SOME otaku say you cant cosplay non anime characters at an ANIME con?

Really? I was at this anime con last year when a Riker from Star Trek walked in and he looked EXACTLY like him and no one seemed to mind, in fact he got swarmed with people taking pictures?

i think its allow i seen god of war and people dress up as super heros and people dress up as cartoons like bugs bunny and roger rabbit and courage the cowardly dog plus the old folks that comes with hi i seen people dress up aas rock band charactors and just comic book charactors comic are everything there not anime just comic books and i see spider man and people as such all the time super mario and jak and dexter and people from the games resident evil it bullshit how people are like that if you love games and movies and comic books why cant you dress up as them?or car3toon after all they all have one thing in common animations created them so that should be good enough for any anime lovers out there. :3

oh and animations is what sc fi channel is base on lots of high tech crap and nonrealistic movies if animations created is or have something to do with it in ANY way i think it wouldnt and shouldnt matter ^^

I remember at last Anime Expo, one guy had in his streetpass message "MLP is not anime" I chuckled

You can cosplay any character but if the event has a theme, I usually follow the theme so if the theme is "old school anime", then I cosplay a character from an old anime. If I was in anime expo, I'll cosplay an anime character, if I was on a game event, I'd cosplay a character from Final Fantasy and if I was in comic con, I'd cosplay a marvel/DC character. This is just me though.^^

My self-imposed rule is that I can only cosplay as characters from Japanese media at Anime conventions. However, the goal of such conventions is to have fun and (for those of us so inclined) socialize with people of similar interests. I have seen people achieve one or both of those goals while dressed up as non-anime characters. So, I have no problem with it. People who set up arbitrary boundaries for such things need to do so for some reason or other, I don't mind them doing so as long as it doesn't interfere with the goals mentioned.

I think it should be like chrismA stated before following the theme is good but if your cosplay is one of those that takes your breath away I'll make an exception