Nepal's Cosplay festival brings hundreds of pop culture fans together

People wear costumes and fashion accessories to resemble anime characters on screen and perform different acts during Nepal's annual Cosplay festival called Otaku Jatra which has grown in popularity since 2016.

Celebrated annually the one-day "Costume Play", cosplay fest of "Otaku Jatra" brings in thousands of footfalls and enthusiasts from Nepal embracing the pop culture. This festival started lately in the Himalayan Nation and it got a vigorous presence only after 2016 though it was in existence since the early 21st century. A portmanteau of "Costume Play", cosplay is an activity and performance art where participants wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent mostly a fictional character seen in anime.

"We started small in 2010 and began organizing major events from 2016. We earlier used to do multi-cultural events associated with pop culture such as fan art competitions, cosplay, gaming. Now what we actually are trying to do is to bring all the elements of pop culture on a single platform making it more fun-filled and mix pop culture, anime and comic. This started in 2016," Abhinav Das Shrestha, one of the organizing panel members of Otaku Jatra in Nepal told ANI.

People dressed as characters often interact to create a subculture and also perform role-playing tasks in venues apart from the stage. Anime, cartoons, comic books, Mangas, TV series and video games are the main source for cosplays.

"Finding them in real-life situations feels like dreams come true. It's a very awesome feeling because since our childhood we have been seeing them on the screen but seeing them in real life it kinda feels like living our dream. It feels awesome," Samita Shah, one of the spectators told ANI.

It is believed that the tradition of cosplay came out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions in New York in the early 20th century. The word cosplay is said to have been coined from Japan in mid of 20th century.

Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centred on cosplay activities. Cosplay is popular among both genders.

( With inputs from ANI )