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Originally Posted by kj1980
Question: How is cosplaying viewed outside of Japan?
Reason why I ask this question is because I do know that in the United States, you have a day called Halloween where you go out trick-or-treating for candy by wearing costumes. Now, is Halloween reserved for kids like "animations/cartoons are for kids," or do adults go along as well? If so, then I refer back to the original question, "are people outside of Japan more open to costume-wearing events?"
Comparison to Japan: over here, cosplay is actually disdained and frowned upon as "you are already grown up and you're still playing around wearing costumes!? Get a life!" Hence, most cosplayers keep their hobby as a secret from their regular social friends to risk painful looks and judgments, while maintaining cosplay-friends in the sharing of their same interests.
Another bad trend that evolved is that cosplaying has turned into something of an erotic nature here. You see brothels and parlors that advertise "girl cosplay fun! Starting from 30,000 yen!" Hence, you have more social discomfort in cosplaying. A nice Japanese proverb would be: "It's easier to point out the bads than investigating into the goods."
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I don't think Halloween makes a good counter point for North American cosplay. This has to do, mainly, with the origins of Halloween. Unlike the holiday it has become, it is actually (historically anyway) a very dark and bloody celebration. I'll give you the abridged version of it's origin...
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach. Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.
The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role. The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine.
For a more accurate comparison I'd recommend something like a Star Trek or Star Wars convention. Your comparison with Japan in this case would be dead accurate. Passer-bys can often be heard yelling things like "You're already grown up and you're still playing around in costumes!? Get a life!" or the more contemporary, "Losers!" These people aren't viewed too highly socially and often do the same things as their Japanese counterparts; hide it, don't tell anyone what they do in their free time and form small tightly knit communities.
The only place I know of where the selling point of a resturant is the costumed waitresses is in the small town of Vulcan Alberta. The town's main tourist and economical point is it's name sake (Vulcan, like Spock's species). The town is filled with Star Trek themed stores and diners. At spock Burger all the waitresses dress as Star Trek-ish aliens... Yeah, it's creepy.
