In a flurry we have had Thailand, USA, Korea and China representatives decided, this weekend we have 2 more countries determining their representatives for WCS 2010: Singapore and France. We will post information on the winners right here as soon as we get confirmations.

Also keep an eye out on our twitter feed, starting this weekend we will be using the COSPLAY_SUMMIT feed for both English and Japanese tweets, so choose your favorite language and click on all of the photo links because there are no linguistic difficulties in the links and attached images.

The French Preliminaries were held on Saturday July 3rd at Japan Expo in Paris. The winners for 2010 are Laura Salviani and Cecile Auclair who performed Maru et Moro from XXX Holic.

Their costumes look spectacular, I look forward to getting a closer look at the wings that they created, the images are very impressive.

Laura and Celine were the WCS representatives for France in 2008 demonstrating their strong skills to come out on top of the preliminaries again.
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(Pictures by Puka)

Congratulations Laura and Cecile, see you in a few weeks!

The Japan Preliminary will be the last of the 15 to be held leading up to WCS 2010. As in 2009, the event will be held simultaneously with the Championship which is August 1st this year. 7 groups will be performing, up from the 5 groups from last year, and some familiar faces made it through the selection process. Many of the teams have already set up twitter accounts so if you are on twitter you can follow them and cheer them on:

Twin Park

Umi and Riku are twins who participated in last years WCS Japan preliminaries. Over the last year they have been living on the East Coast of the USA. They were actively cosplaying there winnning the Best Novice award at NYAF 2009 and Judge's Award at Anime Boston 2010. You can find them on twitter here.

097

The only male team this year is "097" (read as Onakyu) and their names are Hidehiko Misaki and Don Obiichi. This is the first appearance at the WCS for both of them. Find their twitter account here.

Dekoboko

The term Dekoboko or （凸凹） means "uneven or bumpy" referring to the fact that one member is much taller than the other. Yori Yori and Naokichi are excited to be participating and as this is Yori Yori's first time she says she is a little nervous but looking forward to meeting cosplayers from around the world. You can follow them on twitter here.

Syuri

This pair of Mariko and Syutona are newly formed this year. Mariko is a veteran cosplayer with over 10 years experience and has appeared as a member of Barbara in WCS 2006 and 2009. You can find their twitter account here!

Akira to Shiguma

Akira and Shiguma participated as Osaka representatives in WCS 2007 and since then have become increasingly active internationally, traveling to events abroad several times over the last year. Check out their twitter account here!

Wankorabo

Kikiwan has participated in the Japan Team B group that won the Runner Up prize at WCS 2007. This is the first time to participate for Ooji, she says that she can communicate in English alright and is looking forward to meeting everyone. Leave a message on their twitter account here.

Paradise Kinga

This team of Eria.91 and Yuma.92 is a new pairing for WCS 2010. Last year Eria participated with another partner for the WCS 2009 Japan Preliminary and this will be the first time to see Yuma on the WCS stage. They do not have a twitter account yet but if/when they do I will post it on the blog here.

Coming up is the Brazil preliminary next weekend, stay tuned for the results there!

Another rainy day here in Nagoya, and we're all hoping it will clear up by the time the Summit comes around.
In the meantime, what better way to brighten up the day – literally – than with some Lolita shopping? While this beautiful, elaborate fashion isn't as visible in Nagoya as it is in Tokyo, you can still spot lolita at weekends, in the department stores of Sakae and around the streets of the Osu area: not only the popular sweet lolita (ama-loli) style but also the more restrained 'classic' lolita and the dark, striking gothic lolita. Whether you're Japanese or not, this fashion will still turn heads in Nagoya.

The central shopping spot for lolita here is Sakae. Around the corner of a string of department stores (Maruei, Skyle and Melsa) is a building called Nova.

It looks pretty plain from the outside, and is best distinguished by its HMV sign; but the 5th floor is a heaven of petticoats, parasols and general frilly indulgence. Probably the most well-known brand in here is Baby The Stars Shine Bright, made famous by the film and novel Kamikaze Girls. It stocks lolita clothes in a range of styles, along with its sister store, Alice and the Pirates, which has a slightly more adventurous, costume-type look.
Next to this is the reigning queen of sweet lolita brands, Angelic Pretty; if pink doesn't do it for you, then this shop may make you feel a bit ill – but otherwise this is like stepping into a candy-coloured paradise.

For those who prefer their frills a little more sedate, there is the Victorian and Rococo-inspired Innocent World, whose fashions, like many of the others in Nova, can be found decorating the pages of the Gothic and Lolita Bible magazine, which is now also published in English by Tokyopop.

And once (if ever) you become overwhelmed by the cute, the 5th floor also contains Na+H and Atelier Boz, whose clothes lean more to the streamlined, gothic, visual-kei side of the fashion, as well as Sexy Dynamite London, which goes for a retro, UK punk feel.

Like ball-jointed dolls and many of the other Japanese subcultures, lolita is not a cheap hobby. Accessories are fairly reasonable, but a shirt can cost up to $200 and a full dress easily $400. The lolita community as a whole, both in Japan and overseas, is one of the most unbending when it comes to its fashion do's and don'ts, although there's plenty of room for creative people to make the most out of what they do own, or even sew their own outfits from scratch.

It's possible to find marked-down prices at second hand stores; Violet Blue in the Osu shopping arcade is a good place to start.

The clothes aren't that much cheaper, but they are all in good condition and you can sometimes find things there from past seasons that aren't for sale in the brand stores any more.

Lolita certainly isn't for everyone; but when you're fully dressed up you do feel fantastic, even if your skirts take up two seats on the subway; when you do buy something, the (also beautifully dressed) shop assistants make you feel like a princess. If you're in Nagoya, it's definitely worth a look!

The Brazil representatives are about to be announced, below are the 9 teams competing for the prize. Each team survived a regional round, thanks go to Igor and all of the JBC for compiling the information below.

Preliminary Round Course of Events
[1] Preliminary rounds were held in 8 different locations within Brazil.
[2] The winners of each of the nine selectives of WCS2010 - JBC Brazil Stage, plus the champions of WCS2009 - JBC Brazil Stage, will make the national final at Festival do Japão 2010 (Japan Festival 2010), on July 18th. The Brazilian representative team will be chosen on this day.

1st Preliminary Round(Anime Yuu):March 28, 2010(Londrina)

WCS 2006 champions Maurício e Mônica Somenzari performed from Sengoku Musou - Warriors Orochi 2

2nd Preliminary Round(Anime Festival BH):April 11, 2010(Belo Horizonte)

WCS preliminary veterans Nathalia Lelis and Gabriela Birchal performed from the game Odin Sphere

3rd Preliminary Round(Mercado Mundo Mix):April 24, 2010(São Paulo)

Loren Louro and Carolina Michelli performed from the manga Clover

4th Preliminary Round(Animextreme):May 16, 2010(Porto Alegre)

WCS world champion from 2008 Gabriel Niemietz joined forces with Gabrielle Valério this year to perform a cosplay from the game Valkyrie Profile

5th Preliminary Round (Rio Anime Club): May 23, 2010 (Rio de Janeiro)

Petra Leão e Alessandra Fernandes performed from Honey Honey

6th Preliminary Round(Kodama 2010):May 30, 2010(Brasilia)

Bruno de Castro and Danielle Braz performed characters from Metal Gear Solid 3

7th Preliminary Round(II RPGCON):July 4, 2010(São Paulo)

Renato Lopes e Tamires Posenato did a performance from the manga Fairy Tail

8th Preliminary Round(Sana 2010):July 16, 2010(Fortaleza)

Elília performed Terra Brandford and Italo did the Emperor Palamecia from Final Fantasy Dissidia

WCS 2009 Representatives

Renan Aguiar e Geraldo Cecílio

In effect 3 of the 9 teams that made it to the final have past Brazil representatives and the final is sure to be a high level affair. Look forward to the announcement coming soon!

The representatives for Brazil at WCS 2010 have been determined, they are Gabriel Niemietz and Gabrielle Valério with their performance of Lenneth and Brahms from Valkyrie Profile.

Gabirel was a part of the WCS championship team from 2008 and he put together a winning performance again this year. It will be good to see his costume up close, he has done another impressive job. Congratulations!

One last non-cosplay-related post before the competitors start arriving in Nagoya next week. The weather (fingers crossed) is looking good, and everyone is excited for the events leading up to the Summit and the competition.

This time I’m back to attractions in Nagoya, and focusing on manga and doujinshi goods. There are plenty of places around the city that carry a wide variety of manga, such as Animate near Nagoya Station, or Wonder Goo in Osu, or the second-hand store Mandarake, which I talked about in an earlier post. The largest of them, though, is the Nagoya branch of the nationwide chain, Toranoana. This shop specialises more in manga and doujinshi-related products than the others, carrying new fan comics from almost every series you can imagine.

Toranoana is in Sakae, but the easiest way to get there is to take the Sakuradori subway line, and get off at Hisaya-Odori station. If you come out of Exit 2, you’ll see the store pretty much in front of you; it’s seven floors high and bright orange, so it’s hard to miss.

Like many Japanese stores of this kind, it doesn’t open until 11:00 on weekdays and 10:00 at weekends; but it doesn’t close until 8 or 9, so it’s good for an after-dinner browse if you’re in Sakae.

The first floor is the ‘Media Floor,’ carrying CDs, DVDs and doujinshi software and other original goods; the last time I was in there, they had an incredible amount of Touhou Project stuff, so fans of this series will be happy.
The second floor (my personal favourite) is the floor ‘for girls’; here you can find manga, novels, boys’ love comics and doujinshi, as well as artbooks and some cosplay magazines.

Unlike Mandarake, everything here is new, with many recently-released doujinshi; so if you like a particular circle and can’t get to the conventions where new releases are normally sold, you may be able to find what you’re looking for here. The goods on this floor tend to be of fairly recent manga and game series’, like Hetalia; I did manage to find an Evangelion doujinshi too, though, which made me happy:

The next floor up is where you’ll find ‘general’ manga, magazines and novels. You have to pay for your purchases floor by floor, which can be slightly annoying if you’re buying goods from lots of different sections, but the variety makes it worth it.
The fourth floor is mainly manga and novels aimed at guys, with some second-hand doujinshi. The fifth is doujinshi yet again, for all ages, and also goods like doujin figures and model kits; some of these are really pretty, but the best ones on display are mostly already sold.

The sixth floor holds software, games and doujinshi ‘for guys’. This is pretty much the adults-only floor. If you keep going up, though, the seventh and final floor has a lounge with vending machines and a space where shoppers, presumably exhausted with buying stuff, can relax and eat.

If you were to explore Toranoana top to bottom, it would literally take hours. While there’s not much chance of finding old or rare items as you might in Mandarake, this store is brilliant for new manga and doujinshi. It also has notices about events like conventions around Japan, and carries the official catalogue for Comiket, which is coming up in August.

The staff at the hotel were up bright and early yesterday morning, waiting for the first teams to finally arrive in Nagoya. Eventually the bus arrived, packed with travel-worn but excited cosplayers and their organisers, with mountains of luggage!

It was another baking hot day in Sakae, so everyone was glad to get out of the sun into the sweet air-conditioning of the hotel lobby.

After a welcome and picking up their keys, people disappeared to their rooms to leave their luggage and have a little well-earned rest; some had been travelling for well over 24 hours! A bit of quiet, and then the lobby began to get lively again as another bus arrived; it was good to see teams from so many countries hanging out and getting to know each other on the first day. Some were determined to make the most of their time here and went out right away, to eat, shop and explore Sakae, or go on to Osu (Mandarake and Toranoana were popular destinations, unsurprisingly!).

Meanwhile, we were waiting for the arrival of the afternoon teams in the information centre...

With the teams' baggage containing their costumes behind us, including this, kindly modelled by Gustavo:

Then came a while of quiet, with most teams getting some much-needed sleep or food, and the others out exploring; but it was a good time to get to know the other organisers of the event. So for anyone wondering what the Summit is all about, here is Jimmy-san's tshirt:

This year the WCS won't be the only summit going on in Nagoya; alongside it is the first World Samurai Summit, whose display and poster is up in the lobby:

In the evening more teams went out for meals, or to get some first-night drinking in at an izakaya (I hear Korea is particularly impressive in this respect!). At last, just after 9pm, the teams and organisers from Tokyo arrived, after a madly busy couple of days. Even so, Spain, Mexico and the USA were looking cheerful and happy to meet the other team members in the lobby. Here's the USA and Mexico:

Later that night the Chinese team arrived, the final team; and hopefully everyone managed to get some decent sleep in time for a full day of meetings, exploring and excitement today!

If you've been following us on Twitter, you'll have a pretty detailed view of what's going on in the lead-up to the Summit weekend; but here's a few photo moments for anyone who missed it!

The action for the day began, as usual, in the hotel lobby around the information desk, where teams were working on building and checking their props.

Around mid-day, more teams began to come down, getting ready to go down to the TV Aichi office or otherwise go exploring. It was a good time for various team members to meet and chat with each other and with the organisers (and get some lunch from the information centre).

Whatever Ed is showing them, he's very proud of it!

Here's the German team and their crew heading out to the TV station for their stage planning meeting and interviews.

After that I left the hotel and went on down to the Sakae branch of TV Aichi, and found the German team waiting for their meeting, discussing what they wanted to sing at tonight's karaoke party:

Once each team had finished their meeting, they went downstairs to record a fifteen-second introductory video to be played at the Championship. Team America spent a little while rehearsing, to much general amusement, and then recorded a great take.

Ed giving some creative suggestions:

The last task before free time and the karaoke party was some media interviews, which will be uploaded to the English-language Japanese culture news site, Yokoso News. The teams talked about their cosplay experiences, and how they're finding Japan so far (needless to say, everyone is having a great time!).

The teams didn't finish being interviewed until after 8pm; then off to Kanayama for the big karaoke party. Hopefully everyone will manage to get a decent night's sleep after the fun, because tomorrow will be a busy day!

Today dawned bright and early, and another crazily busy day began.
In the morning there was a meeting for all team members and organisers, where the teams in three stages chose the order for the Championship on Sunday.

And we finally got a picture of all the teams posing together, in front of the results of the order draw.

The teams then dispersed, and had about an hour and a half to get ready in their first costumes for a long round of events. After a while they began to emerge in all their glory. There was lots of admiration for each others' costumes, and a great atmosphere in the lobby. Here's Mexico and Spain getting close:

Australia take a dance around the lobby while waiting for all the teams to gather:

After plenty of time for photos and chat, the teams split into two groups. Group A went off to meet the mayor, visit the Nagoya Convention Centre and then go on to Nagoya Centrair airport to perform and be interviewed. I went with Group B; we took a bus ride (which included a rousing sing-song from the Italian team!) to Chunichi Shinbun, a Nagoya newspaper office. Here they are looking fabulous just outside.

Some teams were interviewed while the others, like France and China here, were in constant demand for photos:

You can't imagine a more elegant group!

After that it was back on the bus, where multilingual genius Pol interpreted for everyone.

Next stop was the TV Aichi studio, where some teams relaxed while others practiced for their appearance on the live programme 3ji no Tsubo.

The Mexican, Chinese and French teams appear with some samurai on the live TV show!

After the programme had finished, everyone went outside, and the cosplayers had their pictures taken with the samurai and the cute TV weather girls. They certainly made an eyecatching group!

Afterwards, the Australian team met an Australian samurai! It's a small world after all...

What with the heat and humidity in Nagoya today, everyone was glad to finish up and get back on the air-conditioned bus. The teams had been out and about for hours at this point, but were still going strong. Some of the entrants for the Japanese cosplay heats joined us at this point, and we followed Group A out to Centrair Airport; a few people took the opportunity to have a much-needed snooze.

Arriving at the airport, we met Rie and some of the other Japanese cosplayers.

Group A arrived, and the teams had some dinner - Tenmusu, a Nagoya speciality.

The final event of the day was probably the most exciting - a party for the teams to meet Japanese cosplayers, chat and take pictures with them. First was a performance from last year's Summit winners on the big stage.

Following this, the teams from Group B came up on stage and were interviewed. The Japanese cosplayers were very impressed with how great they looked!

Then everyone was free to mingle and take photos; I took so many of fantastic costumes and poses from international and Japanese cosplayers that it was literally impossible to choose which ones to post here; for now's here's Italy with Mario and Luigi!

And Brazil and Spain looking totally fantastic:

To finish up, the teams and Japanese cosplayers got back up on stage and had a little sing and dance. You have to be amazed at how much energy everyone still had after such a hard day!

Back on the bus for one last journey back to the hotel. Here's a final photo of our Japanese group, still in costume:

A massive well done to everyone who worked so hard today; looks like tomorrow will be even busier, so stay tuned!