Heroes Of Cosplay is a recent reality show on Syfy channel. It started in mid-August and continues tonight. The show itself is pretty awesome. It follows a select group of veterans and n00bs. The main star of the show is Yaya Han. However, it does focus on a group of other cosplayers.
Cosplay itself is a shorten version of "costume play". You can say that costume play has been happening for thousands of years. In its current form, cosplay of the fans, it started in the 1990s at Japan when fans of popular anime dressed up for events and conventions. That moved to the US of A in the late 1990s with the same type of anime worship for its own at US based anime conventions. I was first exposed to this via a monthly article in the now defunct print magazine, Animerica. The site cosplay.com was something I visited quite often at the turn of the 2000s. I remember the Anaheim based Anime Expo starting to focus events on cosplay at the turn of the century. However, it was only a passing fancy and quickly fell off my radar of things to follow in geekdom.
Fast forward to the late 2000s, cosplay has taken over and its very common to see people dress up at all the conventions now. Comic book, anime, electronics, or some other geek approved functions, you'll get cosplay.
And now, there's a reality show about them. After binge watching the first three episodes, I am hooked. These gals and guys do what I wished was around when I was a wee lad. Getting to dress up as my favorite characters and playing them in public. I'll dress up as Yang Guo or Chu Liu Xiang when Wuxia cosplay makes it big!
Full episodes of Season One here.
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