The depictions of youthful bodies, exaggerated and mutated as they are in anime, manga, and video games, are not solely limited to the 2D media. These bodies are attractive for youth to mimic, because they represent the culmination of the desires generated by the images presented in 2D media. Furthermore, by copying the appearances of these characters, young people are able to borrow the identities they find in visual media and use them as building blocks to define their own identities in contemporary society.

Cosplay, a portmanteau of costume and role-play, involves individuals dressing up and taking on the persona of characters from their favorite anime, manga, and video games. The complexity of these cosplays range from simple outfits mimicking key features of a character’s wardrobe, to humorous parodies of well-known characters, to extravagant costumes complete with cosmetics and accessories to complete the image of the character. Fans wearing these costumes also engage in performances of their characters, imitating their behaviors and actions, in order to further transform themselves into these fantasy figures.



Through cosplay, individuals are able to interact both in the reality, as members of a collective fan community around anime, manga, video games, and other entertainment media, and in the fantasy of role-playing the character whose costume they are donning. Anime subculture communities are often overshadowed by more dominant cultures, who label these anime fans as socially inferior individuals and ridicule their fan interests (Winge 2006). Cosplay, however, provides the individual with a persona different from their own, allowing him or her to engage in new social possibilities that were either rejected by the dominant culture of their society, or completely absent from their lives due to outside, sociopolitical forces.

In the wake of various sociopolitical and economic collapses throughout the world, the expansion of various pop culture industries have provided new spaces in which youth can turn to cosplay as an alternative to other forms of temporary and unstable work (see: precarious work). For example, in Japan, cosplayers can compile pictures of themselves as particular fictional characters from anime and manga, and sell these "albums" through different vendors (both online and offline), or even at events dedicated to cosplay. Cosplayers can also eventually turn their dedication to costume and role-play into related careers such as modeling and other careers in entertainment venture businesses.

However, the proliferation of cosplay is not limited to just being a solution to the challenging economic times that youth faced throughout the 1990's. Russian photographer Mariya Kozhanova explains in her photo series, "Declared Detachment," how Russian youth have turned to cosplay to help construct an individual identity following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Like the disenfranchised youth during the collective economic collapses of the East Asia region, these young people were presented with uncertain futures, as the traditional ideologies that their predecessors followed were suddenly lost without possibility of recovery. The way in which youth engages in cosplay echoes the idea of "cultural borrowing" described in the first section: in this case, the intersection of different popular culture contributes to the creation of a novel identity, forged from both Eastern and Western values, and directed towards the uncertain future by the individuals themselves.

This personal reality provided by the fantasies created through the dress and performance of cosplay allows cosplayers to temporarily retreat from the vicissitudes of an unfamiliar society. The power to realize these fantasies is found in the inherent flexibility of cosplay: fans of any race, ethnicity, age, and gender can participate in cosplay by dressing up and role-playing any character they want. While many of these fantasies have been labeled as escapist, in some spaces distinct from home and work, fans gather and form new collectivities in which their cosplay fantasies are simultaneously realized with their social realities.

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