The main feature of cosplay is for participants to enjoy dressing up as their favorite characters from anime, comics and video games. It has evolved to include, in particular when adopted in the west, people dressed as characters from the popular non-Asian fantasy and science fiction movies and games like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and World of Warcraft.
As a buzzword, cosplay has also been spreading to a style of dress not only the established, famous people, but as characters that fans have been developed. This is often a cross in the Japanese style of dress Lolita, where girls have their own style, cute. This allows the girls to like the look, but do not want to fully embrace the Lolita style, such as street clothes to enjoy the less serious "Cosplay Lolita" style cosplay events and places.
Additional trends and subgenres of cosplay are "crossplay", which is to use the costume of a character of the opposite sex, and participants 'dollars', wearing full body suits and masks to play characters without their faces in the program, more well as sports mascots.
Cosplay is usually something that takes place at parties, concerts, conventions and places where like-minded people gather to show their (often handmade) costume, socialize, and other photo enthusiasts. The most popular area for this type of activity is the fashionable Harajuku area of Tokyo. In the district of Akihabara, a series of themed cosplay cafes have opened in the last decade to cater to cosplayers, and all the anime staff use their own themed costumes.
Twice a year, hundreds of thousands of cosplayers come to Tokyo to visit Comiket convention and the market - the world's largest event for fans of cosplay.
The concept of dress and take part in role-playing games based on popular characters also exists in the west, where style cosplay costumes are used for conventions of science fiction and comics. The largest of these is held annually in San Diego.
