•Created from scratch using fabric

•Generic in nature

•Modified from pre-existing materials

Cosplay costumes are not considered to be an “original creation” if more than 25% of the outfit’s articles fit the following criteria:

•Personally commissioned specifically for cosplay purposes,

•Purchased specifically as a cosplay sale or replica item

•Purchased items with no modifications

Wigs are considered an article of your cosplay. A wig which requires modifications in the form of styling, cutting, dying, etc. is considered an “original creation”. Short, unaltered wigs of natural colors are items not specifically designed for cosplay use and fit under the “original creation” rules.

Final Fantasy XII received universally high scores, and earned numerous awards in various categories from noted video game publications. Selling more than two million copies in Japan, it became the fourth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of 2006 worldwide. As of March 2007, the game has shipped over 5.2 million copies worldwide. A sequel, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, was released for the Nintendo DS in 2007.

If you’ve been playing Final Fantasy cosplay series on your PS2 for a while, you must have had the urge of upgrading your characters’ weapons as soon as possible. Having the ultimate weapons is a dream for every Final Fantasy player. Although it is not crucial in winning the game, it just feels great to have the best weapon for every character so that killing every enemy will be a breeze. In Final Fantasy 12, the last installment of the series on PS2, the strongest weapon happens to be a spear named the Zodiac Spear.

There are two ways to obtain this cosplay weapon. One method can be used to obtain it at quite an early stage of the game, while the other requires you to wait a bit longer.

For the first method of obtaining the Zodiac Spear cosplay costumes, there is a rule that you have to follow or else you this method will not work. You must not open four specific chests from the beginning of the game until reaching the Necrohol of Nabudis where the spear is located. The four chests are:

1. The chest in front of Old Dalan’s place at the southern end of Rabanastre Lowtown.

2. The chest in the Rabanastre Palace Cellar. Do not open the one at the southeast corner of the map. There will be either one or two chests that may appear there. To be safe, don’t open any of them.

3. The chest in the room at Nalbina Dungeons where you regain all your equipment back. There are more than one chest in the room so to be safe, just don’t open any of them.

4. The chest at the eastern-most section of the Phon Coast. There are 16 chests there arranged neatly near the shore. Don’t open any of them.

After you’ve resisted the urge to open these chests, the next is finding the Zodiac Spear which is located in the Necrohol of Nabudis. At the early stage of the game, do not fight any of the enemy here or you’ll die instantly. The strategy is to run as fast as you can while evading any of the attacks.

Once you enter the Necrohol of Nabudis, run for your life until you reach the Cloister of the Highborn. You can check the map to know where you are. From where you come in, take a right turn and then the next left. Run along a corridor heading north then take the first left. There should be 16 chests in this room, one of which contains the Zodiac Spear. The Zodiac Spear chest is the second chest from the left in the first row. If the spear is not there, you must have opened any of the forbidden chest mentioned earlier.

Remember, this is a one time opportunity only. If you have opened any of the chest mentioned before, you will never get the Zodiac Spear this way.

The other way of getting the Zodiac Spear is extremely difficult and time consuming as you rely on the chances of the Zodiac Spear appears in a chest in Henne Mines. The chest has a 10 percent chance to spawn, a 10 percent chance to contain an item and 10 percent chance to contain the Zodiac Spear. So theoretically, you’re facing a 1/1000 chance of getting the Zodiac Spear from the chest.

If you’re the unlucky ones to miss the first method, then what you need to do is to defeat 10 espers and complete the Mineflayer hunt. Then speak to the Geomancer in Jahara to have someone open up a secret area in Henne Mines. Get to the Phase 2 Dig area and look for an area not shown on the map. The chest can either be there or not. If it’s there, equip diamond armlet before you open it to be able to get the Zodiac Spear.

Recent cosplay events in Asia show an increase in the popularity of non-Asian fantasy and science fiction characters. This reflects the international success of films such as The Dark Knight, The Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and their associated books. The Harry Potter characters created by J. K. Rowling are popular with female cosplayers in Japan.

Cosplay is a youth subculture. The main feature of cosplay is that participants enjoy dressing up as their favorite characters from anime, comic books, and video games. It has developed to include, particularly when adopted in the west, people dressing up as characters from popular non-Asian fantasy and science fiction movies and games, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and World of Warcraft.

As a fashion concept, cosplay has also been seen to extend towards a style of dressing up not only as established, famous characters, but as characters that the enthusiast has developed themselves. This is often a crossover into the Japanese Lolita style of dress, where girls wear a distinctive, cute style. This allows girls who like the look but do not want to fully adopt the Lolita style as street dress to enjoy the less serious “Cosplay Lolita” style at cosplay events and venues.

Additional trends and sub-genres in cosplay include “crossplay”, which involves wearing the costume of a character of the opposite sex, and participants called “dollars”, who wear full body suits and masks to play characters without their own faces on show, rather like sports mascots.

Cosplay is usually something that takes place at parties, concerts, conventions and venues where likeminded people meet to show off their cosplay costumes, socialize, and photograph other enthusiasts. The most popular area for these kind of activities is the fashionable Harajuku area of Tokyo. In the district of Akihabara, a number of cosplay themed cafes have been opened during the last decade to cater to the cosplayers, and the staff all wear anime themed costumes themselves.

Twice a year, hundreds of thousands of cosplayers flock to Tokyo to visit the Comiket convention and market – the largest event in the world for anime cosplay enthusiasts.

The concept of dressing up and of taking part in role play based around popular characters also exists in the west, where cosplay style outfits are worn to attend science fiction and comic book conventions. The largest of these is held annually in San Diego.

If you don’t want to create an entire Web site, it’s worth considering using an already established Web site that allows for creation and sharing of anime cosplay characters. Blasting Art hosts online creation of anime characters and other graphic animations. Plus, it includes a forum and community for feedback and discussion. If Blasting Art doesn’t satisfy your needs, keep hunting. New sites are constantly coming and going.

While MySpace and Facebook don’t contain applications for creation of anime characters, they can host uploaded drawings. The advantage of posting anime characters on MySpace and Facebook is the opportunity to share your art with a wide audience. Several sites cater to anime fans. It’s free, and a surefire way to put your anime characters on display.

If you create your anime drawings using programs like Photoshop, GIMP or Paint, you can upload the resulting files directly to a Web site. However, keep in mind that you will need to upload a file that is a manageable size. If the file is too large, then your friends’ computers will have trouble downloading the files, or your destination site won’t let you upload it. For example, Blasting Art says that if your images are over 1000 pixels wide, a thumbnail of the image won’t appear on the site, so you’ll need to resize it.

Make sure to save a JPEG version of the file that meets the standards of your destination site, and share that instead of the original file. If you draw your anime cosplay costumes on paper, consider investing in a scanner to upload the image. You may get better results using a scanner than taking a photo of your art and uploading it.

Attendees are motivated by the opportunity to get a first look at the latest graphic novels, movies, and toys, and rub against the actors and artists behind it all. It is also a chance for the top anime and manga artists from Hong Kong and the region to showcase their work cosplay costumes.

Over 400 booths displayed sought-after products, from the latest software and games to cosplay costumes, Voltron models and a Michael Jackson figure not available in the U.S.

“We were sold out of some collectibles by the middle of the day,” said Hau Tung-ching of toy dealer, TeensChannel, reflecting the fact that no one there was pinching pennies.

At these conventions, the entertainment and toy industry takes the opportunity to announce upcoming films and other products. Bandai, Microsoft, and Nintendo were a few of the major exhibitors cosplay sale.

It was also a chance for Hong Kong fans to meet their Japanese heroes and heroines in person. For instance, Otaku personaltiy Shokotan Nakagawa gave a concert.

In general animated figures are divided into to categories: traditional had drawn cartoon figures and computer created figures.

If we speak about animation production, usually we notice certain Japanese elements in majority of animated cosplay films. It happens because a lot of animation films contain Japanese background. We may not notice it in images of animated characters but certain cultural peculiarities of Japan are rather clear in some moments. As an example let’s remember such popular animation cartoons as Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. Characters of these films don’t look like Japanese, but there are certain cultural features which are from Japan.

But from other side there are other animation films which don’t have anything in common with Japan cosplay costumes. These are such movies as Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop or Bambi. In fact these cartons can’t be considered as true anime, although certain animation features are present.

Some say that they see absolutely no difference between the two, even going so far as to classify both cartoons and anime  cosplay as ‘childish’ because of the nature of how they are presented, much to the woe of anime fans. Technically, there’s no official difference and they are somewhat correct. But you only have to watch a single episode of any anime series and you’ll see that anime is far more than your usual slapstick comedy man-tripping-on-a-banana-peal early morning cartoons. There is a real and profound difference between the two besides their spellings: Anime is so much more than ‘just a cartoon’.

Cartoons usually have a simple and defined plot. And they’re usually about the good guys fighting the bad guys. Cartoons rarely go beyond that old cliche. Most Anime series, on the other hand, are also about the same good vs. evil but the plots are rarely simple and rarely predictable. You’ll find an element of politics, religion, humanity, and a score of several other abstract concepts within an anime. Whereas cartoons are just about ‘evil’ cats chasing ‘innocent’ mice or a hero defending himself and others from a very evil bully. Anime  cosplay can blur the lines between good and evil so much that you’ll be left wondering which side is really right. Look at the plot of Gundam, there aren’t any good guys or bad guys. They’re both fighting for a cause – a worthy one, and both sides are prepared to do good and evil to achieve their goals. Look at the Wave Country arc of Naruto which is now at Naruto Shippuden. Zabuza, evil as he was, had evoked more sympathetic tears than any of the typical Disney antagonists. There are, however, few exceptions to the ‘cartoons are simple’ rule. There are cartoon series that are far advanced like X-men.

In terms of humor, anime goes beyond the slapstick comedy that cartoons offer. There won’t be any corny joke about the chicken crossing the road with anime. There won’t even be the quintessential banana peal. Anime humor is deep and witty. However, it is to be noted that cartoons are mostly for kids. Anime can be for an adult audience; it mostly is, actually. There are even times when anime plots are hardly suited for children cosplay costumes.

But if you want to get really creative with your Halloween bash, here’s some ideas for turning your party into an all-out anime cosplay extravaganza.

Host A Cosplay/Costume Contest – Forget ghosts and goblins. Encourage your guests to get creative by hosting a cosplay costume contest that rewards the absolute best anime costumes. Rewards with what? Well, that all depends on you. You could give away an MP3 player (the Apple iPod Shuffle can be had for under $35), a selection of Cowboy Bebop posters and wall scrolls or a copy of the latest Claymore DVD, just to name a few.

Click here for ideas on choosing your own cosplay costumes.

Turn On The Big Screen – There are so many good horror and supernatural anime shows out there, the only problem you’ll have is deciding which ones to show. On my list? Claymore, Ghost Hunt, Death Note and Death Note II, Hell Girl and of course the classics such as Vampire Hunter D and Blood: The Last Vampire. You could even host an anime marathon with Black Blood Brothers (it’s only 12 episodes), Hellsing or Gungrave.

Offer Up Some Spooky Manga – For those guests that just want to “hang out,” make sure there’s plenty for them to do. For starters, some good ole’ spooky manga scattered about on coffee tables and counter tops ensures that everyone has something to pique their interest. Good ones to try include VIZ Media’s COWA!, Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun and of course Vampire Knight.

Serve Some Anime Grub – Okay, you can have chips and dips, but don’t forget the miso, dorayaki, happosai and pocky. Don’t want to be quite that extravagant? At least serve up a bowl of ramen!
Of course, you don’t have to stop there. As with any good party, there should be lots of music, dancing and good conversation as well. Perhaps you could mix in a few tracks from a Cowboy Bebop soundtrack in between your favorite tunes or play the “anime quote game” by taking turns speaking famous lines from cosplay shows and having guests guess which series the line is from.

If you’re high school students looking to start a club, you may find this Parents’ guide to anime helpful when arguing that there are anime which can be shown on campus without inundating the school administration with calls from irate parents ranting about the school showing violent animated Japanese pornography. Some of the links in the section Anime as a key to culture on our general resources page and the books listed at our “>anime-related books link may help convince your school’s faculty that an interest in anime might serve an educational purpose. In particular, see Gilles Poitras’ Teacher’s companion to The anime companion cosplay sale.

If your club grows larger than a handful of friends, your showings become public exhibitions, and you should get permission to show the anime you are screening; this way, you don’t have to pretend you’re distracted when the “FBI Warning” comes onto the screen. Most companies recognize the promotional opportunity that club showings represent, and are happy to give permission for you to show the material they have licensed.

These days, getting permission has gotten pretty easy since most companies have email addresses for fan relations, and these people can usually at least put you in contact with the person who can authorize a showing. Some companies even have web-forms you can fill out to get showing permissions!

Is the club just a gathering place for people who like anime to come to meetings and talk? If this is the case, you might not have a big membership depending on your classmates. For an anime club to be successful, it generally needs actual anime cosplay, owned either by the club or officers/members, that can be accessed by other members in some way. Either that, or you’re going to need a bunch of hard-core fans who like just talking about anime.

High school clubs are a little tricky, since they generally have more rules to work. Some clubs have short showings once a week or a few times a month during lunch or after school, in somewhere like a club supervisor’s room. The anime can come from the officers’ collections, though one has to be careful what is shown since many high schools are conservative and may refuse certain shows for violence or sexual themes. One way around that is to have a few parties during some holidays at various officers/members’ houses.

If you can hold meetings outside of school time, that’s great, since showings can be longer. If your club is allowed to own anime and keep a library, even better.

It’s usually good to have a low (or even no) membership fee, since that brings in more people. Club dues are only needed if you’re going to do stuff that takes more than pocket money to accomplish as a club.

He had to walk backwards up the stairs because he was on 10 inch stilts and could not lift his feet high enough to get up the stairs normally. He was off balance because his hands were partially attached to animatronics that controlled arm body armor. He was clad body armor because he was Canti, the friendly robot from the anime series “FLCL.” Scholz was performing in an animation masquerade competition, and the audience wanted their Canti.

Scholz reached the top of the stairs. The attendants in charge of the competition quickly helped him readjust his cosplay before he walked out onto the stage. They tucked the part of his ponytail that had fallen out from behind his LED mask into his headgear and straightened the jacket that covered his red chest plate. Some of the other contestants for the “master’s level” of the masquerade muttered under their breath about the duct tape being used to hold together Scholz’s leg armor, but all that mattered was that he was finally at the stage entrance in one piece.

Duct-tape or not, he was Canti, and the audience ate it up. Scholz/Canti had been so rushed getting up the stairs that his fingers were not entirely in the animatronic hand armor, making it look like he was giving the audience the middle finger. They didn’t care — they still screamed when he finally took the stage.

Scholz was performing in Anime Boston’s most popular event, the cosplay sale competition, called The Masquerade. To cosplay is to dress up as a character, — in this case from an anime – and act in their character. This was Scholz’s fifth year cosplaying, and he decided to sign up for the highest level of the contest.

The 5,000 audience members roared as Scholz performed his skit with his two friends. They were pretending that were playing Guitar Hero, and Canti was losing. Scholz accidentally dropped the toy guitar out of his hand because his arm armor had been put on too hastily. Instead of letting it ruin the skit, he just switched to the costume guitar that Canti always carried in the anime series.

By the time the skit was over, Scholz could barely see out of the costume’s visor, which cut off most of his vision. He was not focused on the noise going on around him. All that mattered was that he had finally accomplished what he had set out to do five years ago; compete in his Canti costume.

It took his friends’ wild gesturing at him to make him realize the MC was yelling to him.

“Hey, hey you! Giant red robot! Stop!” cried MC Michael Lee.

Scholz turned around to once again face the audience, and the lights in the auditorium suddenly went black. The audience gasped in wonder as the 204 LEDs attached to his outfit suddenly lit up and created a dazzling light show. By the time the house lights were turned back on, the audience was on its feet cheering for him.

“That’s why I cosplay from anime,” Scholz said, “because of how complete strangers give you praise for your skills at creating them.”

Anime refers to Japanese animation, and is different from what most Americans view as cartoons. A popular example of anime is the smash hit from the 1990s, “Pokémon”, which exemplifies what is broadly known as the anime “style.” The Japanese Times describes it as “exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs… and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography.”

Scholz said that he started watching anime when he was a kid. “But, like most of the US public we didn’t realize we were watching anime,” he said. “Rerun shows like ‘Speed Racer’ and ‘Battle for the Planets’ were some of the anime I watched back when I could actually willingly wake up before sunrise.”

Scholz is the son of two German immigrants and a first generation American. He says because of that he tended to think “outside of the states” and that it was during his trips to Germany with his parents that he originally developed an interest in anime and manga. His parents supported his interest in a culture different from his own.

“I was the first person in middle school and high school to get onto the ‘Sailor Moon’ and ‘Dragon Ball Z’ kick,” Scholz said. When the animes were still aired on Sunday mornings, Scholz would set his alarm clock early enough to be able to watch them. After they were moved to weekday mornings, he learned to time driving to high school around them.

Japan is well known for its advances in technology, and this obsession with machinery is evident in most animes. The weapons used in “Bleach,” such as the katana, mimick those used by samurai in feudal Japan. The fantastical elements and intense plot lines make it easy for young viewers to be drawn into the worlds created through these popular animes while accepting the subtle aspects of Japanese culture in them.

When animes are brought to American television, they are often altered in content to satisfy conservative television studios. The animes are dubbed English before they are aired, and the translation can end up being extremely different from the original dialogue.

Select scenes and even entire episodes can be cut from a series because the American distributors feel that it is unfit for children’s eyes. This was done infamously to Sailor Moon by the television distributor, DiC. In the first season, five of the original Japanese episodes were cut and two episodes were merged to one because of “excess violence”. Also, two of the characters who were lesbians in the original show became cousins in the American televised version.

Scholz watches whatever animes his friends introduce to him, be it the newest hit on Cartoon Network or an obscure title found on the Internet.

The UMASS Dartmouth student says that college life really increased his ability to watch anime. Not only did he have access to the internet on a daily basis in order to watch animes through file streaming and sharing, he also had the freedom to venture off to “indie places” in Providence.

He was first introduced to the idea of cosplaying in 2003 at the first Anime Boston convention. It was not until his friend suggested that he dress up for the next years’ convention that Scholz realized that anyone could cosplay, not just models hired for specific character advertisement. He decided to dress up as Vash the Stampede from the popular anime “Trigun”.

Backstage at the masquerade competition, Scholz was nervous about going out in front of the growing audience in his costume. When he peeked out from behind a pillar to look at the growing number of spectators, he was surprised at the screams of excitement his anime cosplay elicited from one group of girls.

After his performance, the masquerade coordinator took him aside from the other contestants and suggested that after he received his first award, he should run quickly from the stage because he would be receiving another. “This kind of took the fun out of waiting to find out if I won,” Scholz said. He received two trophies for his costume, as well as numerous prizes.

Anime Boston’s first convention in 2003 drew 4,110 people, including vendors and staff, and had only 14 exhibitors selling anime-related goods. The most recent convention in March drew over 14,000 with 66 vendors, including Cocuaco’s Tokyo Kid.

Scholz returned each year to Anime Boston with a cosplay costume bigger and better than ever. After over three years of working on the project, Scholz introduced his newest masterpiece: the robot Canti from the anime “FLCL”.

“Canti was an inspiration of both genius and insanity,” he says. “With the cosplay world increasing in talent and competing against my past creations I figured I’d go overboard.  I decided on Canti because it was challenging.  Oh, people cut out old computer monitors, but it wasn’t accurate in my eye and vision.”

Scholz pictured a Canti costume that was intricate and honored the anime’s depiction of the robot. In order to do this, he wanted to create a full body suit that would look similar to the metal body Canti had. Instead of the flimsy cardboard cutouts other contestants had used for heads, Scholz wanted to create a head mask that would be able to light up like Canti’s does multiple times during the series. He wanted to make himself into a robot.

The idea seemed brilliant when Scholz first imagined it in 2005. However, after being laid off from his job,  he did not have enough money to continue working on Canti. The fiberglass, plaster, and electronics were all expensive. Scholz was only able to work on building Canti for months at a time because the amount of time and effort it took to put together the pieces of the costume as well as his limited funds. That is why Canti took so long to complete.

“My parents didn’t like my cosplaying until after the first win and I started off to make the next one,” Scholz admits. “My friends enjoyed it; some were amazed by what I put into it. … But when I came to Canti and strived over those years when I had time from occupation and responsibilities, [my parents] found it fun to see it arise from its pieces and were happy to help here and there with electronics and fitting.”

Scholz says that Canti is still in progress, but he presented the costume for the masquerade competition at this year’s Anime Boston regardless. One of the judges said that they saw him as “a walking accessory”.

What the Canti costume did consist of were 204 LEDs, 20 of which were blinking, contained in 14 different sockets on the body armor. Scholz was stilted on 10 inches of piping and plywood covered in foam and fiber glass. He used basic hand animatronics to extend the arm lengths to keep them in proportion with the rest of the body. The body armor was constructed by making plaster shapes and fiber glassing over them.

The final height of the costume rounded out at about 7 and a half feet.

The future looks bright for anime lovers out there. Nickelodeon’s 2004 release of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” produced a show that was an American take on Japanese animation and ended up being extraordinarily popular with a large age-range.

“This equilibrium of thoughts and ideas has influenced a majority of US film and in return has sparked Japan’s creation.  I might be pushing it, but the world might be a better place when we have these medias intermixing,” said Scholz. “Not to say we’ll all become a bean pot, but I feel the growing generations in this time are more understanding and tolerant compared to past generations.”

“Maybe world peace will be found in the global sharing such as anime,” Scholz said. “Yeah, now there’s rambling.”