The Anime Within

Sometimes people are miscast in life. They may appear to be dentists or clerks, but deep down they are actually fierce swordsmen or goddesses with devastating sex appeal. These true selves can emerge in the world of cosplay, the practice of impersonating characters from anime, manga, Japanese video games, and other realms of fiction. When shooting this series of photographs (published in Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay), Elena Dorfman asked her subjects to momentarily stop role-playing and reveal their real-world vulnerability. “They had to come out of character so that I could see a bit of who they were through their costumes,” she said.