COSMODE magazine, short for COStume MODE Magazine,  is Japan’s largest and most popular cosplay magazine.  Taken from the English version of their website, the magazine describes themselves as having “played a conductive role in the expansion of cosplay in Japan.  When the magazine was first released in 2002, there were no online communities to bring people together.  After the release, cosplayers felt that cosplay was more acceptable.  COSMODE is the leading cosplay magazine in Japan and for the first time released in English as COSMODE Online!”

Sadly, this version of this site didn’t last long.  COSMODEOnline.com was up from July 2008 to July 2009 before, as the last blog entry states, the online magazine was “going through some major changes.”  Apparently these changes meant total cancellation (although we’re sure they didn’t mean for that to be the case).

Only a few months before its 2008 release, Ted Harada, President of OverDrive, Inc., stated, “Cosplay popularity has been on the rise worldwide for many years and will continue to escalate, but the only big-league cosplay magazines out there are in Japanese. We chose to translate the best one, COSMODE, because nearly every cosplayer I met at the New York Anime Festival knew it and couldn’t wait for an English release.”  So why did it suddenly stop after only a year of publication?  We can’t be sure, but we’re hoping they reinstate it eventually.

The Japanese version of the magazine is still going strong and is regularly updated online at cosblog.net.  A few things can be read in English, but unless you’re fluent in Hirigana, Katakana, and Kanji, we don’t recommend trying to get much information from there.
Each issue is full of color images of cosplayers from around the globe at various events.  As you might expect of any fashion magazine, it also has tips and tricks for all kinds of cosplay-related adventures: hair-styling, wig-styling, costume construction, make-up and more.  They feature incredibly talented cosplayers, and just flipping through their magazine is enough to make you jealous – even more so because you can’t read a word of it.