For my last post today (because I'm not about to give away everything I talk about in my live panel!) we travel to June 1983, and a Japanese publication called MyAnime. In this article, journalist Takahashi Nobuyuki describes fan costumes worn by Japanese fans and labels them with a portmanteau of the words "costume" and "play": Cosplay. This is the first recorded use of the term, and Mr. Takahashi is widely credited with coining the term. A year later, Mr. Takahashi attended Worldcon 1984, where he photographed many groups of American anime fans including a group dressed as characters from Space Battleship Yamato, which was billed in the US as Star Blazers. American costumer Karen Schnaubelt, one of the founders of Costume Con, was the leader of that group. Mr. Takahashi published those photos with an article about American anime fans which was so widely read that the use of the term 'cosplay' took off in Japan. Although the term cosplay was in wide use in Japan, it took longer for the word to make its way throughout the rest of the world. The internet was still in its infancy and casual international communications were still difficult. In the final image, a con book from 1994 makes a point of explaining this new word to American convention attendees. Side note: For many years, even into the 2000's, American, Canadian, and European fans defined 'cosplay' as referring specifically to dressing up as anime characters! Costumes originating from Western media were defined under the term 'costuming'. You can still find old threads debating this verbiage on cosplay.com's forums. It's within the last ten years or so that the Western definition has grown more like the Japanese definition, in Japan, all fan costuming has always been known as cosplay. And that's it for today! I hope you've enjoyed these posts. Actually you know what? I'm gonna give you a bonus post. Be prepared to meet a cosplay masquerade LEGEND! 😉 #chizucon2020 #chizucon #cosplayhistory https://www.instagram.com/p/CENMIW0n6pc/?igshid=1rqcshk2h5lu5