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To Be Others is to be more like ourselves
By Andrea Letamendi. Why might a person want to become someone else? What would compel them to put on a costume and assume a different identity? We might ask what flaws or deficits they are trying to conceal. What history, what personality, what kind of life are they trying to escape? What are they hiding…
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How Cosplay Can Change Lives
By: Liz Ohanesian Ginger Burton remembers the first anime convention she attended. It was Anime Expo back in 2007. While Burton knew about anime, she was unfamiliar with cosplay. Cosplay is when people dress up in costumes, frequently based on pop culture characters, for fan events. Halloween costumes aren’t cosplay, although someone might bust out…
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Some Thoughts on Costuming
by Carol Resnick I don’t know why other people go into costuming, but to me it is the thrill of visualizing a costume (or a presentation, as in 1979) and then making that visualization a reality. In truth, by the night of the competition, it’s all rather anti-climactic; I know long before then whether or…
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Anime in America : A Personal Account
By vfxart Let me go back to 1975 or so, yeah my fandom started then. I was early school-age, but grabbed easily. 😉 But first, and this may be important, I will talk mostly about the mid-80s through mid-90s, having been one of the crew/supporters of AnimeCon ’91, and some related fun. In the mid…
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30th Anniversary of Cosplay
By Takahashi Nobuyuki The word “Cosplay” spread from a magazine called “My Anime.” During the 1970’s manga clubs and movie clubs were very popular among college students. During the early 70’s there was a strike done by students about policy and rules. College manga clubs were formed around this time the act of protesting against…
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There is nothing ordinary about cosplay
By Greyrondo There is nothing ordinary about cosplay. Whether it’s the character’s personality or the costume, the end result is always larger than life—not that cosplayers would ever have it any other way. But both the inspiring art and the craft behind cosplay are neither solely historical costuming nor modern fashion: cosplay is the fusion…
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A brief history of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, America’s first anime fan club
By Sy Sable On 4/4/2020, Sy Sable (Mark Merlino) sent this brief history of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, founded in 1977. His story comes from recent message trading with someone interested in the C/FO and those involved. He couldn’t connect her to people out of contact for over 20 years, but he could tell how the…
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Advice for Cosplaying (2004)
For those new to Cosplay Contests by Ryk E. Spoor For a few years, my wife Kathleen and I were part of the most infamous cosplay group on the East coast; we were probably responsible for the strong following it has today. Our famous skits were The Great Dragonball Skit (probably the most ambitious skit…
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How The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization – torchbearers of anime in America in the 80s – was brought down
By Infinitus_Potentia (Reddit) I’ve been making a list of notable people who had a hand in shaping the American anime fandom before 2000 (which you can read and comment here). One thing in common between these figures was their association with the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (C/FO), which was the forefather of the anime club as we…
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Cosplay: The Illegitimate Child of SF Masquerades
by Michael Bruno The most enlightening panel of the entire convention turned out to be not what I was really expecting. During the “Cosplay Roundtable” panel at Nan Desu Kan 2002 this last weekend, I was expecting a panel of costumers to be answering questions posed by the audience. However, this was not the case.…
