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. He coined the both these events, in 1957 when the term, but the timescale and the Japanese SF magazine Uchujin – background are not as reported in some meaning Cosmic Dust- was launched sources. with sponsorship from Takumi Shibano, although his own The First Japanese Convention involvement with fandom dates from Cosplay the 1970s.6 The first record of costuming at a (Slide 25) Japanese convention is in the convention book for Miyacon, held in In 1980, Leiji Matsumoto gave an Kyoto in 1974. There’s a copy in the interview to OUT magazine discussing Ninomiya Public Library in Japan, his latest movie and the fan activity which holds a number of early that Space Battleship Yamato had engendered. He remarked that 7 http://ourstarblazers.com/vault/622/ accessed 26 Apr. 2017. It is not clear whether the movie 5 Science Fiction Writers of Japan he refers to is the 1963 thetrical release or the 6 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/cpamonthly/20050601 1961 TV series. interview on Café Panic Americana (1 June 8 www.hard.co.jp/cosplay_02.html (online in 2005), accessed 2 Feb. 2017. English and Japanese) accessed 26 Feb. 2017. The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 133

Japanese SF convention books.9 Billed fanclub in 1976.11 In 1977 the group as a “Yoshio Aramaki Costume appeared in costume at Uchujin Show,” it appears to have featured a magazine’s twentieth anniversary number of brief costumed skits starring event, Cosmicon.12 Bruce Lee, Captains America and A number of sources state that at Future, Planet of the Apes and other Comike (Comic Market) in 1977 a girl icons of pop culture – not exclusively attracted much interest cosplaying as American, but also Asian and Triton from Osamu Tezuka’s Umi no European. I haven’t yet found any Triton.13 This is not mentioned in the photographs or written accounts Comic Market online chronology, online, although the convention got a where the first reference to costume write-up in SF Magazine in November play is at Comike 8 on 2 April 1978, 1974. but Comike’s co-founder, the late Yoshihiro Yonezawa, told the Triton (Slide 27) story in an interview. 14 Triton definitely made an impression at The Triton Puzzle 1978’s Japanese SF Convention, Ashinocon. In considering the early days of Japanese SF costuming, the role of one (Slides 28-29) particular character – Triton, from Osamu Tezuka’s Umi no Triton - is Mari Kotani was at Ashinocon in a influential. Tezuka’s manga ran from group wearing costumes inspired by 1969 to1971 and the anime TV series Edgar Rice Burrough’s Fighting Men first aired in 1972. Triton is still of Mars.15 It was based on Motochiro cosplayed. 10 The character has a 11 devoted fandom. On her official Kotani Mari official website http://inherzone.org/ Accessed 5 Jan. 2017; webpage, critic, writer and feminist https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s= Mari Kotani says that she was a Mari%20Kotani accessed 5 Jan. 2017. 12 member of a Triton fangroup in www.panache.jp/Cosplay Panache! official website, accessed 15 Dec. 2016. Hiratsuka Konan High School, before 13 Including TAKEDA Yashuhiro Men who helping to found the Loreleias fantasy Made Neon Communication Evangelion” Wanibooks, 2002, p. 34; http://asianbeat.com/ja/feature/issue_other/now /cosplay/01-4.html accessed 15 Dec. 2015. 9 http://www.ninomiya-public- 14 library.jp/bookdetail?11&retresult=page%3DD http://www.comiket.co.jp/archives/Chronology ETAIL%26comp1%3D1%26comp2%3D1%26 .html Comic Market Nenpyo (Comic Market cond%3D1%26facet0%3D00050000*%26item Chronology) accessed 15 Dec. 2016. By 1980 1%3DS%26item2%3DU%26key1%3DT%26k the entry for Comiket 15 notes that costume ey2%3D%EF%BD%BC%EF%BE%8A%EF% players have increased “dramatically.” In 1983 BE%9E%26mv%3D10%26sort%3D0%26targ the police asked the organisers to stop costume et1%3D1%26target2%3D2%26&num=106380 players going outside the venue as it was 3&ctg=1&reqsch viewed 15 12 2016 causing a disturbance; “What is Comiket, Manga / Anime Liberation District, Interview 10 10 photos on Cosplayers Archive, accessed with Yoshihiro Yonezawa?” “Separate volume 10 Feb. 2017. Treasure Island 358 with me Comiket!” http://www.cosp.jp/photo_search.aspx?n2=110 Takarajima, 1998, p 20 79 15 Panache! ibid The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 134

Takabee’s cover for a Japanese edition (Slide 31) of the book, and its white tunic and red cloak were similar to Triton’s costume. Kotani’s clarification of the A number of those present mistook somewhat incoherent timeline pieced Kotani’s costume for Triton. (Triton together by Western students of costumes are still made and sold for cosplay, including myself, was cosplay use in Japan and beyond.) revelatory. It enabled me to understand the photo available online for some (Slides 30-31) years as “the first Japanese cosplay” – not a picture of the Tritonesque In 2005 Kotani stated that because Burrows outfit from Ashinocon of of this event many cosplayers consider 1978, but an outfit that Kotani was her the first Japanese cosplayer. 16 asked to wear for a Japanese magazine However, it seems that this designation feature on the history of cosplay in the interprets the term as being the first 1990s, incorrectly dated 1978 in some person to wear a manga or anime sources including mine. costume at an SF convention, since the wearing of costumes at events (Slide 32) including conventions was well established. (At Ashinocon, other SF The website of Japanese cosplay costumes were also worn17 - Yasuhiro idols Panache contains some Takeda, later of GAINAX fame, interesting information. The site notes constructed a last-minute Tusken that the appearance of STAR TREK on Raider costume out of toilet paper and US TV greatly increased interest in cardboard tubes.) costuming at US SF conventions in the What is clear from the photo of the latter half of the 1960s. Japanese SF group behind Kotani and her fandom was then in its early years interviewer is that this was an having started running annual established group of costumers. In her conventions in 1961. It was strongly presentation at the FANS Japan influenced by Star Trek but also by the symposium in March 2017, Kotani World SF Convention in The USA. noted that some Japanese male SF fans The costume show at the thirteenth and critics did not view the inclusion Japan SF Con (Miyacon) in Kyoto in of costume at SF conventions as a 1974 followed in the footsteps of US positive development, but four years conventions. after Miyacon it was obviously From this evidence it can properly spreading.18 be argued that Japanese SF convention masquerades were inspired by US convention masquerades, but it also demonstrates that convention 16 Takahashi ibid 17 www.space-force.org/HISTORY.HTM costuming was active in Japan a Space Force: History accessed 15 Dec. 2016. decade earlier than claimed in the 18 Stitching Time, FANS Japan symposium, previously cited US sources. Yamanashi Gakuin University, Kofu, Japan, 18 March 2017. The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 135

This is confirmed in an interview to research pre-Internet paper sources with Hideaki Ito conducted by Tim in Japan. There is also confusion Eldred and Sword Takeda in 2010.19 around the fact that Nov Takahashi Ito was active in Space Battleship himself gave an interview at a US Yamato fandom and recalls that he convention in 2004 in which he made a costume from the show around appeared to corroborate the 1976, while he was in high school, and cosplay.org story of an inspiration that other fans were starting to show up from the 1984 Worldcon.20 in full or partial costume at screenings and events at the time. By 1978, (Slide 38) Yamato fans were thoroughly engaged in cosplay, as a Space Battleship The earliest US Japanese-inspired Yamato fan club newsletter shows. costume I have been able to document This was available on line at the is a child’s Hallowe’en outfit for the former Starblazers website and can popular live SF show Ultraman, a hit now be found on mystarblazers.com on US TV as well as in Japan, dating from 1971. This was sold (Slide 33) commercially. There is well documented evidence for the wearing It took five more years after of anime costumes from around 1979, Ashinocon for cosplay to find its own at early anime events and mainstream term. It was coined by Nov Takahashi SF conventions. This trend was and two friends for an article they reported with enthusiasm in Japan, and wrote in the June 1983 issue of My as other anime fandoms including Anime magazine, a year before the those of Australia and Europe came on 1984 Worldcon once said to have board, they were also celebrated in inspired Japanese costuming. The Japanese anime publications. photos that accompany it are compeliing. They show a lively, (Slides 39-45) technically skilled fandom inspired by a diverse range of sources. It does not However, even as late as 1993, appear at all imitative or derivative. despite a decade of exchange and interplay between costume fans, the (Slides 34-37) word cosplay was not in general use. In a personal communication on Nevertheless, there are Facebook, quoted with permission, contradictory sources, widely quoted Dale Engelhart told me “the term by Western scholars. The 1990s photo of Mari Kotani referred to above is a 20 case in pint and can be explained by http://millenniumcg.tripod.com/glitzglitter/100 2articles/html accessed 12 Dec. 2016 Michael lack of opportunity or language skills Bruno, Cosplay: The Illegitimate Child of SF Masquerades, and Costuming a world apart: cosplay in America and Japan, in Glitz and 19 http://ourstarblazers.com/vault/552/ accessed Glitter Newsletter, Millennium Costume Guild 15 Dec. 2016. Oct 2002 The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 136

“cosplay” started getting thrown around in the local con scene in the Looking back at the above account mid to late ‘90s , from my recollection of the history of cosplay, emerging about the time the URAN cosplay from a worldwide cultural commitment group from Japan started showing up to the concept of taking on other with 4 costumes for each day of AX, identities that started as ritual and and influenced or maybe I should say moved gradually into recreation, I see upped the ante on bringing so much more to be done. But, for showmanship and craftsman work to now, I believe that I have clarified the US conventions.” 21 In 1993, the some issues, put together the bones of Anime Expo staff list still refers to a coherent timeline for both the Masquerade, not cosplay. practice of cosplay in Japan and the use of the term both within and outside (Slides 46-47) Japan, and demonstrated that while Japanese fan costuming was certainly In 1994, Anime East explains the influenced both other fandoms, world cosplay in its convention book, especially hat in the USA, it was far on the grounds that not all anime fans from merely derivative, being of itself will be familiar with it. Their dynamic, creative and inventive. I fee certificates for winners of the costume that I can set out my proposed contest refer to it as a Cosplay definition with the support of history, Masquerade, possibly implying that the and with deep gratitude to the terms are not yet interchangeable and remarkable scholars and costumers that in the US cosplay is still viewed as who have helped me so generously on a subset of masquerade. It is not until this quest. around 1999 that we see evidence of anime conventions using the term (Slides 52-54) cosplay to replace masquerade. At this stage I have not seen securely dated But this story is still being written I evidence of its use outside the anime had like to leave you with an image fan community before the turn of the from the FANS Japan cosplay millennium. It was not until the spread symposium, where scholars and of broadband that the term entered, and cosplayers from Japan, the USA, rapidly gained ascendancy in, wider Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom fannish consciousness and the general came together to explore and share our culture.22 passion for this fascinating and still greatly underexplored art form. (Slides 48-51) (SLIDE 56) 21 Anime Expo, a major US convention that started in 1992. URAN were filmed performing a skit in the costume contest at AX References 1999. 22 I am indebted to Rob Lantz and David Merrill for their input and for providing scans of documents. The Phoenix Papers, Vol. 3, No. 1, August 2017 137

Panache! official website cosplay page. %26mv%3D10%26sort%3D0%26t Accessed 15 Dec. 2016. arget1%3D1%26target2%3D2%26 www.panache.jp/Cosplay &num=1063803&ctg=1&reqsch Space Force website. Accessed 15 Hard website. Dec. 2016. www.space- http://www.hard.co.jp/english/profi force.org/HISTORY.HTM le_01.html Nov Takahashi’s Kaken website. history of cosplay. Accessed 13 https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/grant/KA Mar. 2017. KENHI-PROJECT-05610294/ Starblazers fan website. “What is Comiket, Manga / Anime http://ourstarblazers.com/vault/552/ Liberation District, Interview with . Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. Yoshihiro Yonezawa?” “Separate Costuming the Imagination: origins of volume Treasure Island 358 with anime & manga cosplay by me Comiket!” Takarajima, 1998, p. Theresa Winge, in Mechademia 1 20 Emerging worlds of anime and Comic Market Chronology manga ed Frenchy Lunning, Univ. http://www.comiket.co.jp/archives/ Minnesota Press Chronology.html. Accessed 13 Minneapolis/London 2006. Mar. 2017. Michael Bruno, Costuming a world Ashinocon programme book in apart: cosplay in America and Ninomiya Public Library. Japan, Glitz and Glitter Newsletter, Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. Millennium Costume Guild Oct http://ninomiya-public- 2002 library.jp/bookdetail;jsessionid=5E And Cosplay: The Illegitimate Child of BE58BB7658A339DD8693CB564 SF Masquerades, C8419?0&retresult=page=DETAIL http://millenniumcg.tripod.com/glit &comp1=1&comp2=1&cond=1&f zglitter/1002articles/html. acet0=000700T#*&facet1=000519 Accessed 11 June 2014. 78*&facet2=0005197*&item1=S& Pohl, Frederick. The Way the Future item2=U&key1=T&key2=ｼﾊﾞ Was. New York: Ballantine, 1978. &mv=10&sort=0&target1=1&targ Kotaku: extract from Cosplay World et2=2&&num=1026694&ctg=1&re by Luke Plunkett and Brian qsch Ashcraft. Accessed 11 Dec. 2014. Miyacon in Ninomiya PL. Accessed 11 http://kotaku.com/where-the-word- Nov. 2016. cosplay-actually-comes-from- http://www.ninomiya-public- 1649177711. library.jp/bookdetail?11&retresult= Sakyo Komatsu “SF Seminar of Sakyo page%3DDETAIL%26comp1%3D Komatsu” Shueisha · Shueisha 1%26comp2%3D1%26cond%3D1 Bunko , 1982 , p. 31. %26facet0%3D00050000*%26ite Takeda Yashuhiro. Men Who Made m1%3DS%26item2%3DU%26key Neon Communication Evangelion. 1%3DT%26key2%3D%EF%BD% Wanibooks, 2002. BC%EF%BE%8A%EF%BE%9E http://book.asahi.com/reviews/colu mn/2013022000008.html

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Kotani Mari official website Cosplayers Archive Triton page. http://inherzone.org/ Accessed 10 Feb. 2017. Asian Beat website. http://www.cosp.jp/photo_search.a http://asianbeat.com/ja/feature/issu spx?n2=11079 e_other/now/cosplay/01-4.html. Comic Market archives 1975-. Accessed 15 Feb. 2012. http://www.comiket.co.jp/archives/ Hatena website. Chronology.html http://d.hatena.ne.jp/cpamonthly/20 Science Fiction Writers of Japan: 050601. Accessed 16 Dec. 2015. Chronology. Accessed 15 Dec. Takahashi Atsushi. Café Panic 2013. Americana website. Interview with http://old.sfwj.jp/history.e.html. Takumi Tatsumi and Mari Kotani What is Comiket, Manga / Anime (3 Mar. 2005). Accessed 16 Dec. Liberation District? Interview with 2015. Yoshihiro Yonezawa in Separate http://d.hatena.ne.jp/cpamonthly/20 volume treasure island 358 with me 050601/1178280350. Comiket! Takarajima, 1998.

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