What is Cosplay?

Upon my arrival at home, I tackled my homework and then raided the Internet, looking up any sites about cosplays. All I could find out about cosplays was that it was just essentially play-acting in costumes. Cherry, Hector, and Lisa weren't wrong when they said that cosplays were developed in Japan and consisted of people dressing up as their favorite characters and re-enacting scenes from their favorite shows and movies. Most of the time, people attended conventions dressed as their favorite characters.

I had never gone to any conventions, or at least that was, until Billy's role-playing games led to all sorts of gaming conventions and we all had to go, and I generally regarded any act of wearing costumes to be a waste of time.

Before I met Cherry, I had never even given cosplay a single thought. That was, until last year, when some of the people in my middle school were dressing up as characters in the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Both movies did not appeal to me, as I had never been a fan of any fantasy stories, nor had I ever read any story with any magic in it.

Anyway, I was now reading about what cosplaying was about and how to dress as a specific character. But how does one recreate a moment on TV? Were there any scripts written? How was it done? Masquerades; I discovered the answer right away. I knew from what they said it wasn't enough to dress and look like a character, you had to act like that character as well. I knew I was in trouble there; I hadn't worn a costume since I was nine years old and who knew the last time I ever watched television. Or a movie for that matter.

The next day, Cherry noticed me, pulled me aside, and said, "Still reading those classics, I see?"

"In my defense," I said, "no one else reads them. Today's stories fail to impress me."

"Give them a chance," said Cherry. "You'll never know. Oh, and the next meeting is at the Japanese center on Saturday. No need to push boundaries; the student president is quite strict. We've already done enough damage." She left and I was still hanging with so many unanswered questions. Questions that would have to be answered at the meeting on Saturday. But what was I to do until then?

Well, I had some things that I must do and then I had some things that I had to figure out. I had to figure out this whole cosplay thing, which would mean I had to open my eyes and see what they meant, and find myself in that strange world.