Wherever people are, their selection of cosplay costume is often influenced by the anime and manga that is prevalent in everyones home country. There are many different titles of manga or anime that can be found in Japan and from time to time I will try to cast a spotlight on them and discuss what role they play in daily life in Japan. Many are very knowledgable about manga and anime and perhaps you could provide feedback about how you know the characters or your feeling about the series.

Today I would like to present Golgo 13:

Golgo 13 is considered an adult manga because of how it deals with complicated topics, has some violence and mild nudity. It is a very long running series and can always be found in convenience stores or older coffee and barber shops. The topics that it deals with shows the era that each book was created in with such topics as US and Soviet Union interrelations in the 80s or international terrorism today. He is supposed to be a mystery figure of undetermined origin but people who I have spoken to think that he is half Japanese half Russian. His role is that of a vigilante hit man who takes out those who may not be guilty in the eyes of the law but may "deserve" to be done away with in his eyes. Golgo 13 may be a questionable character for cosplay but is a prevalent character in contemporary manga here in Japan.

There has been a lot of activity on the blog in Japanese as one of the TVA staff is reporting on how things are going this year at J-Popcon 2007 in Denmark. There are plenty of pictures and you can check them out here!
He starts out on the October 31st saying how he is looking forward to the event ahead and the next 2 entries are tourism related and there are a couple shots of the little mermaid and the Museum of Erotica in Copenhagen. Interestingly he mentions that Denmark was one of the first countries to ban adult manga. In his entry on November 3rd he talks about going to the Japanese Embassy for a dinner and having interesting discussions with the J-Popcon organizers and members of a Danish television company. Take a look at the pics and I will fill you in on the results of the convention tomorrow!

The performance and judging took 4 hours or so but the representatives for Denmark at WCS 2008 next year will be Lisa and Liuwina!

They came out on top with their performance of Tsubasa. Look forward to their profile being updated in the next few days and I hope to get more information on them for you when I can.

The representatives from Spain were selected at Salon del Manga in Barcalona on the same weekend as their counterparts in Denmark. Maria Tomas and Nicolas Garcias' profiles have been updated here so I thought I would give you a little preview. Maria has been cosplaying for around 4 years and introduces herself as a social and friendly person who sees cosplay as not just a hobby but a lifestyle. Nicolas has been doing cosplay for 5 years and likes Cardcaptor Sakura and Totoro. Here is a picture of the pair:

The full profile will be updated on the English side of the web page in the coming days. Looking forward to learning more about Maria and Nicolas and see you soon!

Alejandra and Linaloe sent some pictures and a greeting from Mexico. They were the winners of the Brother prize with a dynamic performance of Sailor Moon in WCS 2007. It looks like the first picture is of Linaloe and the one beside is that of her older sister Alejandra. On the far right, they have dressed up their pet rabbit and gave it some cool glasses. Below there is a fun picture of Linaloe hanging from a paper airplane and flying to Japan (?) :) Thanks!

The date has been set for TNT GT2 in Mexico City for next year February. The WCS preliminaries will be held here and you will be getting information on that right here when I can get it to you.

Recently a few friends got together in Tokyo, you can see the pictures below. In the first picture you can see Igor on the left, Oyama-san in the middle and Goto-san on the right. In the middle of the second picture you can see Ferlyn.


Igor is an organizer for the very developed Brazil entry for the WCS and was the translator for the Brazilian team in 2006 and 2007. Oyama-san has been living in Shanghai for a while now and is a part of the China team and was their translator in WCS 2005. Goto-san is a general anime/manga/cosplay fan and was the German team translator in WCS 2005 at the same time as Oyama-san. Ferlyn was one of the members of the Singapore Team in 2006 and is now studying Japanese in Tokyo. We can see that Oyama-san has very politely placed his chopsticks on his plate in the second picture. Good job Oyama-san! :) It looks like they had a great time!

Something that has really become popular in the last few years in Japan is the use of Christmas lights for decorations. You will see them on many shops, on the streets downtown, near Nagoya station and increasingly on peoples houses. If people do put them on their house they will go all out and put a LOT of lights on their house, you will never see the one or two strings of lights like we would have on our house at home in Canada.

The reason that I am telling you about Christmas lights in November is that lights are so popular that they start being put up at the start of November and stay up until February or March in some locations. This may seem long to some, but is it? What are the customs of putting up Christmas lights like where you come from?

With the global changes in weather this brings about an interesting fact, Christmas lights are being put up before the leaves change their Autumn colors. Below is a picture I took today of the yearly spectacle of lights that decorate Nagoya Station. This year they were lit up on November 7th. I haven't even heard yet when the Autumn leaves are expected to change color. In a country where the seasons are very clearly defined it is becoming less clear as to which season we are actually in.

The second place prize winners at WCS 2007 was the entry from Tokyo, Kikiwan and Naoki Shigure. The second place prize was the chance to be a part of the recording of the anime program Deltora Quest. The recording took place on Sunday this weekend and below is a commemorative picture of the moment. There will be information on when the program will be on the air in Japan but I don't think it will be broadcast internationally. I will try to let you know which program they were a part of and leave the search up to you. ;)

I contacted a representative of the Negibose organization in Thailand to find out a little more about how the WCS Thai round went on the 25th of September. When I got in touch they were preparing for a follow up cosplay event where they had visitors from Japan: Goldie, the Gundam suit representative from the Tokyo representatives of 2006 and the Osaka team from 2007.
Things were quite different this year compared to the inaugural year of 2006. If you remember last year the event took place after a military coup. Even conducting the event under this apprehensive atmosphere was an achievement in itself. There is something powerful about the thought of cosplayers going to an event in that situation, most cosplayers around the world cannot say that they have had the same experience.

This year the event took place during an event called Japan Week where many facets of pop Japan were on display from anime, manga and video games to cell phones and other electronics. The WCS Thai preliminary was held with this event as a backdrop.

15 teams in total competed and the winners Jittraporn and Julaluk had outstanding costumes and their performance of Xenosaga included an element of comedy. The best thing of all is that all 15 performances have been uploaded to YouTube. I cannot provide you with a direct link to the movies but if you go to YouTube and search for "WCS2008 Thai" you can access all 15 of the performances easily. (Jittraporn and Julaluk's performance is #9!)

Wherever people are, their selection of cosplay costume is often influenced by the anime and manga that is prevalent in everyones home country. There are many different titles of manga or anime that can be found in Japan and each month I will try to cast a spotlight on them and discuss what role they play in daily life in Japan. Many are very knowledgable about manga and anime so please leave a comment about the selection!

Freedom Project

This anime production was first seen through Cup Noodle commercials on TV that started in early 2006. Obviously a lot of work had been put into the commercial and in the background was "This Is Love" by Utada Hikaru from her newly released album. The commercial turned out to be a long running series and they put out the 5th commercial in the series recently. The Freedom Project anime short series that is seen in the advertisements are in fact put together by a group of of well known Manga-ka. The director of the series is Shuhei Morita who was behind the award-winning animation short Kakurenbo. The character and mecha designer is Katsuhiro Otomo, of Akira and Steamboy fame.

The story is set in the 23rd century and is about a boy who was brought up on the Moon amongst the remnants of the human race that had outlasted civilization on Earth. The world as we know it was destroyed by environmental change and Republic of Eden on the Moon continued to expand with colonies that valued peace and freedom. The story revolves around a group of 15 year olds with the main character being Takeru who's dream is to visit earth one day. The entire story is to to be 1.5 hours long consisting of 6 parts.

Takeru loves Cup Noodle and can be seen enjoying it at several points in the series. Product placement is an advertising technique that has become prevalent in movies that we see in the cinemas nowadays and it is interesting to see in an anime series as well. If you think about it great artists of the past were often commissioned by wealthy aristocrats or organizations and would sometimes include their patrons in the paintings as the main subjects or anonymous participants amongst a crowd. This sort of commissioned anime is not far from art from the past with a modern twist. Freedom Project is a new innovative approach to anime, who knows, the series could lead to a spin off movie or something in the future.

For those who are unfamiliar with the series you can find clips of it on YouTube and the series can be purchased online.