Cospa (コスパ, Kosupa?) is a Japanese clothing company specializing in the production of cosplay costumes and other apparel for the otaku fan base. The company started in May 1995 as the child company of Broccoli. The name "Cospa" comes from an acronym for "Contents Communication Service Partner
Net Idols in Fiction
* In the anime and manga, Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei. Kotonon, one of the net idols in the show, in real life is obese and unattractive. Her website of heavily photoshopped images is extremely popular. She's using a software named Photoshocker, a parody of Adobe Photoshop. A real-life net idol is also mentioned on the show but she was given a pseudonym.
Net Idols By Country
Philippines - Catherine Guittierez a.k.a. Alicia Mayer formerly known as Alicia Bonifacio is a Filipina celebrity. Born in the Philippines. She first gained fame through her personal website containing her sexy photos that eventually lead to her acting career and now a mom to be. She was crowned as Miss Internet Philippines and in 2007 Alicia posed for PETA wearing only a bikini made from lettuce as for her advocasy being a vegan or a vegitarian also against animal cruelty. Alicia was voted as sexiest vegitarian in the world on a poll for that said PETA ad,other stars who were on the same campaign were Pamela Anderson and Maggie Q.
osplay Models
Through its Japanese roots, cosplay models in Japan, US, and throughout the world have begun to take on net idol status. Girls like Francesca Dani and Ginny McQueen have branded themselves through conventions appearances, promotional work, and their websites to massive international followings.
Alternative & Fetish Models
Many mainstream talents found their start on the internet, especially alternative and fetish models, like Dita Von Teese, Tila Tequila, and Masuimi Max. Dita herself is attributed with having the first model site on the net in 1992. Tila can largely owe her fame to sites like Friendster and Myspace. Masuimi is currently transitioning from the net to mainstream through projects like David Lynch's Inland Empire, and hit reality TV shows like Fear Factor.
History
An off-shoot of Japanese Idols, Net Idols, a new genre of idols, emerged in late 1990s. The first "cyber idol" or "virtual idol" was Kyoko Date in 1997. She has a fabricated history, statistics, and her own songs. Meanwhile, gurabia aidoru (グラビアアイドル, i.e. "[photo]gravure idols") such as Yoko Matsugane, Rio Natsume and Eiko Koike have largely appeared skimpily clad in "cheesecake" photographs.
A Net Idol is a Japanese term that is someone who achieves celebrity status through the internet. Unlike an Internet celebrity a net idol is more focused on Japanese pop culture.
Contents
Japan also fosters the cosplay modeling industry more by offering a variety of opportunities for cosplayers to make a name for themselves modeling for print magazines like Cosmode, cosplay photography studios, and being the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. This is done to a smaller degree in other countries.
As part of the cosplay invasion, cosplay models have been in existence almost as long as cosplay. At this time however there are very few cosplay models outside of Japan, with the largest number being in the US and Europe. This is because cosplay modeling is predominately viewed as promotional modeling, which is looked down upon by the modeling industry outside of Asia.
A Cosplay Model , also known as a Cosplay Idol, is someone who models cosplay costumes for anime, manga, or video game companies.
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.
Conventions in America often include both cosplay and costume contests.[8] 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 before hand 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
Anime Convention 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 (see anime) including Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, 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.
Cosplayers in Japan refer to themselves as reyazu (レヤズ?) ; pronounced layers (by writing the word cosplayers in katakana, コスプレヤズ, it is possible to shorten it in this way). Those who photograph players are called cameko, short for "Camera Kozo" or "Camera Boy". The cameko give prints of their photos to the players as gifts. Tensions between players and cameko have increased due to perceived stalker-like behavior among some obsessive males who push female cosplayers to exchange personal email addresses or do private photo sessions. One result of this has been a tightening of restrictions on photography at events such as Comiket.
