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Hannah Jie Hui Kuah, University of Nottingham Malaysia, MalaysiaAbstract
Girlhood in Malaysia is visibly influenced by Japanese popular culture, particularly among Muslim girls who creatively integrate hijabs into their cosplay costumes. The anime and manga sphere has been widely embraced by Malaysians across genders and ethnicities. However, for Muslim girls, cosplaying in hijab often elicits mixed reactions within both cosplay communities and broader society, where norms of modesty are closely linked to religious and social expectations. This study investigates how Malaysian Muslim girls embody their identities at the intersection of Japanese cosplay culture and the religious and social norms of Malaysia, and how these negotiations are manifested in practice. Through hijabi cosplay, Malaysian Muslim girls reimagine Japanese femininity and perform identity within the bounds of faith and culture. Data were collected through interviews with and Instagram posts of six Malaysian hijabi cosplayers. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine how participants articulate identity and creative practice in the interviews. The findings indicate that, rather than striving for exact replication, participants prioritise religious considerations and engage in creative reinterpretations that reflect both Islamic values and Japanese aesthetic forms. The physical embodiment of cosplay is central to understanding how identity is translated (or mistranslated) into material expression. These experiences illuminate ongoing – and never resolvable – debates within the hijabi cosplay community regarding physical representation, identity, and religious boundaries.
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Conference: KAMC2025Stream: Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the KAMC2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Kuah H. (2026) Transnational Girlhood in the Malaysian Cosplay Scene: Combining Islamic Identity and Japanese Cosplay ISSN: 2436-0503 – The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 409-423) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.33
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.33
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