The photos for the Australia round of preliminaries for 2009 have been uploaded. Check them out, there are some great pictures of Sydney and I guess TVA staff member Oscar went to the zoo because there are some great shots of kangaroos and koalas. There are great pictures of the Animania event itself, guest cosplayers and stage performances. You can see pictures of the 2 teams that went on to the final on the next day and then some great shots of the teams on the final day.

Above is a shot of all participants on Saturday the final day for the WCS preliminaries. There is also a report file in Japanese, I will let you know when the English version is up.

It was announced today in the WCS news column that Finland will be participating in WCS 2009. I don't have any details beyond what little information is in the news file but the preliminary will be held at the Helsinki Book Fair on October 25th so you can expect more information in the next few weeks.

The addition of Finland is a result of an application process that went on over the summer and is finished now. There is always a possibility for a third participating country to be included for 2009 although I think its unlikely... only time will tell!

Connichi 2008 wrapped up over the weekend and the German representatives for WCS 2009 were selected on Saturday. With a greater number of prizes awarded this year and 15 performances scheduled the audience for the event filled the main hall. About 1800 people packed the event location.

The crowd got into it with the beginning of the the WCS trailer, pictures and a movie presented by Connichi. The judges had a tough time as there were a few teams that were very very good.

Congratulations go to Annabell Huwig and Iris Herrmann who performed as Holy Bell and Belldandy from Oh My Goddess!

There were a number of WCS representatives from previous years in attendance. German representatives Daniel Güldenpfennig from 2006, Katharina Oberender and Anna Degenhardt from 2007, Katharina Wehrmann from 2008 and Italian representative Verena Fusari from 2007 were all there. I really hope to have more pictures for everyone in coming days!

The organizers from Connichi were kind enough to provide us with some images of the convention in Germany, below are a few of them.

Here is a shot of the stage where the the performances took place, before the event there was a video presentation of the WCS event. In this image you can see Sonya and Renee from the USA 2008. You can see some of the large crowd watching the event in the foreground.

Here is a shot of one of the teams up on stage for the preliminaries. You can see the WCS image on the screen in the background.

This is a group shot of all of the teams that participated in the preliminaries, you can see Annabell and Iris - winners and WCS Germany 2009 representatives - on the far left.

This is a WCS information booth at the Connichi event, Anna Degenhard from WCS 2007 is taking care of the booth here.

Here is a great picture of the cosplay area, lots of people dressed up, great weather and lush green trees in the background.

A great number of past WCS participants were at the event, above is a picture of Katharina Oberender and Anna Degenhard from Germany 2007 and Daniela Gildenpfennig from Germany 2006.

Above is Stephanie Kienast from the group performance team of Germany 2005 while taking a break.

Finally is a picture of representatives spanning 3 years: Katharina Wehrmann from Germany 2008, Verena Fusari from Italy 2007 and again Daniela Gildenpfennig from Germany 2006.

Thanks for the pictures Fritjof, looks like it was a great time!

The complete profile for Katharine and Gabriella of Australia for WCS 2009 has been uploaded.

You can also read about how the preliminaries went in the event report. It goes into detail about who performed what in the WCS preliminaries at the Animania Sydney and with a series of regional rounds before the final Australia round there is no doubt that the competition was tough.

On the heels of Connichi in Germany, the New York Anime Festival will be determining the USA 2009 pair. WCS staff member Issoh is in New York already and has sent a timely photo of the Lehman Brothers building that has been in the news a bit recently...

More details for you as they come in!

I only have the information on the Japanese blog to go on right now but I have a picture of the entrance to the event itself taken by WCS staff member Issoh:

As far as I know the WCS preliminaries will be held on Saturday. Here is a picture of Renee from USA 2008 along with Yui and Mino from the Osaka 2008 team. Yui and Mino were invited out to perform during the cosplay stage event.

They were so excited to be going to the States, I am sure they will have a great time and put on a good show for everyone. They have a cosplay radio show in Osaka actually and are great performers. I hope to get some information for you on their experience!

We have some pictures of two of the teams that took part in the preliminaries at the New York Anime Festival.

Above is the first group backstage, very elegant costumes looks like they put a lot of work into them.

Here is group 10, I don't know for sure but I imagine there were 10 teams in all. Again, very fancy dresses, perhaps they are doing XXXHOLiC? If you know please leave a comment below!

Here is one of the teams doing their on stage performance. I hope there will be a way to get a look at all of the performances!

We have a winner, Elizabeth and India who were performing XXXHOLiC. Congratulations, see you in Japan next summer!

Hope to have more info for you on how things went in coming days!