TapTrip Blog: Cosplay: why do people dress like their favorite characters?

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Cosplay: why do people dress like their favorite characters?

Yesterday I met a friend and we had a crazy idea: walk around the streets of Tokyo dressed like Goku and Vejita, characters of the anime Dragon Ball Z. Many fans of cartoons, games, movies and other fiction productions like to wear costumes which make them similar (and sometimes identical) to their favorite characters. This action which is very common in some parts of Japan and becomes more and more popular in other countries too is called Cosplay (a mix of the words "costume" and "play").

The Halloween is coming soon, so there are many department stores selling a big variety of clothes for it. I bought the costume in one of those stores. I am not a big fan of cosplay, although was good doing it for curiosity. But, there are many people who like it a lot, some make their own costumes instead of buying, join cosplay contests and work professionally as cosplayers.
But, why people do it? What is so fun about dressing like your favorite character? Perhaps the same way we dress a cloth to be pretty, cosplayers dress costumes not only to be like the characters, but to feel like them at least once in life. When we are kids, don't we like to dress and act like our heroes? This is the same feeling.

Although I didn't really feel like the prince Vejita, many people on the streets were calling me like this and stopping me to take pictures with them. Which means making cosplay has another important meaning: it's really fun!
Have you seen cosplayers in your country too? So, tell us how they were and upload the pictures in Taptrip to share it with the whole world.