Fashioning the Spectacular Self: A Critical Examination of the Cosplay Phenomenon

This paper will examine the practice of cosplay, the trend for young adults in Hong Kong and South East Asia to dress up in themed, spectacular costumes assuming the persona of characters from Japanese comic books (manga) and animated cartoons (anime) and video game characters as a means of exploring the motivations behind this activity across multiple locations in China and Asia. The range of practices that construct this rapidly spreading phenomenon will be examined from the players’ own perspectives in questioning why dress and its transformative capacity is used as a catalyst for escaping the boundaries of self and acquiring multiple identities in this liminal, dress-up zone. The outcomes of an ethnographic study will be presented based on interviews and focus groups conducted with a selection of cosplayers who dress in a range of costumes in public places and at organised themed events. The visible, mediated adherence to a fantastical style tribe collective seems to fill an affective void and offers solace from the pressures of urban life in this region that often manifest themselves in a variety of localised cultural appropriations and hybridised agendas.