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