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Kigurumi is the Japanese name for costumed animal characters. The name comes from the Japanese term (着る - kiru: to wear) and (縫いぐるみ - nuigurumi: a stuffed toy animal). These suited performers are sometimes found at shopping malls, theme parks, and booths at anime conventions. For example, Disneyland costumed characters such as Mickey Mouse would be referred to as Kigurumi by the Japanese. Sometimes these characters are to entertain children, sometimes as promotional tactics to grab attention from adults on busy city streets. Also some cosplayers wear Kigurumi for fun at cosplay events.
A subdivision of Kigurumi is a form of masked cosplay, performed by hobbyists called dollers. In Japan most cosplayers refer to this style as (アニメ顔 - Animegao: Anime Face). It is still a very minor part of the cosplay scene in Japan, though it has recently been attracting attention in other areas, including the United States and Canada. Within this hobby can be found various cosplay motives. One example being fetishism. The appeal may be related to clothing fetishes, such as leotards or miniskirts which are popular choices with anime characters. At the hobbiest level the characters in question are almost all female, though the cosplayers are nearly exclusively men. Another cosplay motive may also be the desire to emulate a given anime character in exact appearence, and personality.
By wearing a body suit or mask, kigurumi cosplayers are able to get closer to the appearance of the original character, especially in the case of animal characters or highly stylised characters. Non-professional animal kigurumi cosplayers painstakingly make detailed heads and bodies from plastic, wire and artificial fur. In animegao kigurumi, the actor playing a humanoid anime character will wear a flesh-coloured body suit and matching facemask. The body suit allows them less-detailed skin features and the mask allows anime-style facial features. Some hobbiests get masks from established hobbiest mask studios such as Dolphin Factory.
As with other kinds of cosplay, many hobbyists have costumes of established characters from games or animations, and a few others have created their own original personalities.
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