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2012 was a blast for me and can be said to be the most memorable year in my cosplay life and since it has been another long interval since my last entry and I made a new year resolution that I must update my journal by the end of today (haha!), I thought it might be a good time for me to re-cap the event that transpires last year.

World Cosplay Summit, Singapore Qualifiers


Myself as Gilgamesh and ~Ayatenshi as Saber from Fate/Zero. Photo taken for prize presentation purpose only. Actual series for WCS entry was Sousei no Aquarion.

The annual World Cosplay Summit held in August at Nagoya, Japan can be said to be the Holy Grail for cosplay performers. Many cosplayers will regard this as equivalent to the Olympics for Cosplay.

The Singapore Qualifiers for the World Cosplay Summit 2012 was held at an earlier version of Cosfest in February. It was a second attempt for ~Ayatenshi and myself to be the representative for Singapore having failed back in 2010. Although this time round there are only four teams taking part, it does not mean that I had an easier time than back then when there are fourteen teams in it. After all, cosplay competition is not about simple probability such that four teams means I have a 25% chance. Definitely not the case when two of the teams I had faced off in the previous 2010 qualifiers which means they have the experience in such competitions before.

Our 6 months of preparation in the making of the Solar Aquarion and the preparation of the skit paid off as we finally made it through to be the Singapore representative for the very special 10th Anniversary of the World Cosplay Summit 2012.

Being the WCS Singapore representative does not only mean that we will be representing Singapore in the Grand Finals at Nagoya, it somehow opened many interesting opportunities for us to explore other areas and make new friends.

World Cosplay Summit, Thailand Qualifiers


Oishi Event

One of the promises I made this year that if I get to represent Singapore in the World Cosplay Summit, I will go to Thailand to support my "brothers" and "sisters" from C4 Team for their qualifiers in May. True to my promise, I travelled to Bangkok for the Oishi Event. If there is one word to describe the event, it was "hot" and I mean really f**king hot!

The event was held outdoors and coming from a tropical country with summer all-year round, I thought I could take the heat. The heat was really unbearable and I was sweating so much that I could smell myself (Oh this sounds weird). What is respectable about the cosplayers in this country that despite the heat, most of them are in armor or mecha cosplay! No wonder Nagoya in August is nothing to these people.

The WCS Thailand qualifier was truly a tough competition as the final 12 teams delivered very high-level performance. Worth mentioning is the fact that out of the 12 teams, 6 of the teams were from C4 Team with Niti and Prang claiming the top spot to represent Thailand in the Grand Finals. I am really glad to witness this competition,


Niti and Prang from C4 Team as Cyberbots

Asia Cosplay Meet, Thailand Qualifiers


Myself as Gakupo and *yuegene as Kaito from Vocaloid Camellia.

Back in 2011, I represented Singapore in the Asia Cosplay Meet along with ~pink-fishy and ~Ayatenshi. This time round, I was invited to be the main emcee along with Yuegene Fay (*yuegene)  for the Thailand qualifying round for the Asia Cosplay Meet in June.

I have to say that this was a totally new experience for me. To be honest, I had never been an emcee before and although I was nervous, I am very happy to have been given this opportunity. I always enjoyed trying out new experience and this was one area I always wanted to try.



Well, so as to say, it was definitely not easy being an emcee. I remember screwing up with the venue name as I was never used to calling Funan as Funan Digitalife Mall. Many Singaporeans such as myself always remember this place as Funan Centre or just Funan for short but never the real name. Oh, and it is also not Funan THE Digitalife Mall. It is just Funan Digitalife Mall. Oh gosh.

At the end of the day, I truly enjoyed myself. Having met Yuegene Fay back in 2010 in Korea, it was really fun catching up with her again this year over dinner. She is such a wonderful and humble cosplayer. As it was her first time in Singapore, I had dinner with her and remember her saying that she does not know much about Singapore and only knew a few of us from back then in Korea and people here might not know her. Haha, I told her she was wrong and I feared for her safety. I am glad she enjoyed herself as well and I do hope she will come back to Singapore again.
 


World Cosplay Summit and Asia Cosplay Meet, Malaysia Qualifiers



I travel to Malaysia, in particular the capital, Kuala Lumpur a lot. However, this time round, the Malaysia qualifiers are held in the far north at Penang, affectionately known as the Pearl of the Orient.

It is an interesting city which I strangely felt connected to it due to the fact that most of the Chinese here speak Hokkien, a form of Chinese dialect that I am able to speak. The food is great but transportation was something I was not used to. Traffic jams was a consistent problem and there is no railway system in this city.

This time round, I was actually here to support Xajin and Amy to represent Malaysia for WCS. I remember meeting both of them at Comic Fiesta in 2011 when I was the guest judge for the team cosplay competition. Although they did not manage to go through, coming in as a close second or so I heard, I am glad the experience proves valuable to them as they went to represent Malaysia in the Anime Festival Asia Regional Cosplay Competition (AFA RCC) later on in the year.

World Cosplay Summit Grand Championship, Nagoya


Our costumes we presented for parades at the WCS in Nagoya

The World Cosplay Summit Grand Championship is the biggest highlight for 2012 for me. Words alone cannot describe the feelings and experiences I had at the event. One full week of pure cosplay activities, from official visits to city mayors and going through interesting culture exchange such as eating nagashii soumen and making those artificial food samples you seen on display. Needless to say, karaoke and hanging out with the rest of the participants from other countries.

Beside the experience of performing in front of a 10,000 audience at Oasis 21 and meeting all the local Japanese cosplayers, I finally get to meet cosplayers that I had been following for years on deviantArt like *Lumis-Mirage who happen to be the Germany representative for WCS in 2009 and 2011.


Stage performance photos at the Grand Championship

The World Cosplay Summit Grand Championship was not just about costume making and performance but a test of endurance. As it was a week packed with activities and parties, by the time you reach the day where you have to perform, you are nearly 80% burned out. In addition, the unforgiving summer heat in Nagoya must have taken its toll on those travelling from temperate countries.

The performance was of an extremely high-level level with powerhouses such as Italy bringing in two Evangelion mecha and Brazil with a raw emotional display of performance from Tekken. We did not expect much but to do our very best. We were very happy when the results were announced that we got runner-up in the competition, only losing out to Japan in terms of audience votes that we were not really paying attention and was very surprised when they announce we got an additional prize for the Best Costume (Brother Award).


Preliminary score on top from judges. We came in first along with Thailand but lost out to Japan when audience votes were factored in (bottom)

I felt really happy that I finally managed to place our tiny country (the smallest country as compared to the other 19 countries) with two awards. I guess the best moment was that night when we got back to the hotel, despite being extremely tired, we were flooded with congratulatory messages from our friends back home in Singapore that lifted our spirits. Even though, they were not there with us, just their messages alone gave us the sense of great satisfaction.



I wonder if we will ever be back again…



Wonder Cosplay Festival  2012, Winter Halloween

This is my forth time back in Korea for an event and the third time being invited back as a guest with the first in WCF 2010, Winter and the second as Singapore representative for the Seoul International Comic Animation Festival (SICAF 2011). Here's a poster for the event with my name in Korean. Haha.


Guests for these events are Rayna (WCS China 2008), Goldy (WCS Japan 2006), Kotori (Japan), Aly and K (WCS Australia 2013), Darcy (Australia), Peggy (AFA 2011 Singapore) and myself

This time round, beside cosplaying, I was practicing my photography skill with the camera I won for coming in runner-up at WCS. I always love coming back to Korea and meeting up with my friends from Team CSL. It was a pity that Taeyeon was in Japan for studies but I manage to meet Aino who was the Korea representative for WCS 2012 and just came back from an event in Tianjin, China. Coincidently, ~Ayatenshi was at that event which was one of the reason she did not make it for this event.


Practising my photography skills. From Top. Kotori (Japan), Maze (Korea) and Rayna (China)

Anime Festival Asia Regional Cosplay Competition 2012 (AFA RCC 2012)



Beside Asia Cosplay Meet and World Cosplay Summit, the AFA RCC 2012 is considered one of the three biggest regional/international cosplay competition that Singapore is able to take part in. The Anime Festival Asia has grown from where it started 5 years back with standalone AFA events in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2012 with a full line-up of Anisong artistes coming in for concerts.

The ACC RCC comprises of 5 countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines with the Grand Championship being held at Singapore in November. Right after I came back from the WCS Grand Championship in August, ~ShinjiSG87 and myself started preparing for the AFA RCC.

We had fun because most of the new friends we made and folks we had met at WCS who are back here in Singapore in particular, Kaito and Yukari (WCS Japan 2012), Konnichi and Zhuge (WCS Indonesia 2012) and Reika. Needless to say, the competition was tough with the AFA RCC 2009 champion (~Hakuren-Naoki and Aun)  from Thailand taking part again this year. Not to mention there is :devechoa88: and ~chidori-sagara from Indonesia who have tons of experience in competition performances, Xajin and Amy from Malaysia who have their fair share of competition experience and also Team March representing Philippines.

Our skit was Tiger and Bunny, a series we really like because of the superhero "cheesiness" and the "feel good" vibes you get from watching the anime. We actually made an additional suit for a mannequin that was destroyed in the final performance and a motorcycle.

Despite the screw-ups which nobody notices unless you had been at all our past rehearsals, we manage to clinch the top prize. Yay! Another trip to Japan!



Comic Fiesta 2012

Comic Fiesta is an annual event held in December at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that I had been attending since 2009. It is known to be the biggest ACG in Malaysia and always bring back fond memories of the friends that I made with our neighboring country.


Valkyrie Holic. A friend whom I met in CF 2009 and had always met up with till today.

What made this year especially special is that the CF committee managed to bring in bless4! Yes! They are the one that sang the famous theme song from Sousei no Aquarion and were the inspiration behind my cosplay performance skit for WCS.

I quickly rush out my new Aquarion Evol costume (Towano Mikage) so that I can get a photo with them. My plan was actually just to cosplay for one day but I ended up cosplaying the character for two days as the meet and greet session was on the second day. They perform a free concert for us at night on the first day and sang many songs from the Aquarion series. Their acapella performance was heavenly and the highlight was the English version of Genesis of Aquarion.


~Ayatenshi as Ahri from League of Legends and myself as Mikage from Aquarion EVOL with bless4

Guangzhou ACG

While Comic Fiesta marks the end of a cosplay year for most Singaporean, I decided to take it one step further. I always wanted to go to a China event and with the long weekend over the New Year, I took the opportunity to travel to China where I can visit and for the first time cosplay with my lovely daughter, ~KaoriEtoile.  I should take the opportunity to present some of her works here so please do pay her a visit.



The scale of Guangzhou ACG was equivalent to Singapore AFA with many big names such as Bandai and Animate setting up their booths there. Met up with my friends and special guest *yuegene and Shamo there.



It was a crazy 3 days trip for me and I only managed to attend the event for one day as it was a 2.5 hours bus ride from Zhuhai where my daughter was staying to Guangzhou. That was perhaps my only regret. I wish I could have stayed for another day. Anyway, we cosplayed as Reishi Munakata and Awashima Seri from the series, "K".



2013 and beyond…

2011 and 2012 had been a crazy and hectic year of performance and competition for me. I traveled to many countries and hence, I felt that I had very little new costumes as compared to my peers. I guess in 2013, I would be going back to basics and doing slightly "simpler" characters that I always wanted to do and like (*cough* Kuroko no Basket).

However, needless to say, I hope to travel more. Just this morning, I finally confirmed my trip as a special guest and judge to Anime 2013 in Holland this May. It is wonderful news as this will be my very first time in Europe and am really very excited about this. Do check out the short write-up they did for me here.

I am really looking forward to meet my European cosplay friends I made at WCS. I know for sure WCS Spain 2012, WCS Holland 2012 (obviously ), WCS England 2012 and *Lumis-Mirage will be there.  

Also, I would finally get to meet two person that I had followed for the longest time in dA and dying to meet. *Calssara and *CuteMichiyo!!!

I hope I don't end up getting too lost for words and make a fool of myself when I met them in person.

Last but not least, there are some people I would like to thank once again for making my cosplay journey such a memorable one. Without you, I do not think I will stand where I am today.

Takahan, Stephanie and Jason Parasyte from Singapore Cosplay Club. Thank you for all the hard work in organizing Cosfest and all the cosplay competition. Without the three of you, I would never experience performing on stage. Thank you for all the opportunities that you had showered me.

To all my members of Section 8, thank you for all the endless nights and support that you have given us. It was worth the effort right? We finally made it!

And to each and every one of you that had "liked", "fav" and "followed" my works. Thank you! I believe that without you, I will just be talking to an empty cyberspace wall and insanity would had claimed me in due time.