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Roleplay and Cosplay are commonly understood as forms of immersion. However, they diverge in several aspects. Let's unravel them together right away!
1. What is Roleplay?
Roleplay fundamentally means “to inhabit a role” – altering behavior, gestures, and thoughts to embody another person. Simply put, when engaging in roleplay as a character, you imagine yourself as that character. You act, converse, and make decisions as if you were the character you're portraying.
Roleplay terminology manifests in activities such as:
- Engaging in general role-playing in theater productions, movies.
- Roleplay can also occur in real life for amusement, like clowning at birthday parties, playing Werewolf, playing Cat and Mouse.
- Simulating role-playing in internship, educational environments. For instance, a seasoned doctor simulating emergency procedures for trainees to observe.
- Participating in role-playing within electronic games.
Playing with dolls is also a form of role-playing when a child imagines themselves as a mother. The little girl will pretend to behave like an adult and take care of her “child.”
2. What is Cosplay?
Cosplay derives from “costume” and “roleplay”. Hence, we can conceive that Cosplay is heavily focused on costume play. Cosplay caters to fans of comics, anime, tokusatsu, games, sci-fi movies, famous novels... Players craft appearances resembling their beloved characters and mimic their gestures, voices.
They often participate in events, festivals related to beloved fictional characters. There are even events specifically organized for cosplayers to showcase their transformation abilities.
3. The difference between Roleplay and Cosplay
Form, Performance
Cosplay emphasizes costume, appearance. Cosplayers strive to faithfully emulate a specific fictional character's likeness. They do so by creating outfits that are very similar and realistic.
Cosplayers create the illusion that characters are stepping out of comics, novels, games,... Sometimes, they also incorporate Roleplay elements to make the character more vivid and impressive. However, the majority of cosplayers engage primarily in dressing up, costume design, and photography.
Narrative Aspect
Similar to acting, Roleplay is when we fully embody another character (either self-created or pre-existing). You have to rely on the character's background story, perform the tasks assigned to them. Simultaneously, you must act, behave as if you are them.
Roleplay is further supported by setting, props, and scripts,... so that roleplayers can act in accordance with the character.
The men in the image below are not only wearing medieval costumes, but they are also engaging in simulated combat and battling each other as if a war is raging.
Take the game of Cat and Mouse for example. When participating in this game, you will be assigned the role of either Cat or Mouse. Meanwhile, others will form a circle, holding hands and raising them to create a gap. Upon the command “start,” if you are the Mouse, you must flee from the Cat, and vice versa.
Thus, when engaging in Roleplay, we emphasize storytelling, tales of cats and mice, stories of medieval warriors, and so on...
Conclusion
Fundamentally, Roleplay is when you truly immerse yourself in the character and act under their role. You can dress up as a vampire. A vampire with an eye-catching appearance for photo shoots is called Cosplay. But when you start fearing light, appearing mysterious, and being sensitive to blood, that's when it's called Roleplay.
