Otoko no Ko: Japan’s “male daughter” cross-dressing cosplay subculture
September 23, 2014
/ Tadashi Anahori
It's high time we talked about otoko no ko (also written otokonoko) (男の娘). The name of course is a play on the word for "boy" but whose characters mean "male daughter". As we know, the word for daughter (musume) is also employed a lot to mean "cute young girl", and that's the nuance here.
The phrase has been used since the 2000's. A otoko no ko is a cross-dressing cosplayer, who dresses as a girl for certain occasions. It's an unusual combination of cosplay culture, sexuality, and (in a way) otaku culture (it's quite geeky as subcultures go). It took the world of men dressed as ...