What is cosplay

Once a subculture, it was given public recognition thanks to Gainax's "Otaku no Video", one anime depicting anime Otaku (Otaku is the japanese generic word for "fan").

A lot of time has passed but during those decade, the hobby was spread outside the japan boundaries thanks to the success of the japanese comic and anime culture.
Infact, there are strong cosplay communities in most of Europe and America. Italy in particolar, being exposed to anime and manga (japanese Comics) since the middle of the 80s has produced an impressive number of Cosplayers and almost every comic fair has his fair cut of people strolling around in costumes.

Being a cosplayer is a state of mind: there's more than simply create or buy the costume. Usually people know deeply the characters that they are going to portray: it's almost necessary because you have to win the approval of the other cosplayers. Almost always people ask you to take some picture and you're required to copy the "signature positions" of the character you are playing.
It's not required to act, unless you decide to create a gag for the audience, but you should at least mimic some of the expressions and poses of the character.

In the picture: Sermemole is Sorceress from "HE-MAN". Link to her site

Some cosplayers prefer to buy the costume in shops (called "Cospa Shops" in japan) or from sites like cosplay.com . Other people prefers to create it from start to end. (but also them have to buy twigs)

During the contests there is much debate about what should be more important: although i appreciate artisan works, i think that sometimes a good acting performance could supply for less-than-excellent materials.

Picture by Mcicco (Wolverine) : website