Shopping Guide
The year marks the 13th year for the World Cosplay Summit. The worldwide cosplay championship will be held in August and feature representative cosplayers from countries all over the world. The schedule for the preliminary rounds to select Japan’s representative has been announced.
Until now, the selection criteria for choosing the Japan representative has been unfixed, and in recent years, importance has been placed on the document examination. However, this year, the preliminary rounds will be held on stage at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2013 in March, Nico Nico Cho Kaigi 2 in April, and COSSAN in Nagoya and Osaka (details on this event are still unknown).
Participants for the preliminary rounds are grouped in teams of two. Requirements for participants are that their cosplay be themed after either anime, manga, games, or special effects, and that their costumes be handmade. It is an intense fight with each participant performing a scene from the work they are representing. Each team is given two and a half minutes. In this short time, they need to show the high level of their cosplay and stage performance, as well as the love they have for the character they are cosplaying as.
Those who win the preliminary round will compete in the qualifying round on June 16 at COSSAN in Ikebukuro. The winner of that will go on to represent Japan at the World Cosplay Summit in August.
World Cosplay Summit 2013 Official Site:
http://www.cosplaycossan.com/wcs/jnt.html (Japanese)
Source:
http://animeanime.jp/article/2013/02/21/13077.html (Japanese)
