ABSTRACT
Chloe, a seventeen-year-old girl living in western Massachusetts, has taken on the responsibility of translating the lyrics of her favorite Japanese rock songs and making them available on the Web. 1 Chloe, a tall thin girl with long, dirty-blonde hair, enjoys cosplay, that is, creating costumes based on characters from her favorite anime series or J-rock bands, dressing up and often performing these roles in public. Young people in Tokyo and across Japan gather on Sunday afternoons in the local parks, parading their costumes and connecting with other young fans. 2 Their images and personal narratives flow across the World Wide Web, and young people like Chloe feel an emotional link to these Japanese fans through their mutual interests in media properties and their shared participation in the same cultural practices. She interacts with local cosplay kids through science fiction conventions, and she shares images of her costumes via the Web. 3
