Forum - View topicAnswerman - When Did Cosplay Start?
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NeoStrayCat
 Posts: 632 |
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Well, guess that makes sense for the cosplay thing, even tracking down its origins, good read though. X3
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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Supposedly, Trish Ledoux' "The Complete Anime Guide" (from way back in 1997) has a pretty good write-up of the first days of anime cosplay in America. I haven't seen this book myself in a long time, but, hey, if you're interested in tracking it down, copies don't seem to be particularly hard to get on Amazon.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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This only heralds the question of how they would have been understood by guests. Though trends may have changed, I cannot imagine that knowledge of Esparanto was common amongst attendees. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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So we were at the Orlando MegaCon last Saturday and there were the usual droves of Cosplayers. All manner of characters from Scifi, Fantasy, Games, Anime & you-name-it. Somewhere Forrest Ackerman was smiling.
Mark Gosdin |
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Sahmbahdeh
Posts: 713 |
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Wow, this was a very interesting article! It's something I hadn't really thought about, but I guess it had to start somewhere. Thank you for the engaging read.
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2577 Location: Germany |
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The idea behind Superman is even slightly older but the publication year is correct. Slam Bradley (37), The Phantom (36), Doc Savage (33) or The Shadow (30 and basically Golden Age Batman) all came before. The concept of cosplay should thus be as old as circus strongmen.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10455 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I'd say circus strongmen, and any performance oriented costume (stage plays for example) have nothing in common with Cosplay. The motivation simply isn't the same. For some masquerade and Halloween participants who were really enthusiastic about their costumes and the characters they were becoming, you could call what they were doing a form of proto-cosplay. A key factor is that cosplay is a hobby. |
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Shiflan
 Posts: 418 |
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Depending on how one defines it, it might even have pre-dated that. I don't have any statistics to quote, but I can't help but think that someone somewhere dressed up like a historical figure, famous painting, movie star, or character from literature before the era of comic books. |
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Lady Multi
Posts: 675 |
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Cosplay, "Costume Play", has been around for a very long time.
For example, My mom has silicon Vulcan ears from the 1970s that were for people who would dress as Star Trek characters. Yea, Trekkies. |
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MidoriUma
Posts: 130 |
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Erm, cosplay in Japan goes back centuries before anything America did.
Just an example, http://mightymega.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ancient_cosplay_1.jpg 
Peach Boy Cosplay, 1911, Yokohama. You're definitely an expert in industry matters, but for being a fan, you have a lot to learn |
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Rheinhard
 Posts: 30 Location: Pennsylvania |
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For those hungering for even more detail on this subject (and more old-timey cosplay photos) you may wish to check out this (recently updated!) article by Dave Merrill (chairman emeritus of Anime Weekend Atlanta) over at his blog "Let's Anime", on COSPLAY THAT TIME FORGOT...
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11586 |
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@MidoriUma: I'd need some context for that photo to call it cosplay. It looks like characters in costume for a stage play.
@Lady Multi: Trekkers' cosplay hardly predates the 1939 cosplay cited in the article, so yeah, even older than that.
How much conversation do you think door greeters would engage in? If they greeted you with, "Bonvenigi WorldCom. Havu bonegan tempon!" [repeats to next person in line] you'd still get the idea just from their inflection. I don't think they conducted the entire Con in Esperanto.  (I don't speak Esperanto either, blame google)
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MidoriUma
Posts: 130 |
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Dog, Monkey, Pheasant, Momotaro, and the old lady who raised him. It's clearly based on the Peach Boy story, it has a bunch of people proudly wearing their costumes, and they're posing in a funny way for the photographer (the dog and monkey no not in fact have a sumo match in the story). |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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But are they doing cosplay or are they wearing costumes for a play? Those are two different things. I am not saying that you are wrong. I am just curious about this. |
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MidoriUma
Posts: 130 |
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According to several articles, it was at the occasion of a get-together to celebrate a bridge opening, not a show or any sort of play... also, two of the cosplayers are women, at a time when women on stage was extremely uncommon. http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/05/29/century-old-cosplay-photo-exists-for-a-reason-as-bizarre-as-its-dog-vs-monkey-sumo-match/ http://mightymega.com/2015/06/02/ancient-japanese-cosplay/ Also, if they had been some sort of groundbreaking, first-ever cosplayers, I'd assume more would have been written about them. Photography was just getting big in Japan around this time due to the Meiji Restoration, so they're probably more notable as the first cosplayers to do a photoshoot... I wish I could have met them and known their story, but their names have been lost to history. |
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