This will be the last installment of TV Aichi窶冱 World Cosplay Summit videos which were broadcast over the last year before the event itself begins in a few days. We will be going to Narita airport to meet some of the teams in the morning so I won窶冲 have the time to give you a full introduction for each video clip or the way to access them besides the link which is here!

They basically cover the preliminary competitions held in France, Brazil and Thailand.

In the morning we will be welcoming the Germany, France, Brazil and China teams to Japan. Can't wait!

Ed

Hi!

Well things have started up and the Germany, France, Brazil and China teams are now assembled here in Tokyo. With Expo 2005 a thing of the past it has been much easier to book hotel space and the hotel this year is right in front of Akihabara station. Very easy to get that essential shopping done!

Here is the German team when we got back to the hotel in the morning:

Florian came dressed in all white this year. He had better not make a mess eating like he usually does. (^o^)/ haha

Due to a late flight into Frankfurt the France team missed their connection to Tokyo so they had no choice but to fly into Nagoya. With some quick action from the TV Aichi staff they were whisked away on the bullet train to Tokyo where they checked into the hotel in the early afternoon. To top things off their baggage will not arrive until the day after tomorrow leaving them with no costumes for tomorrow! We did some essential shopping then everyone put their heads together and came up with a couple of costumes saving the day. Tomorrow we have a big press conference and then a tour of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! Stay tuned...

Ed

Hi everybody,

With the event flying by I am finding it tough to balance the crazy work schedule and finding time to get in a blog entry but this one will be for our last full day in Tokyo.  We had a big press conference in the morning at the newly built Anime Center in Akihabara.

Media coverage of Anime/Manga related events is unlike in any other country and there were 6 TV crews and 26 newspapers. From there we went for a walk through Akihabara with cameramen taking pictures everywhere and back to the hotel. 

A TV crew interviewed the China team directly after that and a different TV crew asked the German team to show their rooms and what they brought with them from Germany.
The final event for the day was a visit to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. The 4 teams Germany, France, Brazil and China sat down with Vice Minister Kaneda and then took a tour of the Ministry.  Media recognition of cosplay is one thing but recognition by the government for cosplay as a part of pop culture is something that would not likely happen anywhere else. It was big of the Vice Minister to pose with everyone here:

Stay tuned,

Ed

Hi all,

For those who were in Tokyo this was a travel day.  I got up early to go to Shibuya with the French team to get some clothes considering their bags had not been found yet. By the time we were about to head back to Akihabara we got word that the luggage had been located and would be in Nagoya that evening. We were all relieved, I didn't want to think about what would happen if the bags were not located for another couple days.

When we got back everyone got on the bus, a monster 59 seater, quite luxurious. It had a couple video screens so we watched videos of WCS 2005 and some of the preliminary competition in China this year.

We got back in the evening and had our first general meeting with all of the international cosplayers. Once the formalities had been taken care of we were off to Yama-chan for some tebasaki and other edibles. We realized that when you put team Singapore and team Italy at the same table at a Japanese Izakaya, you can really have a lot of fun. By the end of the night almost everyone had ingested a nasty initiation style hot spice/soy sauce concoction. I will try to include photos when I get my hands on some ;)

Bye for now!

Ed

Hello,

This was an action packed day that started out with a visit to the head offices of Brother, the electronics company. We watched a number of videos including one interesting one that showed the history of the company including how the company started out making machines to create traditional straw hats almost 100 years ago. Here is a picture of everyone watching a more contemporary sewing machine following a computer input pattern to stitch the black outline of a Winnie the Pooh image. It created a lot of attention as you can see in this picture:

From there we visited a couple of newspaper companies: Asahi Shimbun and Chunichi Shimbun. Here is a picture taken outside of the Asahi Shimbun  office:

After that we had another meeting and then the different teams had a meeting with the Stage Manager to discuss the staging of their performance during the big event on Sunday.

Finally there was a staff party introducing everyone to the TV Aichi staff. Some even came out from Tokyo just for the meeting. It was great to meet everyone and the cosplayers got a great reception.

For those who hunger for more photos I will provide a link to the Japanese TV Aichi blog. You may not be able to read the writing but there are loads and loads of pictures of the various events and they are all clickable . Check it out here!

More for you tomorrow,

Ed

Hello!

Today was the big day of the parade. I opened my door in the morning and with the blast of the heat I knew it was going to be a killer hot summer day in Nagoya.  Things got started off with the mixer event at Comok, a maid cafe in town. There were about 100 Japanese and non-japanese cosplayers there and I guess the air conditioning wasn't working too well because it was very hot in there too.

This was the busiest day on the calander with the TV Aichi crew splitting into 4 groups to get everything done. A special thanks to Pol, Igor, Alex, Casper and Bloody Oyama for ensuring that everyone was communicating effectively. At 3:30 PM the parade started. It wound its way through the Osu shopping district for about an hour and it was packed! Here is a picture:

Everyone has a great smile in the picture and you can see the line of cosplayers going way back. This year we had the police helping with crowd control, that really did the trick for clearing a path.

Next was the live TV broadcast from 5:25-6:00pm. It was basically an overview of the preliminary rounds that took place in each country and was pretty action packed considering it was only 30 minutes long. There were live broadcasts between the videos and Toru Furuya - the voice for Amuro from Gandam - was the guest along with the wonderful TV Aichi announcer Mika Nakayama. Here is a picture from that:

The German flag is covering his face but you can see in the background a big Gandam Suit.  After the final shot with all of the cosplayers everyone immediately turned around and started inspecting the amazing suit.  Giorgia and Francesca from the Team Italy that won last year made a return this year and were also on the show.

The final event of the night was a karaoke party for the staff involved, the cosplayers put on by one of the event sponsors, the Karaoke machine company Joy Sound. It was a memorable evening with lots of singing and lauging. Finally the Web representatives from Japan had gifts for everyone, a Cosmode magazine, a beautiful fan and a little bag of goodies. Very, very thoughtful of them.

Tomorrow is the big day!

Ed

It was one of the hottest days so far this summer and the event location was outdoors, it was going to be a tough one for those in costume. There was a rehersal from about 2 until 4:30 and then the show started at 6 and went until 8. Here is a picture of Team Brazil in rehersal:

Last year during the event we got onigiri rice balls for a snack backstage but not everyone ate them so this year we prepared the staff went to McDonalds and got about 50 hamburgers for everyone. Not the most healthy food but at least everyone was eating. There was also plenty of liquids so everyone could deal with performing in the intense heat. Here is a picture of Team China posing back stage:

During the rehersals there was a Docomo cell phone company booth beyond the main stage where people who had Docomo phones could take pictures of certain cosplayers. 2 of them were part of Team Italy 2005 Giorgia and Francesca, here is a shot of them posing:

They were also the presenters for the Champion team at the event this year. All 11 teams took to the stage in turn starting at 6 o'clock. The commentators were Mika Nakamura (TVA announcer), Toru Furuya (voice of Amuro, Gandam) and Ken Ochiai (Zip FM DJ) A great crowd had amassed and beyond the designated seats mostly filled with cosplayers, (a number of whom had come from other countries to see the show, thank you!) and in this rather poor picture you can see passers by lining the upper galleries as well:

The performance went by in a flash, in fact the entire event did. Between translating on stage and guiding the teams behind stage I hardly had time to even look at the remaining McDonalds burgers on the table. Here are the award winners:

Brother Award: Team Japan A (Tokyo)
Third Place: Team Italy
Second Place: Team Japan B (Web)
First Place: Team Brazil! 

There are many more pictures of the event that can be found in the Japanese blog  here!

You can see pictures of the winning groups here.

If you scroll down a little, on the right you will see this button:

(コスサミNews)

Click on it, scroll down a little and you will see a series of 4 pictures. The first one is the first place winner, then second place, third place and the Brother Award winner.

I will leave you with one final picture of Team Italy backstage in the interview area.

Again, not the best quality picture, I had better upgrade my cell phone for next year or take some photography lessons. Alessandro who was in the grey body armour was sweating intensly, when he lifted up his head a little waterfall of sweat would run down from inside his helmet down his chest. What a good sport, even under such circumstances he always had a "crazy smile" on his face. All of the cosplayers and coordinators this year were great and I cannot believe the event is over. I hope everyone keeps in touch!

Ed

After the big event was over people still hadn't eaten a full dinner so we decided to go out and have a celebratory beverage and a bite to eat. We didn't start eating until maybe 1:30 or so but it was a wonderful atmosphere, everyone was so happy. As I thought may happen the Italian and Singapore team started looking for hot spices to drink and we found a few bottles of tabasco sauce. Perhaps the most capable group at inbuing the hot chilli spice was the Thai team, one member, Ant, drank 2/3 of a bottle without a concern. I have a very poor picture of the evening here:

From there we all walked back to the hotel and the Tokyo, Japan Team, Web, Japan Team, Singapore Team, One of the France Team members and myself hung out in the hotel lobby until 5 in the morning. Here, a magical thing happened. The Singapore team had the costume for a character in Gandam which was married to one of the characters that one of the Tokyo, Japan Team members had. They decided to get the costumes and boxed up Gandam suit out and take some marriage photos. These are the photos I took of the moment.

For those who know the story well, this kind of a re-enactment is a rare moment. Not often do you have people from different countries possesing maching costumes in this way. Even less likely is someone having a Gandam suit handy. I went home at 5am but I think they stayed on and continued to share thier art.  Another moment I was lucky and honored to be present for.

Ed

Or has it ended? This year the lines have become more blurry.  I and other staff find that the off period has become more filled with completing unfinished work to the final detail and preparations for next years event. Many of the teams and organizers have opted to extend their stay in Japan to do some sightseeing and make Nagoya a central base for their journeys. We had the Italian team come through earlier this week and a number of the TVA staff and them went out for dinner. I was around to see the Spanish team when they came in yesterday and here are 2 pictures of us at the post office packing up boxes of Manga which they were sending back home.  

Tomorrow the organizer from Romix of Italy will be in town and then next week the organizer from Konnichi in Germany will stop by for a visit.

It seems like this year the preparation for WCS 2007 has begun already but it still doesn't feel like the event for this year had ended either. On a personal note I have been keeping in touch with a number of representatives and organizers from this year. This blog is another medium to keep in contact not only for this years participants but those from previous years and really for anyone who would like to leave a comment at all. The messages left already make the blog very enjoyable to write. Some have requested that I keep up with the blog and I will do so, for your part, leaving a comment warms my heart. Keep it up!

Ed

Over the last 4 years the World Cosplay Summit has grown and changed in a number of ways. One new change this year was to invite one organizer from each organization attend the event along with the 2 cosplayer team.  When the event began in 2003 with 4 countries, not many regulations were set in place for coordinating events.  Now with 9 countries participating, preliminary rounds occuring year round and around the world, the need to communicate and maintain some standards has become a point raised between the different organizations. It was good to sit down with representatives from each event who was in attendance, talk about how things operate in each country and pledge to continue active communication over the year.  I didn't take any pictures. Usually pictures of organizers are not as interesting as pictures of cosplayers anyway. :)

Another area of improvement which you will be able to see very soon is a more robust English web page. I have been getting feedback and comments and people do actually read this blog and the web page (thank you!) and there is a demand for more information on what is going on. Although there have been scaled down versions of the Japanese web page from the beginning, an English version was not included until this year. The English page has been a condensed version of the Japanese page but for next year we have assembled a group of top notch worker elves (humans dressed in elf cosplay of course) who endevor to make the English page as elaborate as the Japanese page. Keep checking back for new changes!

There is no English version (yet?) for the previous years but if you have a chance you can check out the Japanese web pages for 2003, 2004 and 2005 here!

It is pretty straightforward click on the corresponding images for 2003 - 2005 found at the bottom of the page, they look like this:

Even if you cannot read the the script you can gain an understanding through the images and see how the interpretation of the event and indeed the event itself has developed over the years.

Enjoy!

Ed

This extended video has been up on the Japanese web page for a while but for those who have not come across it yet it gives you a good look at the teams from Germany, Brazil, China and France as well as some other interesting stuff. To take a look at it click here!

On the middle right hand side you will see a big red button that looks like this:

Click on it and the video will immediately begin in another window. The video devotes a good amount of time to each group and includes some shots of the question session afterwards. You cannot actually hear the questions and answers, only a lovely medley of elevator music. Perhaps the video could have been shorter because the cameraman starts to fall asleep and the end of the video is dominated by peoples feet. One brief moment of happiness for me is right at the end of the video between the shots of cosplayers feet and a journalists bald spot, you can see an oddly out of place fellow amongst the cosplayers in a brown shirt. That's me!

Ed

In a previous entry I mentioned that efforts were being made to get the English web page up to the same content level as the Japanese page and I wanted to let everybody know what kind of changes are in store. 

A number of preliminary competitions in different countries are held in the spring and with greater detail included in each report this year and the translation work began to pile up.  The good news is that we have friends to help out with the backlog now, the better news is that those reports will be uploaded on to the English web page soon.

Some reports to look forward to in the near future are from 2 of the 3 new countries this year: Thailand and Singapore. There has been an active cosplay scene in Singapore for a number of years now and the report will shed light on how things went at Cosfest V this year.   The WCS is new in Thailand too, and the preliminary round was held at Comic Party 3 in Bangkok. 

You can also expect to see the report on how things went in China very soon. Perhaps the most developed of preliminary rounds, China actually has 5 regional competitions before the preliminary round which is held in Hangzhou (near Shanghai) at the 2nd Annual Chinese International Anime Fair.

All new updates will be listed in the "WCS News" so check back regularly! The China round doesn't actually deserve to be in the news column since the event was held in the beginning of May this year.  (>.<;)  However we will try to work through the backlog to get new information on the English page as soon as possible!

Ed