in for a long wait
I woke up early enough for breakfast and headed back to my room to finish packing. Everything packed away, I relaxed in front of the tv before heading to check out. I checked in my bag and confirmed that I'll be claiming it around 10pm. Then I headed to Oasis 21 which was just diagonally across from the hotel.
It was kinda rainy, but I got there reasonably dry. There weren't that many cosplays and the stage and viewing area was being set up.
I bumped into two girls from Australia who informed me that the tickets-with-t-shirt set that was promised to be sold today...are not being sold afterall. Instead, those seeking tickets were asked to wait until 2:30pm to see if any tickets are left from those that were sold already. It was a flawed idea since how can you NOT know how much was sold...but since we were choiceless, we waited.
on the stage before the show
Sneak peek of USA's entry! lol The stage was quite busy through the day. In the morning when I arrived, the WCS competitors were on there practicing not for their performances (since that would be a surprise for us all that evening) but merely to go over what will be done during the judging.
The screen in the background ran through the videos that will be shown...basically the clips of words from the competitors and the special effects to announce the different countries, the awards, etc. The practice for receiving the award was interesting enough. They just called out random countries so the participants knew what to expect in case it was them. "And the winner of the world cosplay championship is...."
It also gave me a chance to guage where everyone was sitting on stage, where they stood at the final farewell...although it took me awhile to locate Team USA. lol After the 'show' everyone gets on the runway to dance....
After the reheresal, a rock (not heavy metal) group, Rey stepped on stage to practice and the special sponsers of WCS, SKE48 made a brief appearance. SKE48 is an all girl group under the same management as AKB48. Same concept, different girls. SKE48 didn't practice onstage: I think they just wanted to see how everyone stood up there and left before the fanboys go nuts (as we would see in the evening performance.)
Another singer who will be performing tonight, stepped onstage to practice...a legend really. Mizuki Ichiro.
Not everyone speaks English
*facepalm* I let my American-ism show when I stepped up to the Italian team (who were walking around) and asked for a photo. I wished them good luck at tonight's competition in English...and they responded 'arigato'. Okay, I look Japanese enough, but it was obvious that they didn't understand English. If only I remember how to say thanks in Italian... *runs off to watch more Hetalia*
circling the plaza for cosplay
From the time I waited in the morning until 2:30pm, I occasionally left my spot to circle around Oasis 21...which is basically a round plaza. My purpose of course was to take cosplay pics. If you can see from the pics, the roof of the plaza is oval shaped...kinda like a flying saucer. It doesn't cover the entire plaza area so those around the edge (meaning me) still got dripped on. As one of the Australian girls noted, the roof was concaved so that it held water. From above, it was like a pool of water and from below, it was cool since it looked like you're under water...or something like that. In either case, we amused ourselves through the hours.
But I digress. I got lots of awesome cosplay shots. One of the main things to note while taking pics at Oasis 21 during this event is: no pics of storefronts. The number of cosplayers were significantly smaller then the parade the day before so there was enough wall and pillars as backdrops to go around. Anyway, since (as I mentioned,) the plaza is oval shaped, many pics were taken with the middle of the plaza-the scaffolding for the WCS-as the backdrop. Avoiding storefronts was not a major problem.
I choose you!
Some of my fav stores was a cluster at one end of the plaza. Alas, no pics of stores due to the no-storefront-pics policy. You would think they would want publicity...but oh well. At one side is the NHK store. NHK are several channels on tv that are educational and kid driven. (Though, for some reason KKM is being shown on saturdays.... lol) On one side of the store are the character goods from the shows themselves. On the other side are all Ghibli stuff. Giant Jiji, giant Totoro...sooooo many goods. Puzzles too! I drooled over everything, but kept my composure and my money. There will be time for more Ghibli shopping soon enough. On the rightside of the NHK store is the Jump store. Yup...Shonen Jump with all their yummy goods. More drooling commenced. Afterwards, we headed into the Pokemon Center...which is filled with pokemon. Kyaaaa...soooo cute! I want a sleeping Pichu, the awake Pichu, chubby Pikachu....everything 'chuuuu'. lol It was amusing watching the kids holding baskets filled with the stuff and a father asking the child, "Why don't you get this?" and the child shaking his head. lol I wish I had a parent who would spoil me like that! (Wait...I do.... *ducks from all the flying pencils*) Across from the Pokemon Center is of course...a Pokemon Gym. I really don't know if it was a 'Gym' or not, but there were drawings of Pokemon on the wall and tables with lots of kids battling with their cards. (I would say dueling...but that's Yugioh.) ^.^
getting tickets
We wanted to prepare for the worst. For that reason, one of the Australian girls stayed behind while I took the younger one to Tokyu Hands to look for some cheap chairs. We completed our mission and headed back...to find that the line had moved. o.O Falling in with our friend, we were stopped by one of the WCS staff for an obvious offense: cutting the line. Seeing that the staff member wasn't budging even though it was obvious to people around us that the Australian girls I were with had been waiting since an ungodly hour, I stepped up to convince him to let her stay and I will go to the back of the line. (Anyway, I only joined up with them later on that morning and the length of the line wasn't that long.) For whatever reason (since I doubt it's because he understood my broken Japanese >.<) he allowed us to stay. O.o Thx....
We ended up getting tickets to go in and off we went to find our seats. Middle left of the viewing area. Awesome! I texted all the info to my French friends that I met yesterday since I was unable to get them tickets. There was no way I could ask for more. <.< We met up with the other two Australian friends that I met the day before, the ones who cosplayed Australia and Italy from Axis Powers Hetalia. Like me, they were out of cosplay. Since they ordered the t-shirts/tickets via a friend in Japan, they were able to get seats much closer to the stage. We exchanged contacts and watched a bit of the preshow stuff with them at the front. There was a karaoke contest? session? and Revy did their preformance.
Another singer came up to sing (and I believe promote her debut album) while engaging the audience to join in. I don't know the songs, but they were on the humorous side and still quite catchy.
Me and the Australian girls decided to step out for a late lunch. Since we got our tickets (which is assigned seating if you haven't figured it out,) we didn't have to worry anymore.
Lunch was curry udon and we stopped by a cake place to grab dessert to go. They treated me to cake which is really generous of them (since they treated me to ice cream in the morning) and we headed off to the restroom before heading back to our seats. I ended up walking around to grab more cosplay pics before heading back to my seat.
But not before I saw these two kids. O.O I really wanted a pic o them...but since they were in a middle of a super serious card game (Pokemon? Yugioh?) I didn't want to interrupt. ^-^ TCG is serious business!
WCS...Championships!
As we neared 6pm (the start of the championships) the large screen show a large timer and clips from the previous competitions. Then with their flag in the background, the various team appeared in their competition cosplays. From what I could see of their cosplays, some countries are doing the same as their preliminaries. (Same cosplay = same skit.) I will say this...Team USA's Cardcaptors Sakura cosplays were amazing. Sakura was a simple seifuku...but The Flower card.... *breathtaking* There were other amazing cosplays which I will detail below.
The TV Aichi hosts appeared and the judges were announced. Among the judges was Amuro Ray's seiyuu, Furuya Toru...as Amuro Ray. lol
They then show video clips of all the previous WCS since 2004 including the press moments with the participating countries' flags at the bottom of the screen. To think, WCS started out with 3 countries... Throughout the performances, the large screen would cut to a nearby stage called the Sunshine Stage where the final preliminaries for Japan was being held as well as all of SKE48. "Aizawa-san?"
Alas, since we were at the main stage, we couldn't see the preliminaries. However, we do know that it was down to 5 teams. Near the last rounds of the championship, the screen finally show the last two teams competiting for Team Japan. One of them was Basara. In Japanese gameshow fashion, the decision was made based upon applause. The Basara team won. (There was a Kuroshitsuji group as well which made me wish I've seen the Japanese finals.)
Each of the team's appearance on stage was preceeded by a video clip of their words for WCS. Whichever language they spoke was the audio with Japanese subs. (Korea was speaking English.)
Denmark - Magical Girl Nanoha - Sigge Tine Ludvigsen as Yagami Hayate and Ida Kirkegaard as Reinforce. The concept is simple and striking all at once.
Korea - Fate/Stay Night - Lee Seon Hye as Saber and Hong Sang Ho as Gilgamesh. Great choreography and beautiful Saber.
Germany - Romeo x Juliet - Iris Herrmann as Romeo and Annabel Huwig as Juliet. One of my favorite. Beautiful cosplays with a gentle ending.
Singapore - Macross F - Andrea Tan as Sheryl Nome and Jill Ho as Ranka Lee. Changing onstage while sigingin some of the beloved songs. Definitely plus for doing their own singing. (Pre-recorded of course, but still, singing is good. ^.^)
France - Magic Knight Rayearth - Albanese Cecilia as Shidou Hikaru and Rupin Eva as Ryuuzaki Umi. My favorite of all the cosplays. I guess I just like magic shows. ^.^ The clip is from the Japan Expo in France where the preliminaries were held. Since it was so close to the championships, they did the same performance. (BTW, during the WCS, the lights were dimmed when they were playing with the 'lights'.) Fantastic everything. ^.^
Italy - Blame! - Elena D'Ambrosio Valentina as Cibo and Marco Battistini as Killy. Her halo glows! *stares*
Thailand - Detroit Metal City - Pennapa Thanornpradit as Johannes Krauser II and Rujipas Distaprom as Jack ill Dark. The thing didn't make any sense to me, but the cosplays were amazingly accurate and the ending made me O.O. lol A definite fav of the crowd.
Brazil - Fullmetal Alchemist - Renan Aquiar De Castro as Alphonse Elric and Geraldo Jose Cecilio Junior as Edward Elric. Kawaii! Enough said. ^.^
USA - Cardcaptors Sakura - Elizabeth Licata as The Flower and India Davis as Kinomoto Sakura. I'm not being bias when I say this is in my top favs. The cosplay was beyond amazing and the props and expressions to match. (Off topic...I think their preliminaries skit was better though. ^^;)
Finland - Trinity Blood - Iris Ronkko as Esther Blanchett and Arttu Seppi as Leon Garcia de Asturias. Beautiful cosplays...interesting concept.
Spain - Candy Candy - Berenic Serrano as Candice White Ardlay and Laura Fernandez as Anthoy Brown. Kyaaa...a classic manga! Also in my top favs and I think it's the best in all of WCS...my opinion of course. ^.^ Definitely very creative execution of the story and accurate in terms of cosplay. <3
China - King of Fighters - Xiong Shi Jiang as Iori Yagami and Zhao Yun Zeng as Kyo Kusanagi. Good...but I expected more from this team. Great concept though.
Mexico - Vampire Hunter D - Abigail Mascherpa Garcia and Sabrina Iglesias Arvide as D. Awesome idea about coupling the series with Mexican background music. Strange...it fits so well together. The tension of heated love perhaps?
Japan - Basara - YiRi as Yukimura Sanda and RiE as Masamune Date. Great cosplays and choreography.
intermission = dliberation
The judges left to decide the verdict winners. The long awaited SKE48 appeared to sing their debut song. I believe the people from Sunshine Stage followed them since I spotted glowsticks in the crowd (and glowsticks were given to the the audience members at the other stage.) Being a large girl group, the targeted audience was obviously guys and so we had guys calling out the names of their favorite girl(s). The song, 'Tsuyoki no Mono' was upbeat and catchy and so was the dance.
After their song, they were joined by Mizuki Ichiro. He sang several songs and engaged the audience in singing the words of 'MAGINGER Z'. He went through a series of classic songs before ending with the first song.
and the winners are...
Each of the teams were called to the stage again. Then the judges appeared. There were 3 main prizes, one of them is the 'Brother Prize' which is a prize sponsered by the electronics company, Brother for the best cosplay. The prize was what I believe to be a printer. The other two awards were of course, runner up aka. second place and the first place winners. The runner up award was a glass trophy and the winner was a certificate given by whom I believe is a government official. I'm sure there is more to it then that, but I don't understand enough Japanese to figure out the rest of it. lol
The 'Brother Prize' was announced first...with the winners being...
TEAM USA!!!!!!!!!!!
*dances around in seat* They were so happy that when they stepped up to receive their prize, they couldn't say much beyond "I'm so happy that I don't know what to say." Certainly, they deserved it. Their costumes had lights on them! That was their surprise at the preliminaries and it certainly wasn't a detail they'll leave behind in the championships.
The second place winners were...
Team Spain!
So happy since this was one of my favorite teams. Their skit was beyond amazing and also a classic for using such a manga.
The first place winners were...
Team Japan
Their performance was good as are their cosplays. I will not begrudge Japan their victory. My theory is that they chose Japan since there were so many other teams that were so fantastic that choosing one would be too difficult. Who I assumed was the government official appeared to present them the certificate and even read the words on it. Team Japan was in tears and appropriate to their characters, one of them even knelt down in a deep bow.
last moments
Amuro Ray stepped up to say a speech about the championships and cosplay and most likely world peace...but I didn't understand it. However, Amuro's voice booming loudly is quite nostalgic for this Gundam fan. ^.^
The judges left the stage and the hosts started to read off the participating countries as everyone else did the runway walk to the front and stood waving at the audience. Then they returned to their lineup for a final holding-hands-raise-up-and-bow before leaving the stage. Truly, this was an amazing show.
 We headed towards the exit where I saw Renee from Team USA 2008 holding a USA flag. I knew that she was in Japan supporting and assisting the USA team since I follwed the press blogs and lj of the team. I introduced myself as a fellow NY cosplayer and con goer as well as expressed my admiration for her cosplays and skits. (NYAF 2007 MKR skit FTW!) Turns out, she is currently teaching in South Korea for the year. o.O My other Australian friends (the ones I hung out with from the parade) appeared beside me so I introduced them to each other since they both are acquainted with the Australian team. Two Japanese Renee fans appeared who loved her Jojo Bizarre Adventures skit from WCS 2008 and fangirling started with lots of limbo moves and frantic punching.
The crowds parted as the teams passed by us with Renee joining up with the throng. I ended up wishing Team China a heartfelt congrats on making it this far.
WCS behind the scenes
Speaking with Renee, I exclaimed about WCS preliminaries not being at NYAF this year. She remarked about it and noted that the truth behind WCS not negotiating with NYAF about it is...WCS felt that the entrants for the competition were not Big Name Cosplayers. o.O WTF?!? Renee and Sonya of 2008 team is definitely one of the biggest names on the east coast. Renee commented that WCS hopes to bring the preliminaries to the west coast to see if they can get the big names out there. >.<
I don't need to tell you how I feel about the crap that is their decision. Renee had already informed me that AnimeExpo does not want to deal with WCS...and being a fan con...I don't even think they'll have the funding for it either. (I believe that NYAF was part of the sponsership for WCS preliminary winners. Yes...they get money for their cosplays...though I heard Team USA went over their budget. lol The Flower dress...not surprised.)
heading back to Tokyo
I said goodbye to everyone and picked up my suitcase at the hotel. I headed to Nagoya station and grabbed a small dinner of bacon potato pie and chocolate shake. Mmmm...pie.... I sat by myself on the way back (no one assigned to the seat beside me) so I sat a bit more comfortably on my return.
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