Friday, March 4, 2011

Role Play/Kigurumi Part 1

Masks and modern Role Play

In Western Culture, a distinct subculture has been emerging; the subcultures of role play. There is a distinct subculture who love going to conventions for Science Fiction, Fantasy, Animation and Videogames. a Words like Kigirumi, Cosplay, Costuming and Dolling dominate this realm. Whether it’s our favourite Japanese Anime character, or wanting to replicate a videogame character, there is a passion for dressing up, reinventing ourselves into whomever we want to be. In this section we will be looking at the world of role play in the real world, Kigirumi and Cosplay. It is the practice of dressing up in full costumes, often with masks. There are three main categories of Kigirumi; Anime (Japanese Animation and Manga), Fur wearers (also called “furriers” or furry animals”) and Pajama wear, which involves wearing full length costumes (with a hat piece instead of a mask). Part fo the Anime Kigirumi involves “Dolling”, which is the wearing of an entire body suit, including mask to represent a character. Interestingly, most “dolls” are men dressing as men or women characters, the full body suit completing the illusion. This practice, as discussed earlier, can be traced back to Japanese theatre, where historically only men were allowed to perform, so they would perform in masks as male and female characters.

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Where did all this fantasy dressing begin? The origins can be traced back to 1939, at the first “World’s Science Fiction Convention” in New York. It was during that event that two men wore costumes of what they thought future outfits would look like. Many speculated they looked like they were “from the future”. They were a sensation, and the next year, over a dozen people showed up wearing costumes. This practice continued onward. The Japanese influence can be seen arriving on the West Coast. In 1984, a gentleman by the name of Nov Takahasu arrived at a science fiction convention in Los Angeles. He was impressed by the costumed attendees, and then coined the phrase “Cosplay”. The word comes from Costume (role) and Play (Pure) in Japanese. The phrase would soon be used to describe character costume wearing on both sides of the pacific. In the next part we will take a more in depth look at Kigurumi, and how the term is really a blanket term for a number of various groups under the umbrella

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