Fantasy

Fantasy Reenactment

A variation on the theme of Historical Reenactment is Fantasy and it takes elements of historic weapons, clothing, or artifacts and blends them with a creative current history. For example, the Society for Creative Anachronism blends medieval customs, dress, and activities within fantasy kingdoms.

Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of technological and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction).

In popular culture, the genre of fantasy is dominated by its Medievalist form, especially since the worldwide success of the Lord of the Rings and other Middle-earth related books by J.R.R. Tolkien. In its broadest sense however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today.

Traits of Fantasy

The identifying traits of fantasy are the inclusion of fantastic elements in a self-coherent (internally consistent) setting. Within such a structure, any location of the fantastical element is possible: it may be hidden in, or leak into the apparently real world setting, it may draw the characters into a world with such elements, or it may occur entirely in a fantasy world setting, where such elements are part of the world.

Within a given work, the elements must not only obey rules, but for plot reasons, must also contain limits to allow both the heroes and the villains means to fight; magical elements must come with prices, or the story would become unstructured.

American fantasy, starting with the stories chosen by John W. Campbell, Jr. for the magazine Unknown, is often characterized by internal logic. That is, the events in the story are impossible, but follow "laws" of magic, and have a setting that is internally consistent.

Fantasy Subgenres

The fantasy genre has spawned many new subgenres with no clear counterparts in the myths or folklore upon which the tradition of fantasy storytelling is based, although inspiration from mythology and folklore remains a consistent theme. Since the rise of popular fantasy fiction in the twentieth century, the fantasy genre is often subdivided into a number of branches.

However, like all discussions of genre, there are very few definitions of any of the subgenres that can be called 'definitive' to cover every and only work of that subgenre. These new subgenres are frequently extended back to include earlier works.

Although many forms of alternate history are classified as science fiction, alternate histories where magic works or fantastic creatures abound are classified as fantasy.

The characteristics that separate it from historical fantasy and contemporary fantasy are that the history has both clear differences and clear connections to history and geography.

Cosplay

Cosplay, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art whose participants outfit themselves, with often-elaborate costumes and accessories, as a specific character. Characters are usually sourced in various Japanese and East Asian media, including manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, and fantasy movies. Other sources include performers from J-pop, J-rock, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories (such as stories by the band Sound Horizon), novels, and objects from cyberspace or the real world that are unique and dramatic (especially if they have or can be given an anthropomorphic form).

Cosplay participants ("cosplayers") form a subculture centered around wearing their costumes and reenacting scenes or inventing likely behavior inspired by their chosen sources. In some circles, the term cosplay has been broadened to include simply wearing a costume, without special consideration given to enacting characters in a performance context.

Conventions ("Cons") activity in the United States and Canada has become a much larger and much more popular trend in the 2000s. With the added public attention coming from such popular animated series imported from Japan (a.ka. Anime) including Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, Death Note, Inuyasha and Bleach, cosplayers and the anime world have peeked their heads into the world of mainstream pop culture, on at least a relatively underground scale.

More and more convention-goers cosplay as their favorite characters from their favorite anime, and thus, the cosplay and anime subcultures have been able to have enough influence to further the creation of anime conventions to accommodate for the increasing number of cosplayers.

Conventions

In America conventions often include both cosplay and costume contests. The cosplay, or "masque" (masquerade), is a skit contest done in cosplay costume. The costume contest is often a test of skill, design, and audience reaction. The contestants are judged either beforehand or on stage and then walk across said stage while the audience cheers (or not, depending on the etiquette of the venue). The increased popularity of convention costuming has led to the addition of several relatively new cosplay-based events, adding to the traditional masquerade and hall costume contests. Such events include the Anime Dating Game and Cosplay Human Chess, where participating cosplayers act out their characters' role in the game accordingly.

Cosplay in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom differs from Japanese cosplay culture in some ways. Cosplay concerning Star Trek, Star Wars, other science fiction worlds, Renaissance-era characters, and historical re-enactments (e.g. Civil War battles), especially at science fiction conventions, are far more popular in America than they are in Japan. Alternatively, some costumes that might be seen as in bad taste elsewhere (such as Nazi uniforms from certain comics or games) may be seen at events in Japan.

Competition has led to the development of many cosplay groups that plan for conventions months in advance. Non-competitive cosplay can often be seen at opening nights for science-fiction and fantasy movies, especially those with an established following. Even in small towns, some cosplayers wait in line for hours before showings of movies in franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Even cult hits like Serenity have drawn opening night cosplay. In the UK, US and elsewhere, fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show attend screenings of the cult film in the costumes of its characters. This tradition began soon after the film's release in 1975. More...