A Brief History of Cosplay

A Brief History it back to Japan after the Los Angeles Worldcon in 1984. of Cosplay Certain I knew better, I started down the path of scholarly Helen McCarthy, Founder, Manga righteousness, but as usual the ground UK1 gave way below me and I fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The Introduction journey has been more nuanced, more complex and more interesting than I What is cosplay, when and where ever envisaged. I’m still falling. did it originate, and why does it America didn’t invent cosplay. Nor matter? did Japan, although Japan definitely The word originated in Japan in the gave us the word and definitely did not early 1980s but the activity of dressing import the practice from America in up, assuming another identity and 1984. Cosplay, masquerade, fancy playing out characteristics from dress, whatever term you choose, another life has been part of human emerges from one of the oldest and culture from our earliest times. As part deepest impulses of the human spirit: of our shared cultural heritage, cosplay the belief that imitation can be has global reach. Its sudden rise in conjuration. popularity around the world in the late This presentation is a road marker twentieth and early twenty-first on my journey into the history of centuries has led to admiration, cosplay. It is also a call to arms. I hope imitation, and even attempts at cultural other scholars, performers and crafters appropriation or colonisation. Yet the will join me in uncovering and actual, physical history and prehistory documenting the true history of of cosplay remains almost unexplored, cosplay in Japan, and setting it in its its earliest evidence still largely place in world cultural history. undigitised and therefore effectively Its original form was audiovisual – undiscovered. a Keynote presentation – and I have Scholarship is full of rabbit holes. preserved that outline in print, with the This one opened up for me several narrative punctuated by the slides I years ago, when I read an assertion in a used at FANS 5. source I respected that was I would like to thank Dr. Darren- contradicted by evidence freely Jon Ashmore, Miki Dennis, Barbara available in a number of other English Ann Edwards, Maggie Percival, Paul language sources. America invented Blackwell, Dr. Judith Mortimore, Prof. cosplay, said the source, and exported Mari Kotani, Rob Fenelon, Walter Amos Dr. Frenchy Lunning, Karen Schnaulbelt Turner Dick, Rob Lantz, 1 N. B.: For the referenced slides, please see the PDF immediately after this one on the Dale Engelhardt, and David Merrill, journal page. This presentation was originally who have all inspired, informed or given at FANS Japan Stitching Time contributed to my study of costume. Symposium, Yamanashi Gakuin University, Kofu, Japan, on 18 March 2017. The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 130 (Slides 1-4) specific purpose, which can be public or personal. I began this journey five years ago with a shocking discovery on a website (Slide 11) I respect: costuming.org/history.2 I define the term cosplay as part of (Slide 5) a historical progression of terminology used to distinguish costume from I found this statement inexplicable everyday dress. because I was aware at the time of a number of readily available online (Slide 12) English language sources presenting direct Japanese evidence that And I would like to consider these contradicts this view. I therefore dug a terms and present some examples of little further into US sources and found each stage of the progression of that costuming.org was not the only terminology before we go any further. site the claim primacy for the USA in Please note that some of the terms and the creation of cosplay, and to frame types of costuming are still active Japanese cosplay as purely imitative of today, even though they have outlived the US. I rechecked the sources last the general use of their terminology. year to see if opinion had shifted, but this was not the case.3 (Slides 13-19) (Slides 6-9) Many societies have used costumes and masks for public and private It is my belief that any cultural rituals from ancient times. Some colonisation of the term cosplay needs modern societies, including Japan and to establish detailed and credible proof Italy, still use a form of historic dress of ownership. With this in mind, I pose to signify the religious roles of three questions: individuals. Some also continue with old costuming and roleplaying (Slide 10) traditions even though the beliefs behind those roleplays are no longer In order to answer these questions, universal. And some dress as I need to clarify my own standpoint, characters from the past as part of and first I will define my terms. I use private or public celebrations. the word costume to distinguish As an informal visual guide to the between whatever clothing individuals changes in terminology I made a rough wear in their ordinary everyday life count of usages in books in my and the clothing they assume for a collection and borrowed from libraries across the disciplines of costume 2 www.costuming.org/history accessed 30 May history, social history, anthropology, 2016. local memoir and theatre. This chart 3 www.strangelandcostumes.com accessed 30 May 2016. summarises roughly 150 sources and The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 131 their use of these terms. The sample is only a rough guide, but may be helpful. The claim to have created and worn the first costumes at an SF (Slide 20) convention has long been staked by Myrtle R. Jones Douglas and Forrest J. I think it may also be helpful to Ackermann. Ackermann, who was not define our field of study. Please note, involved in the creation of the outfits however, that the ground is shifting and was always vocal in his admiration under our feet as we work. In Japan of Douglas’ creativity as a costumer, and beyond, some cosplayers who feel was widely credited alone for many uncomfortable in public, or whose years. This was fairly typical of the parents feel they are too young to go to airbrushing of women out of leading cosplay events, are making their own roles in SF fandom, until the spread of cosplay at home and sharing it through the Internet made documentary photos or online with friends. A type evidence easier to find. Douglas was of cosplay at once public and private is also a fan writer and publisher and a opening up. And it is precisely because speaker of Esperanto. the game is changing so fast that I Her influence was immediately believe we need a solid foundation of noted as a threat by mainstream male history, backed up by documentation fandom. SF author Frederik Pohl, and checkable eyewitness accounts, writing about the impact that Douglas before we decide that we know what and Ackermann made in his book “The cosplay is and where it comes from. Way The Future Was” almost 40 years later, described them as “stylishly (Slide 21) dressed in the fashions of the 25th century” but also wrote that he feared As more and more sources are they had set an ominous precedent. He scanned into the internet, as scholars was right: the next US national we must constantly remind ourselves convention had 12 costumed that this process is highly selective. It attendees.4 can be very useful, however, as in the case of Mr. Skygack from Mars. This (Slide 23) charming newspaper cartoon character can claim to be the first SF media But despite these two well character portrayed in the USA. documented instances of SF costuming Unfortunately the documentary innovation, I did not feel there was any evidence does not yet support the justification for claiming that identification of Mrs. William A. Fell American had given cosplay to Japan. (or her dressmaker) as the first US SF Costuming is not simply about science costumer, but it does locate the fiction, but about the expression of creation of the costume prior to 19 personal aims and ideas. December 1908. 4 Frederik Pohl, The Way The Future Was (Slide 22) (Ballantine: New York, 1978). The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 132 “wearing a homemade costume is (Slide 24) actually not new since my generation used to play with … cloth with the US influence in Japan is very Kanji for ‘Makoto’ written on it after strong; the occupation of Japan ended seeing the movie Shin Sen Gumi.”7 in 1954 but the process of cultural The first local accounts of colonisation has continued. Although organised costuming activity in Japan before the Occupation Japan’s Western occur in the 1970s. Consider this influences were as much European as extract from a brief online history of American, the balance has shifted. cosplay by Nov Takahashi, founder of However this does not mean that Studio Hard and active in fandom as a Japanese costuming was mere student.8 imitation of American SF fandom, any more than American costuming is (Slide 26) merely derivative of the tradition that had existed in European, African and This indicates an active fandom Asian society for centuries before visible enough to be mentioned in America was founded. fanzines and organised enough to The American magazine Amazing attend and put on public events. Stories had its first Japanese edition Takahashi went on to professional during the Allied Occupation in 1950. success in anime, music and media. If Japan’s first SF magazine Seiun his name sounds familiar, he is the (Nebula) followed in 1954.5 However, same Nov Takahashi credited with academic Takayuki Tatsumi places the coining the term “cosplay” after the origin of Japanese SF fandom after 1984 LA Worldcon.

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