You can buy it at your control panel now! Or if you’ve already bought it, click here to view it!

In this issue…
Feature Photos: Professional photographs of 17 cosplayers–every detail checked out: costume quality, props, lighting, background and more.
Cosplay Snapshots: Snaps of hundreds of cosplayers from the various events in Japan!
World Cosplay Report: Cosplay Snapshots from Comicon in San Diego!
How-to Costume: Learn to make sleeve for your Bunka-style sloper.
COSMODE Life: What would you do?
COSMODE Life: Summer Memories

Thanks for your patience! I’ll post the free preview issue some time soon.

Sorry for the delays!

I’m sorry to say that this months issue will be delayed due to server trouble. It is actually going through some upgrades. I’m not sure how long it will take, but if it doesn’t finish in the next week or so, we’ll have to cancel this months issue. But don’t worry, we’ll do a double issue next month if that happens!

Again, I’m very sorry!

Story: In 1977, Ms. Megumi Yokota, a 13-year-old girl, disappeared on her way home from school. It was revealed later on that she was abducted by North Korea. This film features the anguish of Megumi’s family and their desperate effort to bring her back home.

Download it here

The How-to for this issue teaches you the basics of costume-making. You’ll learn how to make a Bunka-style sloper. This is how almost all fashion designers in Japan start making clothes.

Feature Photos: Professional photographs of 19 cosplayers showing off their hand-crafted costumes - no detail is too small to be left out!
Cosplay Snapshots: Snaps of hundreds of cosplayers from the various events in Japan!
World Cosplay Report: Cosplay Snapshots from Sakura-Con!
How-to Wig: Master natural-looking haircuts.
How-to Costume: Learn to make a Bunka-style sloper.
Cosplay Japanese: Speak with Japanese cosplayers!
COSMODE Life: How did you find your otaku friends?
COSMODE Life: Anthropomorphic Personality Test

Click here to view the free sample issue.
View the full issue at your member control panel!

That’s me, in the tshirt with purple sleeves, translating for Jacky at the izakaya. Around 70 people joined: the Cosplay.com crew, the COSMODE crew, and a whole bunch of cosplayers, photographers, and industry people.

Some of the cosplayers I met:

Giorgia is a gorgeous Italian cosplayer who won an award at the WCS a few years ago. I promised to eat pizza with her when I go to Italy. Her friend - shit… forgot his name (did I mention I drank a lot that night?) - who well… I don’t really know what he does, but he’s really cool. I always need a good drinking partner, ya know? You didn’t give me your card so please email me!

Monica and Mauricio were some cool Brazilian cosplayers. Their fashion was just amazing! And of course they new one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho.

Nadia is a really cute Italian cosplayer who was super fashionable. I had told her where to get the best espresso in Japan, but, of course, she had already done her research before coming here.

Yui and Minori won an award at the WCS this year.  They were some funky Japanese girls!

Francesca came in this really cute gothic fashion. She’s also an Italian cosplayer (super cute). I didn’t really get into any deep conversations with her (language barrier), but I expressed my love for espresso, Italian wine, pasta and Parma ham.

Jeudy and Ratte won the WCS last year representing France. They are doing some otaku, sub-culture media program in France. Interesting stuff. I’ve met many French people in Japan. Most of the time, I don’t really get along with them. These guys though were really open-minded and cool.

I’ll do another update when I get more pictures. Late.

]]> http://www.cosmodeonline.com/blog/2008/08/cosmode-online-cosplaycom-party-in-tokyo/feed/ http://www.cosmodeonline.com/blog/2008/08/coscosplayplay-report-japanese-idols-cosplaying/ http://www.cosmodeonline.com/blog/2008/08/coscosplayplay-report-japanese-idols-cosplaying/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:29:57 +0000 Philip http://www.cosmodeonline.com/blog/?p=131 Did you know? There’s a cosplay tv program being broadcasted in Japan!

Its name, CosCosPlayPlay; and it delivers the latest cosplay info and tips to answer all the needs of the cosplayers out there. We were invited to the public filming on August 10th. Normally, the filmings are done in private studios, but, this time, they rented out half an elementary school (not used as a school anymore), let regular cosplayers come in freely in their favorite costume, and filmed the program inside the school!

The actual broadcast date for this will be on September 1st at 9pm (Japan time, of course) on Fuji Satellite Television channel 721. Have your friend in Japan tape it for you!

First, here is the main cast posing in front of the logo of the program.

Cosplaying Haruhi is Rin Suzuki!

She really brings out Haruhi’s energy well.

Next, cosplaying Nagato is Shizuka Doue!

The quiet and enimatic aura of Nagato is perfectly expressed!

Dressed as Mikuru is Marie Sukegawa!

She looks so innocent.

Cosplaying Tsuruya is Mizuho Nishimura.

Tsuruya’ charm is reproduced to perfection!

And Inui Tatsumi, the director of Cure, Japan’s largest Cosplay community, is also performing as Dr. Shamal. He looks better than the real thing, don’t you think?

Filming for the program:

Sometimes it was lively like this, sometimes the cosplayers in the audence were in the shot, and other times they shot a scene in an outside location.

And here are the other cosplayers who came to the filming.

Cosplayers’ normally can’t have photo shoots at schools so we were all having fun shooting many different situations. Since it was a former school, many cosplayers came as character’s from REBORN! Other than that, I saw many characters from Haruhi and Evangellion. A whopping 11 cosplayer’s gathered as characters from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure!

This broadcasting ends the first season of CosCosPlayPlay. However, this isn’t the end! The season premier of the second season is on October 27th! However, the next shooting will be a little different from this one since it will be shot in a studio.

Most of the otaku are waiting right when it opens and dash to their favorite booth to get the toys. Takashi went there from the start, so check out his post information on the Wonfes early morning lines (actually, some people wait in line since the day before). A lot of the toy companies produce Wonfes exclusive stuff which can be resold for double, triple or, I’ve even heard, 5 times the retail price. Anyway, here’s my little report on the Tokyo Wonder Festival Summer 2008!

I took the monorail from Shimbashi Station to Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Center. The monorail is fully automatic - no one operates this thing!

It’s about 12:30 and past the rush of hardcore otaku. I actually thought a lot of people were leaving when I arrived… However, in comparison to amount of people at this event the amount of people leaving was tiny.

Finally, I’m in! It was very hot and humid outside, and I was hoping to enjoy a nice cool convention center. Little did I that this giant, high-ceiling con could be heated up by over 45,000 people! It was hotter inside than outside! Do you see the big escalator in the all the way in the back? Isn’t in strange that no one is using it. (Explanation Below)

The escalator suddenly went the opposite direction at around 10:00 am that day. They say the weight of all the people on it caused the the escalator to stop then reverse. It seems that 4 people were lined up per step even though it was meant for only 2. An NHK cameraman got the whole thing on tape!

People everywhere!

I finally got to the cosplay area. (In Japan, there are designated areas to take photos of cosplayers because, as you see, if you stopped a cosplayer in this mob, you’ll get a lot of angry otaku.)

When I first got outside, I noticed many cameramen or cameko patiently waiting in line to take photos of cosplayers. Some people were very professional - holding a reflector in one hand while taking pictures. Since some of them spend like 10 minutes taking pictures, the popular cosplayers may have a several hour wait! No, they didn’t have signs up with the wait time like in Disneyland.

Cosplay food made in bulk: Yakisoba!

Here are some cosplay pictures:

And last but not least…

Kamiya is just having a quick smoke before saving the world.

The cover features an “awase” of REBORN! characters.

The feature photo section has 20 cosplayers! I think, it’s the biggest yet! (That’s me reading it.)

Here’s what’s in COSMODE 23:

20 Featured Cosplayers
500 Cosplay Snapshots
How-to: Molding for beginners - make emblems, tiaras and crowns, animal props, and big props. It also includes a tutorial on how to make a armor quickly and easily.
How-to: Cosplay Makeup - Learn 7 techniques to make up your face cute & cool. Also, makeup for men!
How-to: A full cosplay photography course
COSMODE Life: Cosplayer’s COSNames
Style Wig Catalogue: A bonus booklet featuring wigs from many different shops.
And much much more!

What are you looking forward to the most?

World Cosplay Summit 2008 Day 1 Event Report

If you didn’t know, this is the competition which determines who the world’s best cosplayers are! This would be the 6th time for this yearly event and, this time, cosplayers from 13 different countries attended. Each nation had preliminary contests which the cosplayers had to win through and, finally, gathered in Nagoya to see who is the best of the best.

The World Cosplay Summit (WCS) is a 2-day event: the first day being a cosplay parade and the second, the World Cosplay Championships. The cosplay parade took place in Osu, also known as the Akihabara of Nagoya. Let’s see how the Osu Cosplay Parade was like!

It’s Ted from OverDrive! WCS took place on August 2nd and 3rd in Nagoya - about an hour and a half from Tokyo by Shinkansen (bullet train) and the 3rd largest city in Japan.

Let’s get on the Shinkansen and go!

There were cosplayers around the press registration area!

Many people were waiting for the parade to begin at the historical Osukannon Temple.

At last, the parade started! Leading it were the representatives from each country; followed by other cosplayers that came this event.

The cosplayers and the people taking pictures of them are jammed in a small street - just 10 meters wide! This many people in one place didn’t make this day in Nagoya (37°C or 99°F) feel any cooler.

Cosplaying Ken from Street Fighter is Gabriel who represented Brazil and took the World Cosplay Championship title this year.  I met him later that night for some drinks; he’s a very bright and fun person.

Here is a gallery of some of the other cosplayers who joined the parade! The quality was considerably high even compared to the WCS representatives.

And here are ladies and gentlemen who represented their country at the WCS; they are all wearing costumes  different from the ones they wore at the championships.

At the end of the parade, all the cosplayers gathered at the stone steps of the temple. Don’t they all look like professional models? (There were people of all professions like librarians, designers, and students!)

That’s it for the World Cosplay Summit Parade. Next time we’ll have a report of the World Cosplay Summit Championship event! Check it out!