Remember I told you about the WCS 2007 runners up performing in a Deltora's Quest program last month here? The broadcast time has been determined, those who are in Japan or can see Japanese television internationally, the program will be broadcast on January 5th at 8 am. That is on TV Aichi, TV Tokyo in the Kanto region and TV Osaka in Kansai.
There is a report on it on the Japanese side of the site here and that should be up in English very soon!

Just when you thought things were slowing down for the holidays there is one more preliminary taking place, the US round. It has been 3 years since the United States has had representatives at the World Cosplay Summit, the partner organization is the New York Anime Festival. Kato-san from TV Aichi attended the inaugural event and let us know how things went.

Here is a picture of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, winter in New York is cold but very beautiful. Kato-san said that everyone at the NY Anime Festival were super friendly and she was looking forward to everyones performances.

The preliminaries went great and Renee Gloger and Sonnya Paz were chosen for their performance of Clamp’s ‘Magic Knight Rayearth’. They were really happy with their win and it will be great to see them over the summer! Supposedly the TVA staff also went over to Renee's house and met her family so we can look forward to hearing more about that. If anyone has any information on the event, leave a message and let us know!

Above is a picture of the pair, there are more pictures and information here!

I wanted to show you a picture of the changing autumn leaves this year but there were no brilliant colors, it seemed like the trees skipped autumn this year. Slightly disturbing, hopefully the colors return next year. I know that in Vancouver you don't get the brilliant colors like you do in Japan, how about where you are?
I went shopping for Xmas decorations with some friends a few days ago and noticed something at the mall that was a little surprising and not surprising at the same time. They had a wide selection of "kagami-mochi" and "shimekazari"; traditional Shinto decorations for New Year. With the turn of the new year, Shimekazari can be seen hanging above front doors of peoples houses to ward off evil. For some reason I imagined they were only sold in older shops in the market place, like Osu-Kannon, but to see them at a massive modern Aeon shopping centre was somehow odd. Below is a picture of the decorations.

As an inspiration to cosplay I will talk about different types of manga here. We all find inspiration from different sources so let me ask you, what is your favorite Manga title and why?

Festive cheer for everyone, did you have a white Xmas? I am back home in Vancouver for the holidays and although there was no snow on the morning of the 25th it did snow during the day and this was one house in the neighborhood that I would like to share with you.