I got in contact with Katherine and Gabriella who were just selected for the first group from Australia in 2009. They were kind enough to answer the questions and in detail so I will divide the interview into 3 parts. Here is part 1:

Question: WCS 2009 is still a long ways off, what is the current overall state of your preparations?

Tsubaki (Katherine):
So far we’ve been deciding on what different costumes & series we’d like to do in Japan & coming up with skit ideas for them. I’ve been talking to some of the other Australian WCS finalists from this year for construction tips for different materials they used on their costumes, which I’m not familiar with & getting opinions from close friends as to how our ideas sound. It’s very much in the early stages still though. We do have an idea though of what we would like to do.

Cattypatra (Gabriella)
We’re still very much in the planning process. We have lots of ideas of what we’d like to do in Japan, and each come with their own pros and cons. It’s a really tough decision because we want to pick costumes that are great, would be easy to do a good skit with, characters we like and a series that we’d really enjoy cosplaying. We have one idea which is sticking out more than others, so we’re trying to figure out if it would be viable.

Question: What manga and anime you like, why do you like those titles? What are your favorite characters and why?

Tsubaki:
There are A LOT of Anime & manga that I like xD My favourite manga is probably ‘Kazan’ by Gaku Miyao & my favourite character from that would be Kazan. It’s not a well-known series, but was one of my first & all time favourites. The reason I like it so much is the story was great, quite different & worked so well with interesting characters. I always try to get more people into ‘Kazan’ as it certainly doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Kazan is one of my dream cosplays, but only recently do I feel a bit more confident that I could do his character justice. I don’t really have a favourite anime, there are too many good ones that I enjoy. Some of my favourites include: Fullmetal Alchemist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, X, Code Geass, Soul Eater, Junjou Romantica, Naruto, & so many more. I just generally enjoy anime with great plots & interesting characters.

Cattypatra:
That is such a hard question! XD I love so many series! My favourites are all very varied. For example I love the manga “Revolutionary Girl Utena” because the main character is a very strong female heroine, who fights and takes a main role. I love that in anime and manga, because generally females are portrayed as very weak or wimpy. I love a lot of shonen, and of course the old school classics I grew up watching like Pokemon and Digimon! From the more recent releases I adore Code Geass, Soul Eater, Full metal Alchemist and Gray Man. I also love the good old stuff, such as lots of Clamps like X. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the series that has always been in my heart. I also love yaoi, so Ai No Kusabi and Junjo Romantica are a must! Anything with homoeroticism in it is good in my books.

Part 2 of the interview will be related to the groups performance at the Australia preliminaries at Animania.

The profile for the USA group for WCS 2009 is up now and can be seen here!

Thanks to Leonard L., I have a number of great images of the USA preliminaries at New York Anime Festival last week. In fact there were so many pictures available that I didn't know which were in the WCS event and which were not so I will stick with what I know. (Or what I think I know!)

Here is a clearer picture of group 1 in the preliminaries, you can see the emotion that went into the performance.

Here is a shot of the Soul Caliber group in their performance.

This is a picture of the winning team, India and Elizabeth, in action. Notice that the dress on the right is actually lit up!

Above is a picture of Yui and Mino of Team Osaka 2008 performing on what looks to be a seperate stage. The pair were very popular at the event and it sounds like they made a lot of friends. (Notice Sonnya of USA 2008 in the middle background, Hi!)

Here is Renee of USA 2008 up on stage casting a spell on someone.

This is a picture of Elizabeth and Dia holding up the WCS winning placard and one of the soccer style towels that were sold at WCS 2008.

Above is a great shot of Yui and Mino up on stage.

Here is a picture of Renee and Yoshitaka Amano who is famous for the animation work he has done with the Final Fantasy series.

It sounds like things went well at NYAF, Yui and Mino were shown around New York and had a classic burger at Johnny Rockets. Wish I had been there!

The 4th representative team for WCS 2009 has been selected!

Over the weekend at the Romics convention in Rome Marco Battistini and Elena D'Ambrosio Valentian won the WCS preliminaries and will be coming to Japan next summer. Their performance was from Final Fantasy XII and as you can see in the picture their costumes look amazing. More information for you on the event as it comes in!

I haven't been too responsive over the last week, sorry, I am in Canada visiting. I will be back in Japan on Monday but I do have some pictures in the meantime.

Here is a picture of the fall colors in the interior of British Columbia, Kettle Valley.

This is the Olympic countdown clock in downtown Vancouver.

Here is part 2 of the interview with Katharine (Tsubaki) and Gabriella (Cattypatra).

Above is a picture of them doing cosplay from D.Gray-Man. (thanks Katherine and Kenny!)

Question: What was your criteria in choosing your costumes for the Australia preliminaries at Animania and other costumes in general?

Tsubaki:
For WCS we had to do characters or series that we enjoy. The criteria would be:
• It has to be a series Catty & I both love
• The characters have to have good /complicated costumes, work together & have a generally interesting personality traits
• The characters we want to do have to couple well together
• We have to have fun doing those character, being from that series & being together
We originally were going to use Fullmetal Alchemist for our preliminary round in March & D.Gray-man was going to be for the Australian finals in August however we decided to swap the choices around as we knew we’d have more fun cosplaying Fullmetal Alchemist together in the event we did lose, we would have had an awesome day being Edward & Alphonse as they’re such great characters, instead of D.Gray-man where our characters are rivals & only really fight within the series.
We’ve decided we want to do something along similar guidelines for the finals in Japan, we want a series we both enjoy, characters we both love who are drawn together in some way & of course have complicated outfits & great story/personality to back them up. We just want to enjoy cosplaying together as we always have, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it if it weren’t fun.

Cattypatra:
Even though we had all these criteria that had to be met, as Tsubaki explained above, we pretty decided out costumes on the night we decided to enter the WCS. The decision was very easy, we didn’t fight about it and we were both extremely excited to do both sets of costumes.

The only thing that differed was when we swapped our pre lims with finals, but we both decided together and were very happy with our choice. The most important thing for us is always to have fun. If we’re not having fun, it’s not worth it. But we’ve had some very great Cosplay experiences and times, with WCS being one of the most memorable things to ever happen to either of us.

Q: Could you tell me what your performance at Animania was like?

T: Our Finals skit, it was stressful. XD
I wrote the skit well before we’d done much of the costumes, however I designed so that it would show off both the costumes as well as showing off parts of the series & why we love it. The problems that came up later on were we’d have to either alter the skit slightly, or alter the costumes slightly as we made them to make sure the skit would work, which was very frustrating by the end. For example during our practices I for some reason never wore the armour heads until right before the con as I considered it just a practice & it never occurred to me until right before the con. I couldn’t throw the kitties our when the armour heads were on, so at the last minute before the con I had to make the front grill open up so that I could throw the kittens out from there.
We were really amazed on the day ourselves that people enjoyed the skit so much. I’ve listened to it so many times & gone through it so many times I couldn’t tell if it would be good or not anymore. It was definitely harder to do on stage as the dimmed lights & huge space around us meant my visibility inside the armour was almost nothing. Thankfully the good thing about Catty wearing a bright red coat meant I could spot her, but nothing else.

C: The skit was a bit of a car crash. Everything kept falling apart. The final product was fantastic, but everything went wrong leading up to it. It’s funny looking back, but it wasn’t at the time. Many good things came of this though. Back stage someone accidentally broke my prop spear I needed for the skit, and every other team, without exception, banded together to try and help me fix it. This sportsmanship was very touching as everyone genuinely helped me to the best of their abilities.

Despite that, the skit was great on the day. Everything really came together, and we were both really surprised to know that we had made several people in the audience cry, We tried to portray the amazing relationship between the Elric brothers from Full Metal Alchemist, and were glad that the audience and judges acknowledged us for that and showed us so much support. I’ve never had as much fun on stage than being able to share it with my Tsubaki.

Just as everything went wrong prior, everything went right when it really counted, and it was perfect.

Q: Please tell me a little about how you put your costumes together especially the great work you put into making Alphonse Elric's suit of armour. How long did they take to make? How did you make them?

T: The armour was definitely one of the hardest things I’ve had to make thus far. It required a lot of planning, I spent at least one month working out the approximate measurements, shapes that would need to be cut & scale of it in accordance with my body & for how it would stand & looks next to Catty as Edward to make me appear much taller & bulkier. Of course no matter how much planning goes in there are always problems & things that need changes. For example, the fake hands needed to be put in half way through the armour construction when I realised that proportion-wise I would look really weird if I tried to use my own arm length.
The armour is made entirely from foam. There are various techniques used to create the appearance of armour, such as the fake bolts made from creatively cutting two different types of foam & attaching them together to look like bolts. Also the pieces of foam are actually cut on the same joints as Alphonse’s armour from the references. I loved working with the foam as it’s relatively cheap, very light weight & meant I could move very easily, which I needed to, to be able to sit down & stand up for during our skit.
All together we spent 5months working on both these costumes.

C: I hate this question. No one realises how much work went into everything else XD. I did majority of the sewing. I drafted patterns from scratch for all the parts. I made both coats, paying special attention to the sizing, and also to where all the seams were. I purposefully removed several of the seams to make them as accurate as possible. I also paid attention to the specific colour and fall of the coats, choosing an appropriate fabric, gaberdine. Unfortunately gaberdine frays like crazy, so I had to overlock everything, giving it a very professional finish. I made both the shirts from matching fabric, as well as the pants, which while it wasn’t very noticeable, were fantastically fitted and very professionally made. I put in a lot of details that weren’t needed, such as functioning zippers and deep pockets for my alchemist pocket watch, which I also hand made from scratch.

On top of that I made my automail arm and leg. This took a very long time and I suffered from a lot of hot glue burns, which while they were funny for the people keeping me company, were very painful.

The final part of the interview will be added shortly!

The profile for Elizabeth and India have been updated and the preliminary report as well as photos of the event are up.

The report talks a little about teams USA and Osaka from 2008 and how things went. There is also a complete list of performances, there were 14 teams this year, pretty full schedule! Its interesting that 4 of the teams performed XXXHOLiC, that would have made the competition even tougher as each team would have a different way of interpreting the manga.

It was only a couple months ago that Finland's participation was announced and the preliminaries are already upon us. They will be taking place this weekend and TVA staff member "Snuffkin H" is already in Helsinki at the event.

Here is a shot of a flyer taken by Snuffkin H before leaving for Helsinki.

With the addition of Finland and Australia, the fall season (spring in Australia?) has become very busy with preliminaries. The decision this weekend will determine the 5th group. Next weekend is Spain!

You may remember Mariko and Choko of Barbara, they were the Web Japan representatives in WCS 2006. I am visiting them in Tottori Prefecture now at an event they have been working on for a while The China Cosplay Competition. This is in fact the 5th installment of a bi-annual cosplay event that they have held here. This is the first time however that they have invited cosplayers from China and South Korea. They selected one of the teams at the event called CICAF in Hangzhou, China that I wrote about in May.

The picture above is from inside the garden, I liked this shot, you can see 2 people posing on the bridge and 2 people in the bridge arch taking pictures of them.
Tottori Prefecture has a facility called Enchouen which was built about 10 years ago and in 2005 became well known around Japan for the filming of the drama Saiyuki (known as Monkey in English) the Chinese traditional story of 4 unlikely heros.

The drama starred 4 famous actors, one of them who was Katori Shingo of SMAP fame. Above is a classic pose by Mariko dressed up as Songoku from Sayuki who was played by Katori Shingo in the TV drama.

I arrived Saturday afternoon and the teams were just getting ready for an exhibition within the garden. Above is a picture of the crowd that had assembled to watch the show.

Here is a shot of the exhibition. 11 members of the 30+ member team from China made the trip out to Japan and their presentation was about a half hour long. You can see them lined up in front of the gorgeous main hall in the park at the end of the show.

From 5:30 there was a mixer event where about 100 cosplayers attended with representatives from city hall, and the prefecture. Everyone is playing bingo in the picture.

More info on how the next day went coming up!

Snuffkin H arrived in Helsinki safely and was surprised at how it was not as cold as she had imagined.

The next day she headed off to the Japanese Embassy for a visit with the minister-counselor. Snuffkin H said the minister-counselor was a very calm character and listened intently to what she had to say on the event and cosplay itself. He was to take part in the event the next day and said he was looking forward to it. Above is a picture of the embassy.

Snuffkin H posted a few entries on what she found around town.

Here is a shot of a manga series that she found at a bookstore called The Good Fellows.

Above is another picture of manga that she came across in a standard supermarket.

Finally she posted an entry about this shop here that she found in a shopping center. The shop was called "Blippo" and sold a variety of manga related goods and lolita style clothing too.

Iris and Arttu who performed Esther Blanchett and Leon Garcia of Trinity Blood. Iris is quite serious about her cosplay and has poured a lot of her personal savings into making the approximately 21 costumes that she has to date. Arttu too was quite striking with his 190 cm stature and impressive outfit. Looking forward to seeing you next summer!

Here is the final part of the interview with Katharine (Tsubaki) and Gabriella (Cattypatra). These questions cover the reactions of their family, impressions of Japan and a final message for everyone. Below is a shot of them during their performance of Full Metal Alchemist at the Animania WCS preliminaries.

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Question: How was the reaction of your family when you won the competition?

Tsubaki: My family was quite happy, they enjoy it when I’m happy & are worried otherwise that sometimes I don’t get enough out of my cosplays, however I know what a great experience the WCS will be & couldn’t have asked for a greater experience with all my friends before & after the Australian finals for WCS, it was definitely worth it, as only about 30 people a year get to do this.

Cattypatra: I was lucky enough that my mum and grandmother attended the convention to watch the performances. They were so moved that they even cried! It was pretty crazy. I also consider my friends to be my family, and their reaction was amazing. I cried when I won and all of their love and cheering and support and helpfulness kept me crying all the way home.

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Q: What do you find fascinating about Japan?

T: The culture is very different to Australia, so really everything there I can find fascinating. I love how even without speaking the language it’s so easy to get around & Japanese people are so polite & helpful, I love it! <3 I love riding the trains in Japan, the streets are so nice & clean & the convenience stores are awesome. The places I love most & find the most interesting to visit in Japan are probably Harajuku & Akihabara, but I’ve only really been to Tokyo once on a short holiday, so I very much look forward to seeing Nagoya next.

C: Homoerotica.

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Q: What do you hope or expect to find once you have arrived in Japan?

T: I expect Mike Morris to be waiting at the airport for us with strawberries. XD
I’m hoping that all the other WCS contestants in the competition are nice & that we get to have lots of fun with them & hangout despite language barriers. I’m hoping to get a day off, so that we can visit the Tokyo area, as I want to visit the costume shops, wigs shops, toyshops, doujinshi shops & clothes shops there. I’m expecting to have a great time with Catty, Kenny, Widya & Morris whilst in Japan. It’ll be amazing hanging out for a week.

C: Morris will be waiting for us. No doubt in my mind! I hope he waits with Krispy Kreme, but I don’t know if they have those in Japan. I can’t wait to go shopping with Tsubaki, Kenny, Widya and Morris. We’re going to have so much fun, and eat so much food. We’re all going to go home so fat and it’ll be awesome!

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Q: Do you like Japanese food? If so, what do you like?

T: I’m generally a fan of delicious food, I love going out to restaurants with friends & have always loved Japanese food. I definitely can’t wait to eat real Japanese ramen with Catty as it’s is tradition for us to eat ramen together. I really love Japanese strawberries, they’re huge, bright red, smooth & so sweet! They look like picture perfect plastic ones when I first saw them. Much better than the ones you can get in Australia. Also I LOVE MELON SODA! You can’t get it easily nor cheaply in Australia, so I always get excited when it’s available to me.

C: I adore Japanese food. I can’t wait to have authentic Japanese food in Japan. I love ramen! Me and Tsubaki always eat ramen together and have so much fun. And like Tsubaki I am obsessed with Japanese strawberries. I’m going to eat so many when I’m over there! I’m also looking forward to eating some of the more exotic dishes that we don’t get in Australia, and I have to nato at least once. I hear it’s the Japanese version of Vegemite.

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Q: Could you please provide a comment to your present and future fans and readers of this blog?

T: Many special thanks to our friends for all the support they’ve given us before & after the WCS competition. You guys are awesome & we couldn’t have done any of this without you. For people interested in our costumes & progress I usually keep things up to date on my Deviant Art page at: http://tsubaki-chan.deviantart.com/
Thanks again to everyone for being awesome. Catty & I can’t wait to show the world how awesome Australian cosplayers are. <3

C: I have fans? Really? I love you guys, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. And whatever you’re eating, can I have some? XD

But on a more serious note, I want to thank everyone that supported us. Especially all our close friends and supporters, and all the WCS judges and other contestants. They were all so supportive and we could never have done this without you. I thank you all from the bottom of their heart, and words cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for us.

If you’re interested in contacting me, seeing WCS progress or just dropping by, you can find me at http://cattypatra.deviantart.com/ Please don’t feel shy.

Me and Tsubaki can’t wait to represent the amazing Australian Cosplay community and show everyone how awesome they are. <3

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As a doughnut fan myself, allow me to respond to the Krispy Kreme query. They opened their first shop in Japan a couple years ago and you can find a few shops in Tokyo now. For strawberries you may want to go to Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo, they are famous there. Make sure that you allot time before or after the event in your trip ticket so you can do and see everything you want.

Thanks Katherine and Gabriella, looking forward to seeing you next summer!

(Spain preliminaries for WCS 2008)

Ficomic is preparing for the Spain round to be held at their Salon del Manga event in Barcalona on November 1st. According to the WCS news report they are expecting 20 teams to compete and large crowds to take in the show as in previous years.

I think this will be the last preliminary for a while in what has become a very busy fall (spring in Australia) series of preliminaries.

I will get you further information on the results as they come up, if anyone attends the event leave a comment and let us know how things go!