I had the oppertunity this week to catch up with one Italian representative for the World Cosplay Summit in 2004: Laura Barbaresi - better known as Angel Hitomi.

Laura has been one of the more prolific international cosplayers in the last few years and even though she is very busy finishing her university studies (she needs to finish a 200 page thesis by next summer!!!) she still has time to persue her passion in the world of cosplay. You can find a lot of stuff about her work through her very developed home page.

Besides the WCS, Laura has participated in many cosplay events around Europe and the rest of the world including TNT in Mexico in 2006.(She also went with Georgia Vecchini from WCS 2005!) You may have noticed from the news column that Mexico a new participating nation at the WCS 2007 and TNT will be our parter organization. Take a look at Angel Hitomi's adventures in Mexico on her home page! (Only in Italian but there are lots of great pictures)

Laura was in Kyoto from November 28th to December 5th filming a promotion video for a movie called "2 Come Loro". The story is about an Italian couple and their struggles to find love and themselves in the very different environment of Japan. The story concept relies on fundamental precepts of Manga/Anime and Laura's character is very close to who Laura is herself.

Here is a picture of Laura, other actors and members of the movie staff singing karaoke or their last night in Kyoto:

Ed

Well, it isn't really new news anymore, we have known it for a while. In fact it was not very much of a surprise at all since cosplayers and media from Mexico attended WCS 2006 and there have been a number of strong hints in the blog since then. Nevertheless, this should not take away from the pleasure of having cosplayers from Mexico participate in 2007! Congratulations!!!

It looks like the preliminary round at TNT will be coming up very soon in on the 2nd-4th of February. For now you can check out the pictures on the WCS 2007 Japanese page that TVA staff brought back with them in November. You can see that HERE! Check out the pictures at the bottom of the page, there must be over 100.

This will be up on the English side by next month and look forward to the preliminary round report in February!

Ed

Its good to hear that things are going well in Brazil, for those who have not seen the news brief you can do so HERE. Starting last year with China, Brazil has followed suit with regional competitions making for an even more dynamic national preliminary round. In larger countries where manga/anime events are popular it is hard to say that with one single event a representative cosplayer team is truly representative. Having 10 "pre-preliminary competitions" does a pretty complete job of producing a competitive cosplay team. It would be great to hear how things progress in Brazil into the new year.

Ed

I guess its the 26th now in Japan but it is still Christmas Day here today in Canada. Wherever you are and whatever day it is, may your holiday season be very happy may your New Year be greater than last year!