The Main Event at the World Cosplay Summit is the Stage Show, where the winning teams from 26 different countries compete against each other to see who will become the WCS World Champion. It’s not easy claiming that top price, however. People from over 50 countries participate each year, however only the winners of the preliminary intra-country competitions get chosen, and have the chance to travel to Nagoya to compete against the best cosplayers in the World. At the Main Event, the teams compete on a stage, where they are given two and a half minutes to show off their cosplay skills.
- Only 2 people per team are allowed to participate
- The Costumes must be from Japanese Anime, Manga, Tokusatsu, or Video Games
- All Costumes must be hand-made by the contestants themselves
- Contestants must prepare their own Music for the main event
- Contestants must adhere to the time limit of 2 minutes 30 Seconds
The teams are judged on:
(a) Performance (10 points): Art of performance, inventiveness, entertainment value, and smoothness of act.
(b) Costume Stage Expression (5 points): Faithfulness in movement, look and flow of costume to the original character, general visual impact of the costume on stage. The cosplayers may make some changes to the costumes for better performance (i.e. to add some parts for gimmick, etc.), as far as the change does not detract from the essential character or work. In this case the cosplayers must provide an oral and/or written explanation about the reasoning behind deviating from the original work to the judges during craftsmanship judging.
(c) Admiration and Respect (5 points): Admiration and respect in the performance to original characters and story. How well the performance shows admiration and respect toward the original work (stories and characters etc.) How well the “intensity” of the performance conveys the cosplayers “admiration and respect” for the work to a third party (in this case the judges). For more information, please see the Official Rules
This year the Mexican delegation took top honors with an amazing performance from Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, becoming the 2015 WCS Champions. Congratulations!
Here are some pictures of the winning team and their performance (more pictures of the event to follow soon!
