Cosplay Court Case is an event that occurs at Anime Conventions and debuted at Connecticon 2006.

Cosplay Court Case is an improv event in which Cosplayers act as their characters in a trial. Cosplayers are the Judges, Lawyers, Defendants, Baliffs, Witnesses, and sometimes the Jury too. Contact. tmchiba1 [@] yahoo.com for information.

Anime Boston 2008 Case: Death Note's Light put on trial for killing people to get to the front of the Registration line faster. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Connecticon 2007 Case 1: Metal Gear's Solid Snake was put on trial for...well something... Video Clips Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Case 2: FMA's Ed Elric, Inuyasha's Naraku, and Naruto's Sasori for selling drugs to children. Videos Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Portcon Maine 2007 Something happened up there. :P Anime Boston 2007 To see some images from the Anime Boston 2007 case click here. To see a piece of video watch this excellent video documentary clip from Super Happy Fun Time. Sakura from Naruto is put on trial for her pink hair. (Apparently the hair theme happens a lot.) A team of the lawyers prosecuted and defended her with a small army of baliffs including Ichigo and Dr. Cube patrolling the crowd. Sanji and company for the defense. The Prosecution and Judge Hiei The verdict...Guilty! Sentence is carried out.

And just for kicks they put Gaara on trial afterward. But he was acquitted.

Connecticon 2006

Spike Spiegel was put on trial for having physically impossible hair. Highlights included Maes Huges making every point to the jury by showing pictures of his family.

How Cosplay Court Case works.

While prior planning is helpful it's not necessary for Cosplay Court Case to work. Basically, once the audience starts filling in, those running the event urge the cosplayers interested in participating to sit up front, and the rest to sit in the middle to back of the room. To whatever extent possible. This can be tricky of course.

It's a flexible thing what happens next. In general the next thing to do is ask who wants to be the defendant and see who is interested and who the audience might want to see up there. From there, the prosecutors and defense are chosen and the judge. The event can work with a few prosecutors and defense people or it can have a bunch, at Connecticon each side had a few people, at Anime Boston it was literally teams of lawyers. If there are a lot of cosplayers available they can be either witnesses or the jury. At this point the event is turned over to the judge.

The Prosecution gets to make an opening statement, then the Defense. Then the Prosecution gets to call their witnesses. The Defense gets to cross examine every witness. Once the Prosecution is done, the Defense gets to call their witnesses and the Prosecution gets to cross examine. Finally the Prosecution and the Defense each get to make a closing statement. Throughout it's the judges and baliff's jobs to keep everything under control. (At AB Dr. Cube and Ichigo had to kill a few people....) Finally the question is thrown to the Jury. Once the Jury's decision is made, if the Jury was cosplayers the loser of the case can appeal to the audience. If the defendant is still guilty then sentence is carried out.

If there's time, gather some more people and do it all again! : )

While Cosplay Court Case and a different event called Anime Parliament have been similar enough to have people asking if they're the same event, they are not, there are many differences. The creator of Anime Parliament, which is a mega popular event, is aware of Cosplay Court Case and has given their blessing, but I'm pretty sure we're running different events. Nonetheless either way we keep in contact.