On May 1st the preliminaries for the final ChinaJoy event in July were held, you can see one of the teams that preformed in the image below.

The room where the performances were done had a packed audience and it was very stuffy.

This image below may be familiar to some, it is Yuimino, Osaka representatives for WCS 2008 and winners of the Brother Award.

Outside of their regular tours in Japan they have had international trips as well with a visit to the New York Anime Festival last year and the visit to ChinaJoy in Shanghai this month. In June they will be traveling to the Everland event in Seoul, South Korea. They had quite a following of fans in Shanghai and did an autograph session as well.

On Saturday the WCS preliminaries were held. Zhao Chin of the pair from China at WCS 2008 was present at the preliminaries cheering on some friends when O-san caught up with her.

The 10th pair for WCS 2009 have been selected. They are Shi Chen Shon and Jen Jiao Yuin who won with a performance from Shin Sangoku Musou. 10 teams competed in the competition and the crowd went wild in response to their well executed performance. Shi and Jen's movements were very clear and concise, they should make the competition very interesting this summer in Japan. The picture quality is not the best but their costumes look very ornate and detailed, it will be good to see them up close.

There are some videos of the preliminaries online if you search for "09CJ-WCS", unfortunately at the moment they are only on video sites in China making them unviewable for those who are not in that country. Hopefully we'll be able to see video of the performances sometime soon!

Before leaving O-san had lunch with the ChinaJoy staff, thanks for putting on a great show and excellent hospitality!

A few of the teams have been putting their own blogs together in the past couple years, I would like to introduce you to a few of them for the WCS 2009 teams. Here is Elizabeth and India of the USA team:
http://community.livejournal.com/wcs_teamusa09/

This is Annabell and Iris of the German team:
http://www.m-o-e.org/

I came across some of the other teams as well.
Here is the Sabina and Abi's from team Mexico:
http://community.livejournal.com/teammexicowcs09/

Here is Ida and Shige's of Denmark:
http://community.livejournal.com/denmark_wcs_09/

This is the blog for Katharine and Gabriella from Australia:
http://community.livejournal.com/wcsaustralia/

Take a look at them, leave a comment if you can, there are further links to personal homepages and blogs so take a look around and send your voice of support!.

If anyone knows of any other blogs or homepages by WCS 2009 participants, please let me know in the comments below!

Here is the interview with the second member of the Mexico pair for WCS 2009, Sabina:
(Photos to be updated later)

Question: What manga and anime you like, why do you like those titles? What are your favorite characters and why?
Sabina: I think I’m a second impact child, I love Evangelion!
I´m also a big fan of Clamp, both in anime and manga. Their illustrations are amazing.
My favorite characters are usually the more complex the better. I love Ayanami Rei, Mamimi from FLCL, Shiro from Tekkonkinkreet I also tend to like the cute ones, like Chii or Sakura from CCsakura.

Q:Are you watching any anime right now? If so, what are you watching?
S: Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei…. I’m loving it, it’s hilarious!

Q: How did you first get into cosplay?
S: The day I learned how to use a sewing machine I was practicing with a cute pink fabric. After one of the exercises I looked at it and said to myself “this looks like something Tomoyo would wear from Sakura…”
My eyes opened widely and at that moment I knew I would never stop.

Q: What was your criteria in choosing your costumes in general?
S: Sometimes I fall in love immediately with the clothes and later the character slowly grows in me. But I prefer love at first sight with the whole:
character + clothing…. The heavenly union < sigh >

Q: What does the recognition of being selected for this competition mean to you?
S: Going to Japan has been my dream for a long time!
I now believe everything is possible, if you fight for it.

Q: How was the reaction of your family when you won the competition?
S: They were at the convention, cheering up for us, and filming the whole event. When the winner team announcement was made they were so happy that they sort of dropped the camera. The day after my mom and my grandma made a big cake to celebrate.
They’ve always been very supportive with all my crazy ideas ^__^ !

Q: What do you find fascinating about Japan?
S: Their architecture, both modern and classic! I believe good architecture can represent a culture almost entirely because it is an aesthetic representation of the way of life, the traditions, an the various aspects that make a culture unique. I also love Japanese graphics in general: paintings, prints, manga and anime. I find them beautiful and one of a kind.

Q: What do you hope or expect to find once you have arrived in Japan?
S: I think I may be amazed every second. I’ll try to keep my eyes and heart wide open to take with me as much as I can of that beautiful country.

Q: Do you like Japanese food? If so, what do you like?
S: Yes! I love sashimi, tempura, okonomiyaki, shabu shabu… oh the list could go on forever!

Q: Could you please provide a comment to the readers of this blog?
S: Never stop dreaming and never stop fighting to make your dreams come true.
Be who you want to be, dress how you want to dress, and be confident that there will always be someone out there who shares your dream.

Thanks Sabina, looking forward to seeing you in Japan!

Laura from the WCS 2005 US group stopped by Nagoya on a Japan tour with her husband Ryan last week. It was really good to see her again, she stayed at the same Toyoko Inn where all participants stayed in 2005 so it was not just a blast to see her again but also meet up again at the hotel where she stayed. We took a look at the present venue for the WCS and then we went to eat ramen at a popular ramen shop called, heres a shot of them:

Laura is keeping busy with work in LA and still active in organizing manga/anime/cosplay events with Anime Expo. She is also running a cosplay accessory business now. It had been almost 4 years to meet and was really good to see that she is sticking with her passion and moving from strictly cosplay to actively promoting the growth and development of the art.

The Brazil preliminaries have in fact been going on around the country since July of last year and 12 finalists have been selected until now. The 13th and 14th pairs will be selected during the next 2 upcoming weekends you can see the finalists on the JTB website here:
http://henshin.uol.com.br/wcs/
Its in Portuguese but try poking around, especially the regional finalists already selected along the top.

Things are getting so hot in Brazil that they have put together a World Cosplay Summit song!!!! You can listen to it here:

The lyrics are Japanese and the selection of expressions and production are excellent. It sounds almost like a song before or after and anime! Well, its hard to make that comparison but they did a great job anyway.

The final in Brazil will be on June 20th so we're looking forward to a good show there.