Sorry the information on how things went are coming out in bits but I have received some details on how the event went from Pol (WCS super translator) and some pictures from Maria who was WCS 2008 representative from Spain and have put something together for you here, enjoy!

---

The Spanish preliminary round for WCS2009 took place on Saturday, November the 1st, as usual on the framework of the popular festival Salón del Manga, which reached its fourteenth edition this year.

Although the event was hampered by bad weather through its four days, the national WCS selection proved to be one of its main attractions again. In spite of the intense rainfall, more than 800 people filled up the dedicated venue, while a crowd of some dozens still waited patiently outside in the hope of being able to access in the case that some of the audience would leave the hall first.

But the truth is that the candidates to represent Spain in the WCS delivered once more a wonderful, vibrant show that kept the audience entertained to the end.

As last year had been the ‘year of the wings’, this time the recurrent theme were swords, spears, and all kinds of spiky props, which were all made paying much attention to details and to the use of realistic materials. This abundance of weapons was also related to the fact that most of the performances were renditions of famous battle scenes from action manga and fighting video games. Among them, the most popular appeared to be the Smash Bros series, so no less than three incarnations of Link from The Legend of Zelda appeared on stage.

It also becomes evident that the participants are aware of the latest WCS trends, so as the last championship held in Japan was punctuated by the wide use of large-sized backdrops and panels, there were a number of teams in Barcelona who set up their own stage to provide for a more theatre-like ambiance.

As usual, besides the more orthodox recreation of scenes in all-time classics such as Saint Seiya or Digimon, there were also funny parodies poking fun at arguably serious manga like Code Geass. There were a couple of musical performances, too, including a live duet from Sakura and Xiaoran, in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, wonderfully sung in Japanese.

Among the most original performances, there were the recreation of Bulma and Yamcha’s first date in the world of Dragon Ball, complete with a whole set of cute props, and which perhaps could rank as the most alternative performance ever seen in a WCS preliminary round: 20th Century Boys, by famous artist Naoki Urasawa, all condensed in three minutes. Of course, it is not a work that can inspire really good cosplays –two guys in suits wearing masks-, but the originality of the concept and the freshness with which it was put into practice left both the audience and the juries deeply satisfied.

However, there was one particular performance which stood on top of all others. Right at the beginning of the contest, in the second place (the same in which Nico and Maria, WCS08 representatives, appeared last year), Laura Fernández and Bereniç Serrano appeared as Oscar and Maria Antoniette from The Rose of Versailles, and starred in a wonderful number with many typical WCS elements.

First of all, the couple set up the enormous reproduction of a book, almost 2m tall, in the middle of the stage. This book was made of cloth, with all the details cut and sewn separately. But the big surprise came when Laura (Oscar) turned the cover aside, to reveal the carefully drawn reproduction of a page in the original manga, which on its turn happened to be a screen used to conceal Bereniç’s (Maria Antoniette) change of costume.

All cleverly devised and better staged, the audience was absolutely excited with the performance. The members of the jury took into account the reaction of the audience as well as the overall quality of the costume work, the props and the acting itself, which also was very straightforward and loyal to the original work, and thus decided to award this entry with the first prize and the right for the participants to represent Spain in the next edition of World Cosplay Summit.

In fact, Laura and Bereniç are seasoned cosplayers who had already taken part in previous editions of the WCS national selection; two years ago they appeared as Asuka and Rei in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and then they already hinted their preference for really big sized props, such as their Evas portrayed in almost real size. So it would not be strange that they already had something really huge in mind to impress the audience gathered at Oasis 21 this next summer!

Above is a picture of WCS representatives for 2008, Nico and Maria on the outside and for 2009 Laura and Bereniç on the inside. The order is Nico, Laura, Bereniç and Maria.

---

Thanks Pol and Maria for providing the information, Barcelona is far away from where I am and where you may be but with such detailed information it is easier to visualize how things went. Thank you!

I must apologize a couple of entries ago I said that is about it for preliminaries for this year but in fact there is one more very. The Danish Representatives for WCS2009 will be decided this Sunday November 9th. WCS staff member Nancy is in Copenhagen right now and has uploaded a few entries thus far.

Here is an image of "The Little Mermaid" made famous by Hans Christian Anderson. She went and saw it on a brisk morning and said how difficult it was to get all of the crowd around her out of the picture.

Above is a shot of the J-Popcon organizer Adrian during an interview at a Copenhagen radio station. J-Popcon is one of the largest anime and manga events in Denmark as you can see with the media attention. Nancy also writes that Renee from USA WCS2008 and Anna from Germany WCS2007 will be a part of the panel of judges tomorrow. Stay tuned for more!

Sorry again for not having all the preliminary dates straight, the fall preliminary season has filled up more than I thought. m(_ _)m

It was a heated battle with 16 groups performing but the pair Ida and Shige (direct translation from Japanese) were chosen as representatives for Denmark at WCS2009 with their performance from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

Nancy was great to provide us with regular updates of how things went in Copenhagen and took many pictures of the J-Popcon event. Above is a shot of some of the performers during the preliminary event.

Here is a final picture of the audience for the event. More information on the representatives and the event itself coming up!

Profiles for Spain Representatives Bereniç and Laura can be found here. The profiles for Ida and Sigge from Denmark can be found here.

Photos of J-Popcon in Denmark are up but the picture comments have not translated into English yet. Similarly the Danish preliminary report is up on the Japanese side of the WCS web page is up but that is not in English yet either so I wont bother with a link there. It looks like they have details of all of the performances though so that is something to look forward to.

I did some looking around on YouTube and found a lot of videos from Denmark and Spain have been uploaded there with great dedication. For Denmark you can find a lot of the J-Popcon performances and the winners if you look for "J-popcon 2008 - Act#10". Pretty extravagant presentation! For the Spain winners look for "La Rosa de Versalles" and other performances at the Salon del Manga event can be found searching for WCS Barcelona 2008.

As I mentioned previously, the next couple of months there are no preliminaries so I will put a lot of effort into general cosplay/anime/manga/cultural related information that I can find over here for you.

I want to try to get as many interviews as possible for you this year and I have one for you now. Annabell is half of the Germany representatives for 2009, you can see her biting the Lufthansa placard on the left below.

-----

Question: WCS 2009 is still a ways off but I would imagine you are looking ahead to
it. What is the current overall state of your preparations?

Annabell: I think I was relaxed before we entered the preliminary competition. Our costumes were already finished and we just needed to make the music for the performance. Iris (Deval) was a bit nervous and I just kind of whined a lot because my wings hurt and my wig was very uncomfortable *laugh*.
Currently we started to buy the fabrics for other costumes and I will start sewing in a few weeks.

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

A: Oh I like lots of anime :). But a few characters are my all time favorites ^^. For example Rin Tohsaka from Fate/Stay Night because she is an intelligent, elegant and strong lady. I love her personality and her way of thinking. I also like Barasuishou from Rozen Maiden Traumend. Some people call me an "arrogant frosty doll" like Barasuishou :(, but I don´t think that I´m frosty, I´m a nice girl *smile*. Recently I watched "Earl and Fairy" and I love Lydia Carlton. She´s a bit worldly, innocent, romantic and she can´t confess when she likes someone - just like me! *laugh*

Q: What was your criteria in choosing your costumes, either the ones for the championship or otherwise?

A: I like to do characters who have parts of their personality that are similar to my own (i.e. Rin Tohsaka, Lacus, Lydia). Also the character should have the right body for me (for some characters I´m too tall and for some I´m too short xD).Sometimes I´m also interested in characters that are the complete opposite from me like Hakufu Sonsaku. There must be sympathy for the character I choose :)

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

A: We started with a monologue from Belldandy who talks about the difficult destiny of being a goddess and to see all the bad things in the world. She took a balloon (that symbolizes the earth) and let it burst with the words "The world is so...fragile" and feathers fluttered over her head. At this time Holy Bell, her angel, enter the stage, give Belldandy her hand and help her to stand up. Together they sing the song from Belldandy and Holy Bell from the Oh!my Goddess Movie. After this Holy Bell hugs Belldandy and tells her that she is not alone. Together they look up at the sky and say: "We are strong...TOGETHER!". That was it. :)

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

A: They was really happy and proud and told it to everyone they knew :).

Q: What do you find fascinating about Japan?

A: Every country has it´s fascinating points because of their very own culture and history. Japan had a totally different history than European countries and also it´s own philosophy and thinking. It´s wonderful to see that a country could conserve their identity like this. Japan can really be proud :)

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

A: Oh, I´m unassuming :). I just want to drink some good tea, eat something good food and see old shrines and other interesting relics. I´m happy to spend time together with my Onee-sama Iris (Deval) *smiles*

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

A: I´m in love with all sorts of food like ramen and yakitori :). And also some yummy sweets *laugh*.

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

A: Thanks to all for the nice support you given us! I´m really happy that I could find new international friends and have fun together. I hope you´ll enjoy our show and you´ll like to watch all cosplayers and shows next year in Japan :).

Thank you for the interview :)!

-----

I will have an interview from Iris - the other half of the German team - in coming days!

The second day of Mariko and Chokko's event in Tottori Prefecture culminated with a stage performance. I was honored to be one of the judges and I had time to take some pictures of the proceedings.

Here is one of the members of the group from China who was performing Peking opera. She was older than the rest of the group, maybe in her 40s and was the director of costume making and did amazing embroidery work on the outfits. It was a privilege to see Peking Opera in Japan, people responded with great praise.

Here are the pair invited out from Korea "Shou Kyou" and "Son Shou Kou" from the Sengoku Musou series. They had fun and did a great job representing their country.

Above was a family entry from Tottori prefecture. They were performing Sayuki and their young daughter was dressed up as Songoku. It sounds like they have been active in previous events as they had many fans in the crowd. It was unbelievably cute as the youngster did well in performing, punctuating a solid performance.

Here is another pair from Japan performing from Sengoku Basara. There were a total of 10 entries, about 7 of them from Japan. This pair put together a great fight scene with some dramatic scenes as well. At the end of their performance 2 friends dressed as their wives got up on stage too.

The final performance was from the China team taking a note from the Beijing Olympics where they wrote scrolls in artistic calligraphy script. A nice touch to a successful first visit for a team from China and Korea at the Tottori event. The scrolls will make fine souvenirs for the China themed facility.

Here is a final shot of all of the performers from China getting interviewed by the MC. The visit of the teams from China and Korea added to an already exciting event. They did another stage performance that afternoon just as I was leaving to take the train back home. The group stayed for a few days after and took in some of the sights in Japan before heading back home. Looking forward to the event again next year!

The 2008 representatives for Osaka - Yui and Mino - had a live performance in Nagoya a few days ago. I knew that they did performances but I didn't realize what their performance was all about until I saw them on stage.

The live house was actually very close to my place, maybe a 5 minute drive. Considering the 2 are living in Tokyo now and have a radio show in Osaka, being able to see them in Nagoya was a treat. They were glad to be back in town as they are both originally from Nagoya. The pair were performing as a part of a greater event which happens on a regular basis in different parts of Japan called Super Cosplesson and there were performers there from about 3:30 in the afternoon. As each performer took their turn on the stage their own group of dedicated fans came out to the dance floor. Each singer interacted with their fans and their song performances corresponded with the chants, arm swings and dancing from the audience. It was quite a site to see, different from what you see at a standard concert.

You can find videos of the Cosplesson event on YouTube, in fact you can see great video of Yui and Mino on YouTube as well, give them a search. You will get a better idea of what things were like than from the poor pictures I took here.

If I had my flash on the Yui and Mino did not come out well and there was this distracting flash of light. If I turned the flash off the pictures would be super exposed as you can see above. I included this one because it came out alright and you can see their movement along with the swinging light sticks in the crowd. The performances finished off with a photo opportunity with all the singers and then they cleared out the dance floor, pulled out tables and had a signing session.

Afterward we went out for dinner with Yui and Mino. In this picture you can see Yui and Mino, TVA staff and the organizers of the Cosplesson event. I am taking the picture :) We had a bite to eat and a drink and I was really interested to hear how their trip to New York went. They had an awesome time with Sonnya and Renee of team USA 2008. They were particularly blown away by the size of Renees house! We finished off a great evening with a little karaoke. They will be in town again in January, I will try to get out to their event at that time too!