Mai Shiranui Cosplay Pictures

Cosplay (???? kosupure), a contraction (or portmanteau) of the English words "costume" and "play", is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, and video games, and, less commonly, Japanese live action television shows, Japanese movies, or Japanese pop music bands. However, in some circles, "cosplay" has been expanded to mean simply wearing a costume.

The most specific anecdote about the origin of the word "cosplay" was that Nov Takahashi (from a Japanese studio called Studio Hard) coined the term "cosplay" as a contraction of the English-language words "costume play" while he was attending the 1984 Los Angeles Science Fiction Worldcon. He was so impressed by the hall and masquerade costuming there that he reported about it frequently in Japanese science fiction magazines. This ultimately triggered Japanese cosplay.

See Mai Shiranui pics and history HERE!