SHANGHAI — The skeleton warriors briefly stumbled backward but kept lumbering toward 23-year-old Zhao Jing as she blasted them with two oversized six-shooters in a battle set to pounding music.

Fantasy and reality blur at ChinaJoy, the country's largest annual video game exhibition, as teams of dozens of young people re-enact favourite video games and Japanese manga and anime cartoons on a game-show-like stage.

It began in Japan, but Cosplay, short for costume role-playing, is a growing phenomenon in China with more than 20,000 people entering competitions this year, according to ChinaJoy, organisers of the national championships.

Zhao's 36-member team from the eastern city of Hangzhou rehearsed three to five hours daily for months perfecting their 12-minute performance of "Soul of the Ultimate Nation".

"I can't take a stable, full-time job," Zhao said, explaining the degree of her commitment after seven years of competing in Cosplay tournaments from March to August.

Her effort earned her the chance to represent China last year at the World Cosplay Summit international championships in Aichi, Japan, where her team was placed second among 14 national teams.

This year's world championships take place Sunday (Aug 2) in Aichi.

National champions win 10,000 yuan (about 1,450 dollars) while the top international team wins 100,000 yen (1,050 dollars), according to ChinaJoy. The number of national-level competitors rose to 1,000 this year from 600 last year.

"Other girls like going to bars at night or shopping... What makes me happy is watching cartoons and playing the characters I like on stage," Zhao said.