When you go to a convention, you expect to see dozens of cosplayers roaming the venue. But, it wasn’t always like this. There was indeed a time when few if anyone cosplayed to conventions. Let’s take a look at how it all started and the conflicting opinions on the origin of cosplay.
The origin of cosplay depends on what you define cosplay as. For some, that means dressing up in a costume. The first people attributed to wearing costumes at a convention are Myrtle R. Jones Douglas and Forrest J. Ackermann. In 1939 the couple arrived at the first-ever World Science Fiction Convention or “World Con”, in costume. Though the costumes were handmade by Miss Douglas, they weren’t cosplaying any specific characters. Not what I would consider cosplay.
Personally, I think Urban Dictionary’s definition is the most accurate. “Literally ‘Costume Play’. Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character)”. Cosplay is more than just putting on a costume. It usually involves a little bit of acting too. After all, no one wants to ruin the illusion for a six-year-old that wants to meet Superman.
So when did people start cosplaying? Right about the time anime like Umi no Triton and sci-fi shows like Star Trek were gaining in popularity: the 1970s. To young people in Japan and America at the time, it just made sense to go to a convention in costume. There are no records of one person being the inventor of cosplay. All evidence points to fans in Japan and America getting the same idea at the same time; Let’s cosplay!
These were hardcore fans. Most made the costumes from scratch with few, if any reference images! Shojo manga became popular to cosplay as many had full body fashion illustrations to model the cosplay after. For everyone else, it was a matter of eyeballing it. It makes these early Star Wars and Captain Harlock cosplays that much more impressive.
It wasn’t until 1984 however, that there was a word for it. Takahashi Nobuyuki, a reporter for the magazine “My Anime”, attended World-Con in 1984. The Los Angeles convention was also attended by numerous fans dressed in cosplay. Takahashi was enthralled by this and wrote at length about it in an article he would publish.
The problem for Takahashi was that he couldn’t find a word to properly describe the phenomena. “Masquerade” didn’t work because it translated to “an aristocratic costume party”. The Japanese word kasou (仮想) was more akin to dressing up in a disguise so that didn’t work either. So Takahashi referred to it with several combinations of words. “Hero Costume Operation”, “costume play” and, the word we know and love, “cosplay”.
With a word to rally behind, the practice gained popularity until it became what we know and love today. For more info on cosplay history, the invention of the word and such check out these articles:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.739.787&rep=rep1&type=pdf
https://kotaku.com/where-the-word-cosplay-actually-comes-from-1649177711
http://fansconf.a-kon.com/dRuZ33A/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/15-A-Brief-History-of-Cosplay1.pdf