Cosplay is dress-up play, or simply dress-up or COS.

Cosplay generally refers to the use of costumes, accessories, props, and make-up to play the role of characters in anime and games. Those who play cosplay are generally known as cosplayers. cosplay refers to imitating and dressing up characters in the virtual world. Cosplay refers to imitating or pretending to be a character in a virtual world, but it has taken on a new meaning on the Internet, where it is often used to describe "a person who pretends to be a certain type of person". Nowadays, the form and content of cosplay generally refers to the use of costumes, trinkets, props, and disguises to play the role of characters from acg or certain characters from Japanese visual bands and movies.

When it comes to the origins of cosplay, it is generally accepted that the birthplace of cosplay is Japan, which is true if it is based on current cosplay concepts. But if you look at it from a broader perspective, the real birthplace of animated costumes is definitely the United States in the Western Hemisphere, and even if you really want to explore the original form of costumes, I can tell you without hesitation that the earliest appearance of costumes was in the centuries before the first year of the AD.

Because whether it was the Greek priests who were in costume around 1000 BC, or the great bards of the 8th century BC who wrote the two great Greek epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey***, he or she was actually playing the role of someone else. The former, who became the prophets and seers of later times, successfully pretended to be the existence of the apostles of the gods, while the latter, like the originators of present-day stage plays, pretended to be the deeds of those singable heroes with great skill.

Development of cosplay in China:

Cosplay was introduced to China relatively late in the game, and the first cosplay event in Taiwan was held on August 27, 1995, on the first floor of SAGAWORLD in Kaohsiung, but it was rumored to be not very large in scale, and most of the characters were from video games. But it was said that the scale was not big at that time, and the characters were mostly from video games. After that, on October 13, 1996, a fall party was held by the "Super Orange Group" at Taipei's Baby Bear Restaurant, which was widely publicized before the party and known to many people, but the scale was still small.

This situation continued until mid-February 1997, when three events were held in a row and the number of costumers began to grow, and it has since become a feature of the Taiwanese costuming scene. Since then, the number of dress-up events in Taiwan has been increasing year after year, and the number of locations has developed from the north to the central and southern parts of the country, so the popularity of dress-up activities in Taiwan can be seen from this. In contrast, the mainland appeared to dress up later, until 1998 when the domestic start of the Comic-Con only had some sporadic spontaneous personal dress-up show.

But because of the maturity of dress-up in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, dress-up on the mainland has grown rapidly and steadily, and in August 2000 the first dress-up contest in mainland China was successfully held. In the following year, Huayi Company, with the help of its great influence on online games, started the "2001 Stone Age Best Costume Contest" under the name of its main product "Stone Age".

At the same time, because of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing and other areas in the past few years in the frequent opening of the Comic Con and the exhibition of the same person, so that today's mainland dress up also has a certain degree of scale. As a result of the popularity of games on the mainland and the influence of foreign anime, more people are beginning to enjoy dressing up, and there are a variety of dress-up groups on the Internet that have come to the forefront.

Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia - Costume Games