Are You a Cosplayer?

你是Cosplayer一族吗?

What is a Cosplay?

"角色扮演" 是什么？

"Cosplay" is an event which people dress up as their favorite character from cartoons, animations and video games and can take photos with them.

角色扮演，一般指人们通过化妆来扮演卡通，动漫作品和游戏中的角色，并允许他人与自己合影。

The word is a compound word made up of "costume" and "play".

COSPLAY是英文Costume Play的简略写法。

History of cosplay

角色扮演的历史

Cosplay's history can be traced back to the 1970s, when merchants selling Star Trek comic books dressed up as Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock as a marketing ploy at the ComicMarket convention held in Tokyo each year.

角色扮演的历史可以追溯到20世纪70年代。在东京每年一度的漫画市场大会上，一些销售《星际迷航》漫画书的商家，会以自己装扮成柯克船长和斯波克先生作为一种营销策略进行宣传销售。

The idea slowly caught on with customers, and now thousands of costume players crowd into ComicMarket every year.

这种理念很受顾客欢迎，现在每年都有数千热衷角色扮演的人涌入漫画市场。

Throughout the country there are believed to be around 50,000 costume players.

据说东京现在大约有5万人喜欢进行角色扮演。

What are players' reasons for cosplaying?

这些人为什么喜欢角色扮演？

"Cosplay to me is a way for me to make great new friends with the same interests as I have, improve my sewing skills, creativity, and let me use my imagination to help bring an amazing characters to life.

"角色扮演对我来说是一个认识志同道合的朋友的绝佳方式，还提升了我的缝纫技术，创造力，使我发挥想象把漫画中的人物扮演的栩栩如生。

I also really enjoy the challenge of making a good costume. I know a lot of people ask me why I cosplay, so these are a few reasons on why I spend so much time and money cosplaying."-- Angela

我还很享受制作精美道具的过程。我知道有许多人会问我为什么进行cospaly, 以上这些就是原因。"---安吉丽娜。

"Have a few reasons why I currently cosplay. I enjoy the challenge of creating something with my bare hands, discovering new ways to design and duplicate complicated outfits and accessories, and finally putting on the final product.

我进行角色扮演有几个理由。 我非常喜欢做手工，寻找做设计或者模仿漫画中服装和配饰的新方法，然后最终做出成品这个过程。

While I enjoy wearing the costumes, I enjoy making them even more.

我喜欢穿这些服饰，更享受制作它们的过程。