United States Final Round

The US Qualifying Round for the World Cosplay Summit was held at "FanimeCon 2010" in the San Jose Convention Center from Friday, May 28 to Monday, May 31. An hour drive from San Francisco, San Jose is a central city in Silicon Valley with a number of IT companies surrounding it. The town is neat and clean and you can feel this is California when you see the palm trees against the blue sky.

"FanimeCon" is the biggest animation festival in Northern California. It is considered one of the ten biggest animation events in North America. Participants are increasing every year and approximately 15,000 people attended this year. There were artists selling fan art, game shows, and costume contests. Many of the cosplayers enjoyed milling about and taking pictures of each in poses according to their characters.

The Qualifying Round was held in a conference room, a short distance down the hall from the central event entrance where many cosplayers congregated to meet and take photos. Eleven teams performed from 10:30 a.m. to about 2:30 p.m with a lunch break.

The 11 teams performed:

1	Guilty Gear XX
2	The Idolmaster
3	Saint Seiya
4	Dynasty Warriors 6
5	Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord
6	Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
7	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
8	Hellsing
9	Clover
10	Fushigi Yûgi
11	Kujibiki Unbalance

The high level team of Katheryn and Krystal who performed "Fushigi Yugi" was chosen as US representatives. They live far from each other, in Chicago and Seattle and earned their victory through great effort. The team of SparklePipsi and Miaka-chan performed Clover was also impressive. Their wings looked great and their performance was incredible. The judging was very close between the winning Fushigi Yugi and Clover team. The team that performed "Dynasty Warriors 6" looked excellent in the Asian style costumes. All the teams left lasting impressions with amazing performances, costumes and props.

Laura Chase, the US Representative at the first World Cosplay Championship held at the 2005 Aichi World Exposition, organized the US Qualifying Round. After the lasting memories from that time, she did her best to help other cosplayers come to Japan to share the same experience.

Written by Uririn

Gallery of United States Preliminary Round