Paper short abstract:

Paper analyses mixed city culture in Estonia, on example of cosplay and Asian cultural events. 2007 and 2018 student inquiries showed that Asian culture and languages are highly valued and important part of youth culture.

Paper long abstract:

The history of cosplay in Estonia is related to the AniMatsuri festival that started in Tartu 12 years ago. A characteristic of AniMatsuri is that it involves many different events related to Japanese culture, such as a tea ceremony, reading manga, a cosplay competition, karaoke, traditional Japanese games and videogames, minifairs and demonstrations of Japanese martial arts (kendo, aikido), etc. People between the ages 12-40 visit AniMatsuri, but similarly to Japan, the people participating in the cosplay competition are usually around 20 years of age. Due to the popularity of the event, there are also performance opportunities during festivals like JAFF(Japanese Animation Film Festival) in Tallinn and even PÖFF(Pimedate ööde filmifestival/ Dark Nighs Film Festival).

2007 and 2018 student inquiries (over 6000 students) showed that Asian culture and languages are highly valued and important part of youth culture. In ten years it is more visible in city environment that there has been an increase in interest in Asian culture.

As of late, Estonian cosplayers have also visited events such as Unicon in Latvia, Nyaaa! In Lithuania, Desucon in Finland, EuroCosplay in London and participated in events in Japan, etc.

Cosplay is considered to be an aesthetic practice and it has been studied as a performative activity (Lamerichs 2011). Researchers have also highlighted the creative performative and ritual behaviour of cosplayers (Jenkins 2010) as well as the notion of disguise that underlies cosplay. My presentation will compare cosplay events in different communities.