Fashioning the Fantastical Self: An Examination of the Cosplay Dress-up Phenomenon in Southeast Asia

Fashion Theory, Volume 17, Issue 1, pp. 77 – 112DOI: 10.2752/175174113X13502904240776Reprints available directly from the Publishers.Photocopying permitted by licence only.© 2013 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Fashioning the Fantastical Self: An Examination of the Cosplay Dress-up Phenomenon in Southeast AsiaAnne Peirson-Smith

Anne Peirson-Smith, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, where she teaches and researches fashion culture and communication, branding, and popular culture, and is currently researching youth fashion trends in Southeast [email protected]

Abstract

This article will examine the practice of Cosplay—the trend for young adults in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to dress up in themed cos-tumes assuming the personae of characters from Japanese comic books (manga) and animated cartoons (anime), video games, and pop music bands—as a means of exploring the motivations behind this activity. Social interaction theory and approaches to performativity and drama-tism will be used to closely examine the complexities that construct this rapidly globalizing phenomenon from the player’s own perspectives. In doing so, it will question why dress is used as a catalyst for escaping the boundaries of self and acquiring multiple identities.

78 Anne Peirson-Smith

The article will discuss the outcomes of an ethnographic study where interviews were conducted with a selection of Cosplayers in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo who regularly dress in a range of costumes in public places and at organized themed events. Research questions included: what it means for Cosplay participants to assume another persona; what moti-vates them to dress up; how they decide to choose a particular character; whether it is a form of creative expression, rebellion, or secret or overt expressions of self; why and how they employ dress to pursue a particular fantasy; and the role of gender socialization in this type of costuming.

Findings suggest that dressing up as a Cosplayer is multi-vocal expe-rience representing varying motivations including the reaffirmation of identity, the escape from a known reality—in an attempt to recapture a “cute” childhood innocence, and the visible, often mediated, adherence to a defined and reassuring subcultural collective in the Asian context.

KEYWORDS: Cosplay, subcultural style, Asian youth culture, dressing up, dramatism

Introduction

When I put on my costume, I feel like I look very different from everyone else around me and it makes me feel stronger—I also like the way that people look at me and notice me—it’s good to have admirers. And when I wear the costume with my Cosplay friends at a convention or party, I feel really happy just relax-ing, having fun and sharing everything with my Cosplay family. (Rinka, female Cosplayer, Hong Kong)

This article explores the phenomenon of Cosplay, or the trend for young adults in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to dress up in themed cos-tumes assuming the personae of characters from Japanese comic books (manga) and animated cartoons (anime), online video games, television shows, and pop music bands (Figure 1) as a means of exploring the un-derlying reasons why individuals pursue this dress-up activity and the cross-cultural and historical influences that guide them in adopting such corporeal transformations.

The purpose here is to explore the phenomenon of Cosplay (kosupure—Japanese), a conflation of costume and play, defined literally as costume play or dressing up in costume, where costume is framed as:

the body supplements that indicate the “out-of-everyday” social role or activity...reserved for use in discussion of dress for the the-ater, folk or other festivals, ceremonies or rituals. (Roach-Higgins and Eicher 1995: 10)

Fashioning the Fantastical Self: An Examination of the Cosplay Dress-up Phenomenon in Southeast Asia 79

The following exploration into the Cosplay trend aims then to uncover the underlying motivations as to why individuals become involved in Co-splay dress-up activity from their own perspectives. In doing so, it hopes to identify the cross-cultural and social influences that underpin this fantastic presentation of self, and the formulation and communication of identity through a dramaturgical costumed approach amongst this particular grouping of spectacular neo-style tribes within the city spaces of Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, and Tokyo (Figure 2).

The article will first address the transformative notion of dressing up in extraordinary clothes, followed by a contextualized discussion of Cosplay practice before reporting the findings of an empirical study concerning the motivations behind this dress-up activity. It intends to shed some light on the rationale behind this type of spectacular adult dress-up to determine why this cultural practice has recently become more prevalent in Southeast Asia, and is rapidly taking root globally (Gutierrez 2009).

The wearing of an extraordinary costume connected to a theme symbolically transforms the identity of the player, enabling them to re-present their ordinary self in a new guise through role play, only made possible:

by doffing their ordinary dress and donning extraordinary dress so that play may proceed. Playing the role of the other requires that the player dress out of the role or roles that are acknowl-edged to be his own. Costume therefore is “a kind of magical instrument.” (Stone 1995[1962]: 31)

Figure 1Cosplay group at a Hong Kong University Cosplay event. Photograph by author.


Stone’s analysis of the transformative quality of fantasy costumes ad-opted by children at play during their early phases of socialization has relevance to the process of dressing up in costume as a general activ-ity amongst people of all ages across a range of contexts from theater, festivals, and masquerade events to fan-based subcultures or neo-style tribes (Bennett 1999; Maffesoli 1996). Yet, social interaction and col-lusion with a knowing audience is also required to validate the misrep-resentation of self through costume play. In this manner, the wearing of costume visually signals and denotes the boundaries between the costumed player and the non-costumed other because the differentness and secrecy of play are most vividly expressed in dressing up through transforming the identity of the masked dresser (Huizinga 1955).

Costume play or Cosplay is currently a popular trend in Southeast Asia, with considerable evidence of a growing global expansion. As

Figure 2Cosplayers in Harajuku, Tokyo, July 2009. Photograph by author.


Cosplayer Rinka’s comment above illustrates, the donning of costume takes on a dual function, on the one hand, expressing a visibly com-municated difference from other non-Cosplayers, whilst at the same time signaling group identity as the member of a variously costumed neo-style tribe (Figure 3). In expressing this duality of meaning embod-ied in the process and product of dressing up, and in presenting the

Figure 3Cosplay team at a University of Hong Kong play event, December 2009. Photograph by author.

Figure 4Cosplay putting finishing touches to elaborate outfit at ChinaJoy competition semi-finals, Beijing, May 2009. Photograph by author.


costumed self in public, the Cosplayer inhabits a parallel universe with other documented subcultural narratives (Hebdige 1979) by expressing both their individual and collective identities and ideologies through the material change of appearance. This corporeal duality is a consistent theme as the Cosplayer is both integrated into an imaginary world, and is separated from an everyday reality, whereby the players co-create fan-tasy worlds by putting on costumes as the ultimate expression of their collective and individual creative imaginations (Figure 4).

The Cosplay Scene

In many ways, the Cosplay trend appears to be a further logical mani-festation of the evolving entertainment landscape in Southeast Asian cit-ies1 where Cosplayers are expressing themselves as active consumers of manga and anime in the leisure economies of China, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, for example (Lin 2007; Mathews 2001; Winge 2006; Zhao 2006). This transcultural tendency is also evi-dent in the Hong Kong fashion scene, where Japanese anime-inspired brands such as A Bathing Ape, by Japanese designer and DJ, Nigo, have recently been obsessively popular amongst the Hong Kong youth market, with regular queues forming outside of the main store every weekend and ahead of the arrival of the new season’s stock.2

This “flying geese trend” or appropriation of cultural processes is also evident amongst the dressing up activities of Hong Kong Cosplayers who take their inspiration largely from the imported Japanese manga/anime characters such as Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Gundam, Digimon, Final Fantasy, and Dragonball, although Hollywood movie characters are also increasingly popular due to the global reach of media products such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings (Figure 5). The vast range of anime and manga genres, and the signifi-cant quantity of narrative content across the past forty years or more of anime and manga production, have provided Cosplayers with large mediated archives of characters to choose from, whether science fic-tion or romantic space fantasy oriented. These character costumes are often localized through the process of do-it-yourself, seemingly a re-quired feature of the practice. The players usually make their own cos-tumes, have them run up by local tailors, or purchase them from online Japanese sites and further modify them, as guided by Japanese comic book culture, online Cosplay sites, and key fanzine texts. The construc-tion of the costumes also highlights the highly participatory nature of Cosplay, having parallels with the improvised approaches to other ma-terial forms of subcultural style, such as the punk and goth movements (Hills 2002; Hodkinson 2002; Williamson 2001) in other cultural loca-tions. Yet, it must be stressed from personal observation of Cosplay out-fits at events and conventions in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, that


there is nothing crude about the construction of the costumes (Figure 6), which are usually of a professional standard in terms of the construc-tion time, fabric used, and the workmanship applied to create them.3

Cosplay in the City

At the weekends across Asian and global cities, Cosplayers habitually dress up as superheroes, female warriors, or Lolitas. Dressed in cos-tume, they meet in public spaces, such as public parks and themed cafés in the busy city areas such as the Harajuku district in the Shibuju ward of Tokyo (Lander 2009). In these places and spaces they take photos, role play, socialize, or alternatively gather at organized commercial and non-commercial anime conventions and comic book festivals in Asian cities (Figure 7), competing at the same time for best song-and-dance routine or most accomplished costume.4

Figure 5Harry Potter-themed Cosplayers. University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, July 2009. Photograph by author.


The spectacular nature of the presentation and performance of the costumed self is clearly evident at these Cosplay events.5 Yet, it is the camaraderie, festival atmosphere, and sense of community that strikes the outside observer both amongst, and between, the players. This is ev-ident as they examine each other’s outfits and take mutual photographs, or team up for a group photo and pose professionally, and authentically

Figure 6Cosplayers at a Hong Kong University event, December 2010. Photograph by author.

Figure 7Cosplay team competes at Macau Cosplay and Anime Festival, July 2011. Photograph by author.


in-character, for the bevy of the official and unofficial photographers, nicknamed otaku or obsessive anime/manga fans in Japan (Kelts 2006; Schodt 1996) who always frequent Cosplay meetings in numbers almost equaling the Cosplayers themselves, and jostle for a strategic position in order to take the best image (Figure 8). Interestingly, this photographic practice was also reminiscent of scenes from a fashion show or more accurately from the heritage of creating a veritable tableau vivant or a living picture (Figure 9) frozen in time (Durham 1998).

Dress-up Theory

Adult costume play is a relatively new research area and is under- investigated for analysis in the field of fashion studies. Research to date has tended to focus on historical case studies of fancy dress and its visual and art historical implications (Ribeiro 1984). Existing studies analyz-ing dressing up have focused on the role of theatrical costume in his-torical (MacIntyre 1992) and performative contexts (Stuart 2005), the mask as fashion accessory or identity concealer in the public context of the masquerade (Heyl 2001; Ilan-Alter 2001). Another line of inquiry has examined non-ordinary dress as the expression of sexual and gen-der identities through the perceived perversions of fetish fashion (Steele 1996, 2001) and in cross-dressing (Suthrell 2004), or through the nar-rative motifs of media representation and filmic disguise (Tseelon 2001).

Costume is seemingly being used by the Cosplayers in this case to communicate and perform their spectacular individual selves, whilst simultaneously signaling some form of group identity through shared

Figure 8Cosplayers provide a photo opportunity at a Cosplay event, Hong Kong University, December 2010. Photograph by author.


costume-based identities, perhaps typical of Asian culture that exhibits both collective and individualistic values in having strong kinship ties, yet simultaneously exhibiting personal, pragmatic survival tendencies outside of that factional, cultural frame (Bond 1991; Schutte and Ciarlante 1998).

Presentation of the Costumed Self

To further understand the purpose and impact of costume dress-up in ex-pressing both individual and collective identities, the communicative func-tion of appearance in conveying self and identity from a social interactionist perspective also needs to be considered (Mead 1934; Stone 1995[1962]) in recognition of the significance of appearance underpinning any general the-ory of identity. Here, as appearance is critical in the formulation and pre-sentation of self in a dramaturgical sense (Goffman 1959), the individual

Figure 9Cosplayers in tableau vivant at a Hong Kong University Cosplay event, December 2009. Photograph by author.


actively and creatively projects their “program” or socioeconomic profile as social agent, expressed through their clothing, or rather via the non-discursive communicative elements that they choose to wear in a given con-text. This projected self is then legitimized or challenged by the responsive interpretations in the reflected appraisals of others (Cooley 1902).

Also, in dressing the self in a spectacular fashion in the public domain the player may be shedding the parentally or maternally in-vested and managed program of appearance and emulating by “dress-ing in,” or rejecting by “dressing out” various prescribed peer-group dress codes. The actual departure from the wearing of everyday, public clothing that represents or plays out legitimate roles, to a focus on the donning of spectacular costume for acts of themed play as a magical instrument of imaginative transformation is the focus here. This en-ables the player in their presentation of self via their Cosplay perfor-mances, to transcend the acknowledged roles first encountered in the fantastic socialization phase of childhood development. This, I would suggest, is critical to an understanding of the function and purpose of adult dressing up. Here, the costumed player appears to be projecting the private self into the public domain, adapting Eicher et al.’s typol-ogy (1991) of the three selves manifested through dress via the public, private, and secret selves. According to this model, in communicating an identity, the public persona is revealed to everyone, signaling the demographic features and professional garb of the wearer, whilst the private self, familiar to friends and family, is based on the clothing of relaxation and leisure, and the secret self is a restricted zone reserved for the individual and intimates based on the wearing of fantasy dress (Eicher et al. 1991). The tripartite model also has gender implications, according to Eicher, who proposed that women were more at liberty to pursue their fantasies and dress up as their secret selves, whilst men were more confined, as a rule, to expressing themselves only in public and private dress. In effect, this may also be a key motivator for males to adorn themselves in spectacular dress and partake of masculine-associated costume play when the opportunity presents itself, as Miller suggested in her empirical study of reenactment costume play in Amer-ican communities (Miller 1998), as they are often denied it, nor is it perhaps expected of them in everyday gendered contexts.

Empirical Study of Cosplay

The empirical basis for this study is founded on a descriptive, analytical approach based on a collection of focus-group and individual interviews with over forty male and female informants. These Cosplayers regularly dress up in a range of themed costumes in Hong Kong as manga/anime and superhero characters at conventions and gatherings in Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, and Macau. The sample was a mixture of students and


workers located typically in the beauty, fashion, creative, design, or the service industries (Figures 10 and 11). This approach is intended to re-flect the lived and subjective realities of the players themselves (Muggle-ton 2000), and the call to analyze spectacular subcultural groups in terms of what they do, how they do it, and why they do it, from the subject’s or actor’s own perspectives.6

In answer to Burke’s question, “What is involved when we say what people are doing, and why they are doing it?” (Burke 1969: xv), we can usefully focus on the expressive actions of the players involved in the act of dressing up using the five key terms of dramatism to unify the main themes of inquiry into the presentation and discourse of the clothed self. These themes help to structure the analytical approach on the basis that, “any complete statement about motives will offer some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act), when, or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency) and why (purpose)” (Burke 1969: xv). This dramatistic pentad is useful in unlocking the motivations of a group of people who actively engage in costume dress-up as a way of communicating self and collective identities, whilst deflecting attention towards a world of spectacular display and away from other lived social dimensions.

Cosplayers in Action—The Act: What Was/ Is Done/Thought?

Nearly all of the informants concurred that they both felt and behaved differently when wearing their costumes, or at least observed discernible

Figure 10Cosplayer informants in a focus group at City University of Hong Kong, interviewed by author. Photograph by author.


affective and behavioral changes in other players. Some of the male heroic Cosplayers noted that this was a positive influence on their daily lives as their chosen characters empowered them, claiming that if they had a bad day they would mentally assume the role of their superhero character, “because no-one gets the better of Darth Vader in Cosplay or in real life” (Aaron, male Cosplayer, Hong Kong). At Cosplay events it was common to see players keeping in character even after they had removed their costume, as Zero explained:

I saw a Cosplayer after finishing his mission, taking off his cos-tume and walking down the stairs like the robot character that he plays—it just becomes a part of you and it’s a habit you really can’t break you know. (Zero, male Cosplayer, Hong Kong)

This response suggests that the boundaries of superficial identification with the character are often transgressed in the act of Cosplay from

Figure 11Cosplay focus group informants, City University, December 2010. Photograph by author.


public through private to publicly exhibited secret self, and the players are not only visually transformed by the costume, but often become the imagined persona, both cognitively and affectively, carrying this into to their daily lives and other social worlds.

The authenticity of this staged action seemed important for all of the informants, particularly when taking essential photographic records of the Cosplay events and gatherings, because, as one female player noted:

It’s all about how you become your character and that totally goes beyond the costume, wig and make-up and I mean you really gave to become them—look like them, think like them, act like them, move like them—it’s a total thing or there’s no point doing it and you aren’t doing it then anyhow. (Franni, female Cosplayer, Beijing)

This comment accorded with personal observations at Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Beijing Cosplay events, where the presence of significant numbers of photographers (almost as many as the Cosplayers them-selves) seemed to validate and require the Cosplayers, both individu-ally and in themed groups, to enact static poses and frozen frames from their heroic character-based narratives. When taking a photograph of an ogress-like Princess Fiona at such an event, the Cosplayer first prof-fered a sweet, smiling pose complete with extended flower posy, fol-lowed seamlessly by a martial arts chop with one arm and leg raised in combat, both scenes authentically representing the Shrek narrative (Figure 12). The seriousness with which these well-rehearsed actions are executed match the dedication and professionalism with which the costumes are created, suggesting the level to which the players become engrossed in their fantasy characters and their imagined worlds.

The Scene: When or Where the Action or Practice Takes Place (Context, Issues of Dressing up in Time and Space)

All informants expressed an interest in textual and cultural sources as one of the initial points of entry to the Cosplay scene. For the heroic male players there was a consistent reference to the importance of original inspiration found in Japanese comic books and animation, in addition to the wider transcultural influences from American-style superheroes. Many of the male players also looked to Hollywood science fantasy film narratives for character ideas, from Star Wars, such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, Batman, Iron Man, Harry Potter, Spiderman, or the Power Rangers, for example.7 These heroic characters are also popu-lar in Japanese Cosplay scenarios (Figure 13), websites, and conven-tions, indicating the existence of a more complex global exchange of


ideas reminiscent of Appadurai’s mediascapes (Appadurai 1996) and the creation of imagined communities (Anderson 1991[1983]) based on cultural re-appropriation and the transnational flow of information.

Also, the tendency to source character ideas from a range of global media texts suggests that a wide range of options exists in the players’ affective predispositions (Silvio 2006) being consumers of a huge cor-pus of anime, manga, and movies. Essentially, this practice engenders individual choice, common ground, and a real sense of the collective self, finding expression in the practice of costume dress-up. As male Cosplayer Aaron commented:

I haven’t found my perfect costume yet, although my friends are al-ways suggesting new costume ideas, so I’ll keep looking forever if I have to. The universe has 200–300 characters to choose from so I won’t run out of ideas for many years and across many galaxies.

Figure 12Cosplayer as Princess Fiona from Shrek at University of Science and Technology, July 2009. Photograph by author.


One of the respondents categorically explained that she considered dressing up to be a total way of life, which she equated with the Western subcultural practices of punks and goths, whom she greatly admired with reservations, as she explained:

I only feel safe dressing up with friends and would never dress like a Cosplayer at work as my boss just wouldn’t get it, but on bad days I do mentally put on my blue wig and red contact lenses and imagine that I am queen of that office! (Krystal, female Cosplayer, Macau)

Even though they did not display this style preference in their every-day lives, the Cosplayers might reference it in small ways in terms of their hairstyle, colored contacts, or in the application of lace to deco-rate their clothing as a fashion statement. The full-blown presentation of secret as public self would only usually occur as a collective expres-sion when the players gathered together at the weekend gatherings or individually at an official Cosplay convention (Figure 14). One of the reasons for this cautious response to public display was attributed by one informant to a recent media report of a lone Cosplayer being at-tacked by a male observer in a Hong Kong street whilst she was out shopping when dressed in a black-and white-maid outfit.

Along with the ever-changing costumes—at least three informants ad-mitted to having over fifty costumes (“I need a warehouse to store all of my costumes and kit,” Zero, male Cosplayer, Hong Kong)—there is a sense of dynamism and flexibility in the choice of identities, where form may prevail

Figure 13Cosplayer in a self-made outfit from Japanese anime at a Hong Kong University Cosplay event, December 2010. Photograph by author.


over substance for some. Yet, there is also evidence of a structured fluidity often dictated by social values. Some male hero-styled Cosplayers tended to plan the acquisition of specific costumes to fit the mini-cast line-ups of their friends as, for example, with one group of Hong Kong informants who purely Cosplay Star Wars or Final Fantasy characters. Similarly, young female Cosplayers entering the practice typically dress up at events and per-form as Japanese girl or boy bands, possibly finding security in dressing alike as they are socialized into their new community of interest (Figure 15).

The Agent: Who Does the Action?

The demographic profiles of the informants were not homogeneous, as their occupations ranged from school and university students to service-based professionals, with a wide variation in income. Whilst this did not seem to create a social imbalance (“Cosplayers are all a supportive bunch,” Carmen, female Cosplayer, Macau), as there appeared to be no discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status, there was no evidence of the sharing or direct handing on of costumes, a fact that seemed to challenge the notions of a wider collectivism. According to Krystal, they would often “borrow and share each other’s ideas, strengths and talents,” whilst also providing honest feedback for improvement of each other’s costumes,” but the ac-tual exchange of artifacts or outfits was not commonplace. This denoted a personal possessive aspect and a devotion to their choice of character, possibly because each player appeared to make their choices based on the

Figure 14Cosplay team helping each other prepare for a dress rehearsal for the ChinaJoy competition, Beijing, May 2010. Photograph by author.


alignment of personal qualities with the chosen character that had in most cases evolved over time, often from childhood. Hence, the individual devo-tion to the selection of a particular Cosplay costume aligns with the per-sonal engagement of fans and the manga and anime textual sources. These are followed loyally—often across the years—throughout the duration of the mediated narrative with significant affective responses often erupting amongst the fan base when an anime series is axed. As one respondent explained:

First of all I was a devoted fan of the anime Bleach and followed the central male hero, for years—I actually grew up with him and knew all of his exploits. So, when I decided to Cosplay the choice was easy to make as I knew my character inside out and identified with them as a true friend—we had been through a lot together. (Jade, female Cosplayer, Hong Kong)

Figure 15Cosplayers as a Japanese female pop group, University of Science and Technology Cosplay event winners, July 2009. Photograph by author.


The reflected appraisals of others also seemed to matter greatly to all of the informants, and many noted both negative and positive feedback from these external sources. Generally, there was a feeling in a wider sense that Hong Kong society was now more accepting of this trend because of its more recent track record, to the extent that observers did not tend to ridicule, stare, or comment adversely.

Most informants claimed that close family members, and even teachers, were supportive of their “Cosplay hobby” considering it to be a healthy pastime, offering advice and support in the form of cos-tume modifications and photographic assistance. Whilst some players failed to disclose the actual amount of money they spent on costumes, particularly the males, the female players often received financial sup-port from their parents to help construct their costumes, thereby sig-naling family approval in material terms. For one player it was all a family affair, with his wife playing the female Star Wars roles and his five-year-old son playing Yoda, who had, “become a big hit with our local chapter being one of the few Cosplay kids” (Joe, male Cosplayer, Hong Kong).

The costumed self also appeared to be both challenged and legiti-mized by other social players—either by parents, friends, the media, or strangers—both virtual and real. Whilst many of the female Cosplay-ers said that they enjoyed being looked at and photographed at the various events, and the male Cosplayers welcomed being observed and admired in their “cool outfits,” most players appeared to be very self-conscious about venturing outside alone in their costumes and professed to feel safer when together as a group, based on the mutual respect it engendered. This insecurity on behalf of the players might suggest an awareness of the social stigma in wearing a spectacular, individualistic costume in an essentially collectivistic, traditional cultural frame, which also undermines the notion of branding Cosplay as a subcultural articu-lation. As one said, “I don’t care what people think or say to me when I am together with my sisters.” Equally, Cosplayer Carolyn noted:

In my costume, I’m not always ready to take on the real world on my own. If I wear a costume in the street, people might often stare and point at me, and others might start a conversation with me. Sometimes, they are nice and genuinely interested in the outfit, but other times people are rude and critical, implying that I’m crazy and I don’t always feel in the mood to deal with that.

In this sense the female players in particular appear to be expressing the gender ambivalences of dressing up in costume that visually sets them apart from others. Yet, this deliberate attempt to be visually different by donning spectacular outfits comprising multicolored wigs, tight, silver lamé spacesuits, and vertiginous black sequined platform boots elicits a


crisis of confidence if they are involved in the presentation of the singu-lar self as opposed to their collective selves. As a singular Cosplayer they appear more prone to view themselves objectively through the gaze of others with a heightened awareness of, and consequent avoidance or de-nial of, the presentation of their sexualized self. In the collective safety of the Cosplay meet or convention they appear able to subjectively pres-ent and celebrate their femininity by donning outfits as a shared cur-rency that overtly reveal, yet teasingly conceal, their bodies, which they appear to find empowering in the process of emulating their idealized other in the search for the potential self (Stacey 1994).

The more pragmatic aspect of this viewpoint was highlighted by the male players, as their costumes were often so complex and weighty in construction that they needed help to assemble them and assume their persona and would be completely unable to traverse a busy city street as an imperial guard. Equally, as one of the female respondents explained, her platform shoes—a key essential of her character’s look—were im-possible to walk in and were fundamentally impractical in negotiating Hong Kong’s public transportation system. Hence, as a consequence of practical considerations or self-consciousness, all of the respondents in-terviewed dressed up on arrival at their respective meeting places, again within the safety of the collective.

Agency: The Means Used to Execute the Action

In focusing on the acquisition and creation of the Cosplay outfits, most of the female informants tended to make their own costumes, whilst the males tended to buy them, often from online Japanese websites. This also had cost implications, as an average male Jedi costume could be priced on average at US$400–500, with extra costs for alterations, whilst the female players would spend an average of US$100 in cre-ating and collating their own outfit. The process of making the cos-tumes seemed for the female players an integral part of the Cosplay activity as they appeared to enjoy researching their characters in detail from manga comic books as well as other mass-mediated and online sources. One informant explained that she became involved initially because her sister is a professional costumier, who wanted to practice her costume-making skills by creating theatrical style outfits that would be actually be worn by someone (Figure 16).

Another female player noted that her mother helped her source the fabric in the traditional market district of Shamshuipo, Hong Kong, and also made her outfits, although she noted a form of maternal control in this involvement:

My outfits are very authentic—they have to be—and I closely copy the images of female robot Chii from anime websites, but some-times my mother would be unhappy about a low cut neckline or


a short hemline worn by the character, yet she usually followed the image carefully, although she might not be so happy about me going out in public wearing the outfit and will often tell me so. (Cyn, female Cosplayer, Hong Kong)

Hence, female socialization is evident in Cosplay practice, as traditional female dressmaking roles appear to link the female Cosplayers in pro-viding an outlet for their conventionally engendered skills (Figure 17).

The Purpose: Why the Action Took Place

Many of the informants agreed that their Cosplay dress-up habits had originated from spontaneous childhood paida-style play (Caillois 1961) as Zero reflected:

Figure 16Cosplayer wearing a self-made outfit, University of Science and Technology Cosplay event, July 2010. Photograph by author.


Ever since I was four years old I would dress up as a superhero and wear a scarf around my neck to imitate my heroes and would buy models of these beloved characters to play with when dressed up.

Skyboy, with a preference for playing Darth Vader and evil manga char-acters, also validated this point:

Yes, I do think that Cosplay starts from pretend play during child-hood. I have played at being Superman since I was two years old using old towels as my cloak.

These accounts also tend to validate the notion of Cosplay replicating childhood play through mimicry of fictionalized heroes. The choice of Cosplay character for the males was serendipitous, and although the females apparently choose characters closer to their own personal val-ues (e.g. princesses or maids), the males were more pragmatic, often only choosing a costume that they could afford to dress up as. As male Cosplayer Mankam pointed out:

My favourite character, the Star Wars Storm-trooper, was just too costly from the on-line Japanese site so I choose the cheaper, lower quality Clone Trooper instead, and I still had as much fun taking my place in the group and I fitted in well.

Dressing up was an escapist fantasy from both real self, and life in general, for most of the informants, with all of them heavily using the

Figure 17Beijing dressmaker constructing a Cosplay outfit, June 2010. Photograph by author.


words “fun” and “entertainment” to describe their Cosplay experi-ences. Many informants suggested that it was an effective release from the pressures of work—both students and office worker players alike—as Shan explained:

I just dream all week of getting dressed up in my outfit and plan my new outfit in my head, or sketch it out in notebooks to get through the most boring and worst parts of my work, and there are a lot of those!

For other informants doing Cosplay was about rediscovering or rein-venting the self, as Jani suggested:

Putting on a costume enables me to explore other selves and to experiment with my personality, and also to take myself beyond the normal routine and the ordinary person that I am usually expected to be in everyday life.

The feedback and response of others seemed important to the process in validating self, sexuality, and collective identities from those female Cosplayers enjoying the gaze of others and “feeling more feminine” as a consequence, to the constructive discussions about each other’s cos-tumes, both within the group and with online commentators through the Cosplay chat rooms, social networks and personal websites, and also with family or kinship involvement. In the Cosplay process, the player is expressing a new dimension of self through costume, whilst simultane-ously addressing and sharing with the group identities of other players.

In this way, Cosplayers appear to be expressing their secret selves in public (Eicher et al. 1991), but not often in private, on the basis of the practicalities of dressing up in complex costumes, and perhaps more significantly due to a perceived fear of receiving negative validat-ing responses from outsiders, particularly in terms of negotiating their femininity and sexuality as Williamson found amongst female vampire fans (2001). Apart from the process of costume construction, only one female Cosplayer wistfully admitted to trying on her costumes occa-sionally alone in the confines of her bedroom and even this eventuality embodied a practical consideration:

After seven years of “Cossing” I have many costumes and they are like old friends you know. My body has changed and so I don’t feel so comfortable wearing them anymore in public and my mother fusses me if I do, so I will get them out and try on my Chobits robot costume which has a long train at the back like a wedding gown and a tight mid-riff revealing and silky blue top and I don’t feel so sad that I’ve neglected the outfit after all this time and I’ve honored my favorite character too. (Jin, female Cosplayer, Hong Kong)


Although the Cosplayers are appearing as their costumed selves in public, they are doing so often in the controlled confines of a comic book convention or a privately reserved restaurant room or café. They are also escaping from the regular communicative acts of their normal public and private selves by expressing a secret fantasy self in public through the performative component of self-identification (Evans 2006) in the safe confines of social performance staged on a university campus event or commercial fair (Figure 18). As such, by dressing in the costumes of young mythical fantasy characters who conquer other worlds and suc-cessfully champion those marginalized by society, which appear to invest the wearer with added efficacy, the Cosplayer appears also to be ad-dressing issues of personal control over, and an escape from, the social pressures and bureaucratic, collective cultural constraints of life in Hong Kong. In essence, they are aware that dressing up as a superhero or a

Figure 18Cosplay team at a University of Hong Kong Cosplay event, July 2010. Photograph by author.


quirky anti-hero is not a reality, yet the temporary promise of a new life through a reworked self-image is the goal. Indeed, not all manga and anime narratives have happy endings and some never end at all. Others contain slow-moving plots that run for many years during which time the hero will age and change their personality, which also adds the es-sence of reality to the Cosplayer’s aspirations in terms of the world that they are buying into.

The type of costumes chosen, and their construction also highlights some gender divergence, with the female Cosplayers viewing the design and creation of their outfits as integral to the experience and the notion that some of them “felt prettier and more attractive” when dressed in character as they search for their potential, fantasy selves in a world that places such emphasis on the value of appearance.

Cross-playing by Cosplaying

The one exception to this gendered and sexualized response was the notion of cross-dressing or “cross-play” (Figure 19) which appears to performatively challenge traditional notions of sexual identity (Butler 1990). The female Cosplayers found this to be both acceptable, and even empowering from their own perspective when dressed as male manga heroes (Figure 20), whilst the male Cosplayers recognized it to be a new and increasing trend, generally professing their uneasiness, and often rejected this trend as being outside of their interest, perhaps as a reflection of Hong Kong’s deep-rooted conservatism towards issues of gender, sex, and sexuality and an adherence to dominant heterosex-ual ideology (Butler 1993). Interestingly, and maybe as an indication of this, both genders of Cosplayers were often adamant about the fact that male and female cross-dressing players were actually not expressing an alternative sexuality in cross-dressing roles, as they consistently noted, “Boyfriends doing this just want to be closer to their girlfriends by try-ing it out—they design their outfits and make their clothes together—it’s a sweet friendship, sharing thing” (Sheena, female Cosplayer, Hong Kong). Also, the androgynous visual appearance of many characters could also be a contributory factor to this trend. In the anime narrative Ranma !, the young male hero regularly morphs into female from male form complete with female dress, as he enters other mythical worlds. Equally, the narrative content of many manga and anime texts seem to openly legitimize the androgyny and homosexual romances of the central characters. The whole narrative premise of the amateur, non-commercial bishonen-ai or man love/beautiful boy manga, usually targeted at a young female readership, takes a consistent focus on rela-tionships between picturesque young men who appear genderless and sexually non-threatening. The security of the imagined, feminized male persona and idealized friendship in social worlds where taboos are still


evoked by homosexual relationships and where, in turn, females may still consider themselves to be victims of gender marginalization socially and sexually, may provide an attractive idyll to seek refuge in for audi-ence member and player alike. As Kinsella explains about the world of “beautiful boys” manga:

Although the characters of these stories are biologically male, in essence they are genderless ideal types, combining favored mas-culine qualities with favored feminine qualities. Readers are likely to directly identify with “gay male” lead characters—and female readers often with the slightly more effeminate male of the pair of characters. Young female fans feel more able to imagine and depict idealized strong and free characters if they are male. (Kin-sella 2000: 117)

Figure 19Male Cosplayer dressing as a Gothic Lolita, studio interview, City University of Hong Kong, February 2009. Photograph by author.


Hence, both the regular and the cross-dressing players—male or female alike—are perhaps symbolically making the same journey in search of a more thrilling existence through the creation of, and active involvement in, a Cosplay habitus (Bourdieu 1977) where playing with identity and self-image through costume is the common currency.

As Suthrell noted in a study of cross-dressing, the act itself consti-tutes a visual statement of the extraordinary, communicating something out of the ordinary that transgresses the boundaries of conventional gender categories (Suthrell 2004). This point resides well in the players’ world and certainly, according to direct observations, male Lolitas or female warlords were not a cause for consternation or rebuke amongst fellow Cosplayers, unlike the responses that they might elicit in other social worlds.8

Figure 20Female Cosplayer dressing as a male character, international Cosplay event, March 2010. Photograph by author.


Yet, the Cosplayers and comic book fans interviewed in Hong Kong largely appeared to be oblivious to the gender differences of their he-roes. Their cross-dressing through Cosplay may well represent a latent curiosity with gender and sexuality or a frustration in some cases with traditional gender roles (Riviere 1929) and this could be the subject of further study. As one anime fan and Cosplayer elicited:

I love the male character in the anime Naruto and would dress up in his clothes even though he is male and I am female. The sex of the character is irrelevant to the manga or anime story and I’m not interested in whether they are boys or girls because I’m more interested in him and his world—it is just a wonderful character that you grow with. (Kinna, female Cosplayer, Macau).

Concluding Thoughts

Adult Cosplay dress-up activity is not an end in itself, but an important social process (Figure 21). It is the creation of an imagined and imagina-tive world whose passport for entry is the wearing of fantastic costume derived from a commodity culture, forming the basis of shared relation-ships that are dynamic and which shift over time within the structured setting of Cosplay conventions, competitions, and meetings. At the same time, this dress-up activity affords the individual player a way of celebrat-ing individuality, irrespective of gender boundaries, whilst also express-ing and performing the secret self publicly, albeit within the safe confines of the collective. This is all achieved by mimicking fantastic and divergent guises in the entertaining and empowering process of dressing up.

By raiding the dressing-up box, it appears that the Cosplayers, as with many forms of adult dress-up activities, have created their own

Figure 21Cosplay team prepare for a photo shoot at Beijing’s 798 Art District, June 2010. Photograph by author.


Paradise Lost, based on localized cultural borrowings, and by perform-ing their self and collective identities in the entertaining process of play-ing out their wildest dreams in extraordinary costume.

Acknowledgments

The research for this article was made possible by Hong Kong Govern-ment Research Fund (GRF 9041411; 147608) 2008–11, Cosplay and the Dressing-up Box in the Spectacular Presentation of Selves in Hong Kong.

Notes

1. Throughout Asia, Japanese comics or graphic print narratives (manga) and animated images (anime) have gained in popularity be-yond their Japanese source from the 1970s onwards (Kelts 2006; Ogi 2001; Schodt 1996), and this cultural transfer, founded largely on a significant global marketing push by the Japanese animation and publishing houses (Kinsella 2000), has been a significant influ-ence on the indigenous comic and animation industries where they have taken root in the local popular cultural landscape in terms of the narrative content, artwork design, and imported cultural prod-ucts. The manga and anime subculture has also impacted on the lives of young Asian consumers who avidly follow these mediated cultural products in places such as Hong Kong and China, suggesting a close alliance of interests and predispositions based on shared experiences across demographic youth groups in Asia and beyond. This Japanese cultural transfer has endured negative feedback from Asian govern-ment censors and local comic industries fearful of a Japanese cultural takeover (Lent 2001a, b), or of failing to acknowledge Japan’s role in the Second World War in respect of the vanquished (Lo and Yeung 2005), or a concern with the negative impact of the darker aspects of Japanese youth subculture manifested by the brooding tenden-cies of Gothic Lolitas, for example. Yet, in effect, the local comic and animation industries and their consumers have appropriated and adapted these texts both linguistically and artistically. In doing so, they have added new meanings, thereby creating unique, hybrid cultural products as in the appropriation of Japanese elements of “Japanimation” into Hong Kong martial arts comics, exemplified by comic book series Supergod Z by Hong Kong cartoonist Situ Jianq-iao, which are also inspired by Japanese video games such as Street Fighters (Ng 2002, 2007), or the localization of Cosplay themes from Chinese mythology.

2. As Templeton mused in a Guardian article, “Hip Hong Kong Fash-ion: China on the Catwalk” (2007: 12):


As often happens in fashion, the teenage boutique A Bathing Ape, in Queen’s Road is a temple of worship to itself. The walls are lined with display cases showcasing ‘limited editions” of iridescent, plasticky sneakers. These trainers celebrate such earth-shattering events as the 11th birthday of Bathing Ape. Even more marvel-ously, as shopping assistant, Kelly Chan, tells me (gravely, as if disclosing nuclear secrets) no one is allowed to know how many pairs are produced in the limited-edition style. Because of this onanistic nonsense, Bathing Ape is the most popular store in Hong Kong, with crazed teenagers queuing round the block three hours before opening...the future of fashion—colorful, fickle, and deadly serious—is safe with young Hong Kongers. (Templeton 2007: 12)

The same tendency to articulate identity through the purchase of spe-cific brands and the obsessive faddish acquisition and display of ma-terial possessions such as collecting cute plastic gungjai dolls (Bosco 2001) may also be finding a visual form of performative expression in Cosplay itself.

3. Significantly, Cosplayers claim that the main benefits of their hobby embrace not only the thespian skills required in role playing their characters (Goffman 1974), but also the project management and teamwork needed to plan and execute group performances in cos-tume, in addition to acquiring the technical ability to construct their outfits, and deliver an entertaining public performance in costume.

4. The informal, non-commercial events are mainly organized on the seven Hong Kong university campuses by student-based comic and an-imation societies, whilst the annual, commercial Anicom and Comiket exhibitions are masterminded by comic book publishers and anima-tion producers. These events are the most visible public showcase for Cosplay, attracting significant media coverage, as Kelts (2006) ex-plains with regard to the Japanese version of the Cosplay conventions:

If there is a rock concert equivalent for fans of anime and manga, it is the anime-expo or comics convention. The annual Japanese industry event, the Tokyo International Anime Fair used to be the largest by far. Like any other trade fair it is an opportunity for industry players to show off their wares to members of the media and to domestic and international distributors. It, too, is a 4 day event, but it is open to the general public only during the final 2 days; the first two are devoted to industry insiders and those with press passes. More than two hundred companies host booths and exhibitions, and with film previews, costumed perform-ers and a dazzling array of visuals, it is very colorful. Walking through the maze of brightly lit booths featuring massive mecha robots with gleaming metal surfaces or equally gigantic doe-eyed,


big breasted anime heroines—all of them glaring and beckoning is a dizzying experience. (Kelts 2006: 147)

5. The performative and dramaturgical aspect of Cosplay, which ap-pear to be central to the activity, manifests itself on a sliding scale from individuals and teams posing for photographs at Cosplay events, to teams competitively performing Japanese pop song and dance routines in matching sparkly, showgirl outfits, to themed Co-splay dramas in China, enacting traditional myths or manga and anime plot lines on stage in front of a live audience.

6. The research questions addressed to the informants were approached thematically according to Burke’s model of dramatism (Burke 1969), which is predicated on the notion that life as a symbolic drama is rhetorically enacted by symbolizing humans through performative display.

7. Whilst research has documented marked gender differences in ap-proaches to game playing, with males allegedly engaging in more adventurous forms of aggressive play (Opie and Opie 1969), and females supposedly being more oriented to imaginative play (Linn 2008), the reasons for these gender-based, behavioral tendencies have not been conclusively documented or proven. Equally, studies on fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons (Fine 1983) suggest that proportionately fewer females tend to participate in these fantasy role-play activities, yet the lack of explanation for these observations still leaves gendered involvement open to debate.

8. The transformative nature of clothing, and fantasy costume in par-ticular, and its ability to transport the wearer into another world embodying different values has historical precedent (Ramet 1996). This process also denotes escapist tendencies such as transvestitism and cross-dressing that were historically associated with fantasy identities documented in literature and music from the sixteenth cen-tury onwards. Here cross-dressing was used as a device employed by women in search of more exciting occupations usually denied them, for example, soldiers or travelers. Literary texts from this period often feature women dressing as men in search of missing husbands or absent lovers.

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Fashioning the Fantastical Self: An Examination of the Cosplay Dress-up Phenomenon in Southeast Asia

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