อนิเมะ cosplay an awesome pastime to hone creative self-expression or possibly a nerdy and expensive method to escape pressures of the world? And do you care in any event? CosPlay 101 for the uninformed and misinformed What the heck is CosPlay? Sounds like a new online video game or possibly a new Facebook apps like Farmville for your requirements? Well, no. CosPlay can be a mixture of two words: "Costume" and "Roleplay." Therefore, a Cosplayer is really a geeky, certainly not good-looking somebody who assumes the role of the character from an anime show, a relevant video game, comics, manga, comic series, movies or TV series. These cosplayers walk into these shoes from the characters who have inspired them or they think is actually cool and copy their costumes, prosthetics, make-up, hair and uber-cool accessories. Here's what really surprised me, cosplayers not simply must look like characters, they need to behave like, seem like and essentially are the characters they portray right down to the last giggle. There is that this issue among cosplay elders as to how and when this social phenomenon really started. However, they seem to agree on something - the original source of the word Cosplay. Most of the elders agree the journalist Noboyuki Takahashi, first coined the phrase inside the article "My Anime," after attending the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention and seeing a variety of Trekkies (Star Trek fans) strutting their stuff. From there, cosplay has evolved into a subculture among enthusiasts of anime, manga, comics, movies and basically everything fun and fictional in the sunshine and elevated into an art and subculture in a variety of countries. In the Philippines, the buzz of cosplay has also spiked in the last couple of years. Cosplay and The Modern Escapist "I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it can be plain that I don't accept a bad tone of scorn or pity that 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a male be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to escape and go back home? Or if he no longer can do so, he thinks and references other topics than jailers and prison-walls?" -- J.R.R. Tolkien-- I'm no card-carrying psychologist or sociologist, but I can tell you roughly for the observations I made that cosplay has become part in the modern escapism. Mr. Webster defines escapism because habitual diversion in the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as a possible escape from reality or routine. I'm sure you will realise the world where we live is full of stress, threats, constant noise, irritating soap operas, unhealthy fast-food junks, dizzying billboards, and overnight facebooking. Hence, young people need to escape - to refocus our attention on things pleasant or enjoyable, instead of the hard realities in the everyday world. When we are stressed we would like just escapism, and cosplay certainly offers that persons. It is great to include a little bit of fantasy to an otherwise boring or stressful world. Yet, translating someone's fantasy into reality can be tricky. I don't know if parents should really get worried regarding teens' expressing strong desire to are now living in fantasy world of anime, perhaps they ought to consider that as healthy and part of today's social reality. And the need to 'escape' is an element in the complicated means of discovering ourselves. I think many of us are escapist diversely. This is where I got myself in the most trouble-of-judgement. I failed both to understand how important the notion of escape is always to many cosplayers and to clarify the precise form of escape I was addressing. I admit that numerous Filipinos nowadays take part in cosplay not mainly to avoid their very own personal wars for example their jobs, relationships, school pressure along with other life hassles, but rather to possess fun, compete, and in many cases earn an income. The Magical World with the Escapist "Harry chimes into this magical world, and is also it any better compared to world he's left? Only while he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in lots of ways complicates his life." --J.K. Rowling-- Is there a difference between healthy and unhealthy escapism? In today's reality, we no longer can do our ancestor's way of escapism - that is telling stories round the fire or do writing about the caves. We now escape the woes on the planet by reading books, watching soap operas and movies, browsing the web, blogging and so forth and so on. As I said earlier, cosplay is a new and modern type of escapism. Unlike other forms of escapism, cosplay is a bit more involved. Other "characters" are directly playing in their magical world, interacting using their assumed personality. Events, including regular conventions and gatherings, also take place in this new kind of escapism which is directly dependent around the authors from the anime characters. Fantasy Self and the Anime World Therein causes the problems of the cosplayers. This is just my theory OK. The assumed character, which I will call the Fantasy Self starts to rival real life. Because from the sheer complexity and magic with the anime world, the Fantasy Self may continue to rely about the cosplay as his or her kind of escapism. There is really a possibility how the Fantasy Self will treat the anime world like a large part with the person's actual life and could dominate actuality. When the anime world becomes part of the their real life, any stress in the anime world will likely be brought using them whenever they enter real life. Now, will no longer does the cosplayer need to be worried about only real life, but additionally should be focused on the happenings within the anime world. Such cosplayer are the types who come home so stressed and depressed after attending a cosplay convention - when it's allowed to be only a fun day running around in costume and be someone extraordinary for a day. The Collapse of the Fantasy Self and Real Self The other possibility that could occur with prolonged stay in the anime world like a kind of escapism may be the collapse in the Fantasy Self to the Real Self. I repeat, this is merely a possibility, I'm not a psychologist - but I do read psych books - and it's just my theory. This may be the situation when the cosplayer loans money to purchase costumes, skip classes or work to attend cosplay conventions, and if they started claiming that cosplay is much more than merely costumes. Actions including these are clear demonstrations of where the cosplayer's priorities lie. The downside to this type of collapse is apparent. As their real lives are no more the main objective with their attention, their grades in college will falter, their will falter, their performance at the job will falter as will their social lives - often sacrificing time with friends for time with cosplaying. The Cut-off Point I guess the cut-off point is actually it might be a healthy opportinity for not getting completely depressed by reality, and for the other side, in its extreme form, whether it results in obsessive behaviors that produce people completely ignore reality with their detriment. After all, I'm not the last arbiter products counts as healthy or unhealthy, and more importantly, I can't claim to know everything about cosplay- I am not a cosplayer myself. I just want to give my comments and learn surprising things about what is happening around me. For people who are more extreme than I am, I respect their option to be that, equally as I hope they respect my theories and opinions I make regarding my observations or what I prefer to keep as leisurely pastimes. I can safely conclude that Cosplay, may be a healthy type of escapism along with a great opportunity in developing creativity and self-confidence. Of course, extremes have bad effects.
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