Japanese Subcultures - Otaku, Ganguro, Cosplay, Lolita Fashion, Omorashi, Kogal, Japanese Street Fashion, Itasha, B S Zoku, Freeter, Para Para (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 37. Chapters: Otaku, Ganguro, Cosplay, Lolita fashion, Omorashi, Kogal, Japanese street fashion, Itasha, B s zoku, Freeter, Para Para, Tokyo Girls Collection, Sukeban, Group dating, Gyaru, Gyaru-oh, Net cafe refugee, Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club, Japanophile, Fruits, Nanpa, Dekotora, Kobe Collection, Banch, Reki-jo, Elegant Gothic Aristocrat, Japanification, The Tribe, Ero kawaii, Wotagei. Excerpt: Cosplay kosupure), short for "costume play," is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and Sci-Fi. Favourite sources include manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, hentai and fantasy movies. Any entity from the real or virtual world that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Inanimate objects are given anthropomorphic forms and it is not unusual to see genders switched, with women playing male roles and vice versa. There is also a subset of cosplay culture centered around sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters that are known for their attractiveness and/or revealing (even explicit) costumes. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centred around role play. A broader use of the term cosplay applies to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context. The term cosplay is a portmanteau of the English words costume and play. The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi of the Japanese studio Studio Hard while attending the 1984 Los Angeles Science Fiction Worldcon. He was impressed by the hall and the costumed fans and reported on both in Japanese science fiction magazines. ...