun off editions in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Santiago.

What are the contact lenses that cosplayers wear to make their eyes look bigger, anime-style, usually called?

Circle lenses look bigger because their tint covers part of the white of the eye as well as the iris; a US craze for them followed Lady Gaga's huge-eyed look in her Bad Romance video.

Which fan label did Akio Nakamori's 1983 columns in the magazine Manga Burikko popularise?

Otaku literally means 'your house', a stiffly formal 'you' that fans used with one another; Akio Nakamori's 1983 columns in Manga Burikko turned it into a mocking label for them.

Which film heroine's licensed Halloween costume was A.S. Fishbach selling to shops by 1938?

Snow White costumes by Fishbach were advertised to the toy trade in 1938, months after Disney's film opened; Ben Cooper, which had taken the firm over, went on selling character costumes for half a century.

What do Britons call the event Americans call a costume party?

Fancy dress is the usual term outside North America, and Victorian guides took it well beyond characters: Ardern Holt's 1887 Fancy Dresses Described suggested going as 'Autumn' or 'Night'.

Staff at Japan's maid cafés traditionally greet an arriving customer with which phrase?

'Welcome home, Master' replaces the 'irasshaimase' of ordinary Japanese shops: the maids play servants in a private house, so a customer is treated as someone returning rather than arriving.

Who wrote and illustrated the manga Sailor Moon, a perennial cosplay favourite?

Naoko Takeuchi wrote and drew Sailor Moon (1991-97), developing it from her one-shot Codename: Sailor V.

Which Star Wars series called in fan costumers as stormtrooper extras when its debut season ran short of armour?

The Mandalorian ran short of stormtrooper armour for a shot in its first season, so Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau made some calls and local fan costumers turned up on set in suits built to match the films exactly.

In which country did protesters after the 2021 coup use cosplay to grab media attention?

Myanmar's young protesters marched in ball gowns, wedding dresses and other costumes days after the February 2021 coup, a carnival-like break from the country's usual protests that drew the press cameras.

Which TV series' costumes have US protesters worn to oppose abortion restrictions?

The Handmaid's Tale's crimson robes and white bonnets appeared in state capitols from 2017, worn by activists standing silent with heads bowed; the outfits were handmade, repurposed or ordered online.

Which Tokyo district, home to Otome Road, hosts regular 'acosta!' cosplay events and a big Halloween cosplay festival?

Ikebukuro's Sunshine City stages 'acosta!' several times a year, and each October the district around Otome Road, a strip of anime shops aimed at women, hosts a Halloween cosplay festival with its own parade.

The grinning mask worn by Anonymous and Occupy protesters copies the disguise of which film's hero?

V for Vendetta's Guy Fawkes mask became the face of Anonymous in 2008 and of Occupy camps in 2011; every licensed mask sold pays a fee to Warner Bros., the corporation that owns the film.

The heroines of Sailor Moon, a cosplay staple, fight in outfits modelled on what?

Japanese school uniforms in the sailor-collared 'serafuku' style, adopted by girls' schools in the 1920s from European naval dress, gave the heroines their look; the manga's editor, Fumio Osano, suggested it.

What do convention-goers call a costume worn around the venue rather than entered in a contest?

A hall costume is worn around the convention rather than on the masquerade stage, and many events judge them informally all weekend, so an outfit can win an award without ever entering the contest.