Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure?), short for "costume play",[1] is a type of performance art whose participants outfit themselves, with often-elaborate costumes and accessories, as a specific character. Characters are usually sourced in various Japanese and East Asian media, including manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, and fantasy movies. Other sources include performers from J-pop, J-rock, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories (such as stories by the band Sound Horizon), novels, and objects from cyberspace or the real world that are unique and dramatic (especially if they have or can be given an anthropomorphic form).
Cosplay participants ("cosplayers") form a subculture centered around wearing their costumes and reenacting scenes or inventing likely behavior inspired by their chosen sources. In some circles, the term cosplay has been broadened to include simply wearing a costume, without special consideration given to enacting characters in a performance context.
Cosplay and the sex industry
In Japanese, the term can also mean—and may originate from[citation needed]—the use of costumes for sexual purposes, in which case the "play" refers not to dressing up, but sexual play while dressed up. The term hence overlaps what would usually be known in English as sexual roleplaying or sexual fetishism: for example, wearing a schoolgirl uniform before or during sex would be known as seifuku cosplay (制服コスプレ, seifuku cosplay?), and many Japanese love hotels offer costume rental services.
In the Japanese sex industry, sex clubs that specialize in sexual cosplay are known as image clubs. In addition to standard fetishistic standbys (schoolgirl, nurse, policewoman, etc.), an increasing number, pioneered by the now-defunct Wedding Bell chain, cater to otaku with staff dressing up as anime characters.