Fashion and nerds don’t generally mix, but a growing bunch of creative, anime-obsessed Australians are breaking down that stereotype by getting their geek on through cosplay.

Cosplay – a combination of costume and role play – originated in Japan as a way for comic, video game and animation fiends to imitate their favourite characters.

It spread to Australia in 2001 and experts say the often expensive and time-consuming hobby is becoming increasingly popular.

Bryan Marriage, 27, and Melanie de Chantraine, 32, are two of the country’s oldest cosplayers.

The Queenslanders have been cosplaying for nearly eight years. Between them they’ve created more than 40 costumes, spending between $100 and $1,000 on each.

Bryan described his foray into the scene at Brisbane’s 2003 pop culture expo Supanova as nerve-racking.

“I was very nervous because I didn’t know a lot of people there and I’d come from Toowoomba, so I wasn’t in and around the fandom crowd at that stage,” he said.

“Getting up on stage was scary but everyone was cheering and it got the adrenaline going … through that I got in contact with a lot of other cosplayers.”

He admits his obsession is left of centre.

“I was always a little bit bizarre and quirky,” he said.

“At school I did drama and I had a lot of fun doing that, but when cosplay came along it was sort of a release, to do something similar to drama.

“Probably what’s kept me in it is friends and the people I get to meet and also a love for different shows and different series.

“It gives me that extra dimension to show my fandom … you get to display the feelings for a character you have and it lets you release your inner child.”

Melanie, thought to be Australia’s most experienced and well-known cosplayer, says she thrives on the hobby’s creative challenges.

“It’s a creative outlet and it gives me something to do. I can’t imagine what else I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing this,” she said.

“It’s just seeing the challenge – if I can make this 2D character exist in the real world – and sometimes I reckon they’re trying to break me.”

She says Japanese anime is not like anything you see in Australia.

“With Western characters the designs are a bit prudish, but the Japanese characters are just so out there,” she said.

“They don’t care if they look stupid and I think sometimes they look so stupid that they loop back around to awesome.”

Game on

Supanova 2010 begins in Brisbane today. It will then move around the country to Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.

Supanova is a hub for both veteran and budding cosplayers, hosting competitions for them to show off their intricately designed costumes and play out their much-loved characters.

Sydney student, 22-year-old Christie Lee, won the national cosplay competition last year.

While she has only been cosplaying for a few years, the dedicated champion has already concocted more than 30 costumes.

“Making every costume is a learning experience,” she said.

“It’s a way of expressing how much I love a particular story or how much I love a particular character.

“A lot of people appreciate it and they are amazed by how you created your outfits … when you get to a convention it’s kind of like walking into Disneyland.

“You see your favourite characters walking around looking beautiful. It gives you a sense of satisfaction and happiness.”

Her winning piece was based on Alice, the heroine from the Japanese manga (comic) and anime series, Pandora Hearts.

“I’d never made a big, humungous Victorian dress before and I never really want to make another one again,” she said.

Brisbane student, 19-year-old Sabina Myers, is also excited by the costume side of cosplaying.

“A lot of people have different approaches to how they prefer to do cosplay,” she said.

“I like to design my own costumes because it’s more fun and I don’t always pick things from Japanese anime.”

One of her recent designs was an interpretation of the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland.

“Even I think it’s weird,” she said.

“My friends and I try to keep real about how strange this hobby is. It is a strange hobby and people will think it’s odd, but I’m okay with that and I enjoy it.”

Popular culture

Madman, an Australian distributor of anime, initiated the national competition last year.

Head judge Sylvester Ip says there are hundreds of cosplayers around Australia.

“We attend about 20 events and every event we go to there are more and more people in costumes and cosplaying in general,” he said.

“We’re definitely seeing an increasingly popular pop culture thing that kids are getting into. It’s definitely increasing and as the years go by we expect to see more and more entrants.”

Veteran cosplayers Bryan and Melanie agree the scene is growing.

“With more conventions, more competitions, people are becoming more aware of it and participating,” Bryan said.

“So it is increasing probably a lot more quickly than I would have ever expected.”

But Melanie says the rise in cosplaying has been accompanied by an increase in cattiness.

“The first con that I went to was in Adelaide and there may have been 10 of us,” she said.

“I went back to that con two years ago and there was over 100, so it has definitely grown … with the rise that I’ve seen over the last eight years it can only get bigger.

“But it is getting competitive and nasty, with a lot of people taking it far too seriously – a lot of bitchiness and people talking behind people’s backs.”

Melanie is an Australian representative for the World Cosplay Summit – an annual international event held in Japan – which includes 15 countries and hundreds of thousands of participants.

Christie just returned from spending a week in Japan, her prize for being last year’s national champion.

After experiencing cosplay there in its most original form, she says she still prefers Australia’s take on it.

“Japan is very strict with the cosplay thing, which was really irksome,” she said.

“Japan cosplay is much more extreme … I’d never seen so many cosplayers in one place in my life. They’re more perfectionist than us. They put much more detail into the hair and their make-up.

“They’re just so used to seeing so many cosplayers all together, I guess it just loses the spark of uniqueness over there.

“But here there is a lot more variety. No-one really looks the same and it’s much more open here in saying: ‘Oh my god, your outfit looks awesome. Can I take your photo?’.”