Kigurumi
Encyclopedia
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
name for costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
d performers who represent cartoon characters, often animals. The name comes from the Japanese verb and noun . These performers appear at shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
s, theme parks, and anime convention
Anime convention
An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels...
s. The costumed character
Costumed character
right|200px|thumb|Millie, once costumed character mascot of the [[Brampton, Ontario|City of Brampton]] in [[Ontario]], [[Canada]], is now the [[Brampton Arts Council]]'s representative.A costumed character wears a costume that covers the performer's face...
s found in Disneyland, on children's shows such as Barney the Dinosaur, and roaming the sidelines of sports events as mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
s are also included in the Japanese term kigurumi. Frequently their appearance serves a festive promotional purpose and they are often employed to entertain audiences of children. Ganguro
Ganguro
Ganguro is an alternative fashion trend of blonde or orange hair and tanned skin among young Japanese women that peaked in popularity around the year 2000. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo were the centers of ganguro fashion...
, a style of Japanese street fashion
Japanese street fashion
Japan began to emulate Western fashion during the middle of the 19th century. By the beginning of the 21st century it had altered into what is known today as 'street fashion'. The term 'street fashion' is used to describe fashion where the wearer customizes outfits by adopting a mixture of current...
, employs kigurumi costumes as personal dress. Popular outfits include Pikachu
Pikachu
is one of the species of Pokémon creatures from the Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series...
, Winnie the Pooh, Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty
is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, first designed by Yuko Shimizu. She is portrayed as a female white Japanese bobtail cat with a red bow. The character's first appearance on an item, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974 and brought to the United States...
, elephants, dinosaurs, dogs, cows, pigs, and pandas.
Anime kigurumi
Otaku
is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga or video games.- Etymology :Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family , which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun...
and cosplay
Cosplay
, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction...
circles is anime kigurumi. In this style of representation humanoid characters are portrayed through the use of masks and bodysuits (the bodysuit is known in Japan as a zentai
Zentai
Zentai is a term for skin-tight garments that cover the entire body. The word is a contraction of zenshin taitsu...
) that completely covers the bodies of cosplayers. The performer is known as an animegao
Animegao
A doller is a cosplayer who performs a variant of kigurumi cosplay. The face is fully covered with a mask, usually meant to look like a human cartoon character, and the costume of the character is worn. In Japan most cosplayers refer to this style as...
or "doller". A doller outfit consists of a full bodysuit, usually in a fleshtone color, combined with clothing and accessories appropriate for the character. A mask covers the head with a wig and perhaps a hat to complete the look. The performer looks through eyeholes in the mask.
Dollers in Japan often perform on stage in promotional events for anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
and other film and television shows (such as Tokyo Mew Mew
Tokyo Mew Mew
, also known as Mew Mew Power, is a Japanese shōjo manga series written by Reiko Yoshida and illustrated by Mia Ikumi. It was originally serialized in Nakayoshi from September 2000 to February 2003, and later published in seven tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from February 2001 to April 2003...
, a children's program). Though still very much a niche speciality in the cosplay world, this style of portraying a character has become somewhat more popular in Asia since the 1980s and attracts some interest in North America as well. Two of the more well known vendors for doller costume supplies are Dolphin Factory and Build Up Studio SIGMA in Japan.
Because most dollers are men, portrayals of female characters often represent a form of crossplay
Crossplay
Crossplay, a portmanteau of crossdressing and cosplay, is cosplay in which the person dresses up as a character of a different gender. Crossplay's origins lie in the anime convention circuit, though, like cosplay, it has not remained exclusive to the genre.-Female-to-male crossplay:In most...
. A long tradition exists in Japan of male stage actors portraying women on stage, as for many centuries women were not allowed to perform in public.
Fursuit
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
costumes, or fursuits depending on the context. Fursuits are mascot-style costumes that represent animals and cartoon characters according to established styles within the furry fandom
Furry fandom
Furry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes...
. Such suits completely cover the performer's body and are often padded as necessary to render the appropriate shape.
Variations of fursuits exist informally called "partials" in which only a costume head and costume hands/arms are worn, with standard clothing covering the rest of the body. Partials typically, but not always, include standard shoes rather than fursuit feet-paw-shoes, due to the fact that the wearer is trying to look casual, and the costume feet would be an additional effort to create. Also, keeping furred feet soles from being ruined while walking is already a problem for people wearing standard fursuits, who sometimes create sandals to protect the soles.
Disguise pajamas
Another subset of kigurumi employs full-body animal pajamas with hoods or hats styled after animals or cartoon characters. Called "disguise pajamas", the clothing is normally worn non-commercially as Japanese street fashionJapanese street fashion
Japan began to emulate Western fashion during the middle of the 19th century. By the beginning of the 21st century it had altered into what is known today as 'street fashion'. The term 'street fashion' is used to describe fashion where the wearer customizes outfits by adopting a mixture of current...
. The wearers are referred to in Japan as kigurumin. The clothing does not function as a performance costume. The pajama outfits tend to be made of thin material and conform to the body in the manner of normal clothing. The hoods or caps do not cover the face.
Disguise pajamas can be purchased from a number of retailers. Preference is for creatures widely regarded as cute: cats, bears, dogs, rabbits and the like, and for characters found in TV shows, anime, and movies. Popular characters include Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
creatures such as Pikachu
Pikachu
is one of the species of Pokémon creatures from the Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series...
, InuYasha
InuYasha
, also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008...
animals such as Kirara, Disney creations, and other well-known characters such as Jack Skellington
Jack Skellington
Jack Skellington is the protagonist in the 1993 Disney film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack is the "Pumpkin King" of Halloween Town and lives in a fantasy world based solely on the Halloween holiday...
(Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
's Nightmare Before Christmas) and Stitch (Lilo and Stitch). SAZAC is one of the most respected and widely known Japanese manufacturers of disguise pajamas.
External links
- Kigurumin Community on LivejournalLiveJournalLiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
: Community specifically dedicated to Animal Pajama culture and fashion.