Cosplay, Anime and Music

Cosplay is an activity which came from the Western world. However, today this leisure has rightly associated with the cultures of the Orient, and especially with the Japanese anime.

Cosplay is considered to be a type of a performance art. It revolves around costumes, which the participants of cosplay events wear. The costumes are designed to represent a particular character, or an idea. There are many different sources from which cosplayers draw their ideas for characters to portray. In the recent years, with the rise of popularity of J-Pop, and J-Rock, the stars of these musical genres are often the inspiration for cosplayers.

mysterious cosplayer

J-Pop is an abbreviation for Japanese pop music. The term came to existence in the 1980s, and had since become common for all kinds of popular music in Japan. Over the years, the stars of J-Pop, and J-Rock have built a specific image. This image included particular haircuts, specific way of wearing makeup, and specific wardrobe. As with many things in the modern Japanese culture, this style of J-Rockers was inspired by the popular Manga and Anime series and characters. That means a lot of spiky hair and colorful wardrobe.

As mentioned, hair is a very important detail for any Japanese music star. It is like that for most of the Japanese artists. Original and unusual hairstyles mean a break with some of the traditions of the Japanese culture. So today, Japanese pop and rock stars fashion original haircuts. As mentioned, these musicians hairstyles are often inspired by fictional characters from popular culture. And as cosplayers use J-Rock stars as an inspiration for their costumes, they indirectly imitate these fictional characters. This shows how influential is the Manga and Anime art in the Japanese culture.
Also, J-Rock stars are often featuring gothic look, so this is a style cosplayers often try to replicate. Bands like Malice Mizer, and its stars Mana and Közi are the ones that are often an inspiration for cosplayers who like the gothic style of dressing and wearing makeup.

cute cosplay costumes

The wardrobe featured by J-Rock stars is also a source of joy for cosplayers, as these colorful outfits provide them hours of work on their favorite hobby: creating costumes for cosplay.

And although some of the official cosplay event don't accept people who are cosplaying J-Rock stars, J-Rock and J-Pop continues to be an inspiration for cosplayers, and more and more of them are deciding for just this type of cosplaying

All in all, cosplay has been an activity which mix Japanese anime, Japanese Music together. There are tons of craze for it, that is not strange.