Sporting a blue wig, an eye patch and a white lace gown embellished with a pair of wings, 15-year-old Candice Chen looks ready to hit a costume party.
She is among a growing number of Taiwanese youth who call themselves "cosers" and follow a fashion that aims to combine costume and roleplay based on characterizations in Japanese animation, or "manga."
As the fashion catches on across Taiwan, experts have said that it could help young people break out of the strictures forced on them by the traditional Chinese pressure to conform.
PHOTO: AFP
Since "cosplay" first hit Taiwan a little over a decade ago, its enthusiasts have been dressing up like their favorite manga characters and gathering at cafes, parks and manga expos across the nation.
"I started reading Japanese manga in elementary school. I like characters in action and adventure stories and want to be like them," said Chen, describing the role she portrays as "spirited and sportive."
In Taipei where large-scale manga expos are held several times a year at stadiums and conference centers, hundreds of cosplayers gather to show off their flamboyant outfits and accessories.
At a recent expo at National Taiwan University's stadium, cosers were seen portraying a wide variety of roles from princesses to maids, space warriors, martial arts masters and even Death.
"Cosplay helps me release pressure from studies and boost my self-confidence," said a 19-year-old coser who asked to be identified only by her nickname "Dawn."
Lawmaker Cheng Yun-peng (
"Taiwan's education does not encourage students to express themselves, to stand out or face the public. Young cosers who dare to do so might achieve more than their shy peers," he said. "We should not look down on cosplay as a teenage subculture. I don't see why adults can't do cosplay to relive their childhood dreams. It can become a family recreation."
Huang Chen-yuan (
"Cosplay can be a form of art for teenagers who seek to demonstrate their ideas, creativities and even a sense of fashion through designing," said Huang.
The appeal of cosplay appears to be spreading beyond youth.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (
"The popularity of cosplay shows that Taiwan's society is more diverse and less suppressed as time changes. Cosplay would have been deemed as corrupting morals decades ago," said Huang.
In Taiwan, role-playing dates back to around 1995 but has been gaining in popularity in recent years largely thanks to the Internet, said Mio Chang, supervising editor of bi-monthly cosplay magazine Cosmore.
"Cosers admire the `manga' or `anime' characters and want to imitate them. It is a passion for them to recreate the looks, the costumes and props," said Chang, herself a coser for many years. "It is similar to worshipping heroes. It's like when we were little we tied a sheet around our neck like a cape and pretended to be Superman saving the world."
Most of Cosmore's readership are high school girls, who also make up the bulk of cosers, said Chang.
The business potential of a niche cosers market appears promising with new cafes, tailor shops and props stores opening up to cater for the growing number of cosers.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai