That’s the LT 26 where the competition was held.

Group 1 of the Group cosplay. Haruhi.

Random Shots of winners of the various competitions. Not a lot of competitors. Solo had like 5 participants, group had 2 groups.

Impromptu Skits of zombie attack. With very sporting participants from the audience. Would have been a lot funnier if it didn’t drag so long.

How the place looked. This was at closing time. So don’t mind how empty it was.

Very familar….

Thoughts

The crowd seemed very young. Or was it me getting old. I thought the quality of cosplay seemed very high. Yes I know, it doesn’t look like it from the photos, but that’s just cause I didn’t take any. Quantity wasn’t high, but at least you don’t see floods of common anime characters. 

I thought the emcees were fairly innovative, and did the best they could given circumstances. There were parts that were too draggy… and way too many inside jokes. But okie. Good job compared to others I’ve been to.

Anyway, like I said, I should be back next year. Seemed like fun. Had this friendly and interactive aura in the air.

I forgot to wipe my lenses ’nuff said

The first thing a regular to EOY or any cosplay event for that matter would notice is the lack of bleach- or d-grayman-tards, with the exception of naruto, which was represented by a HORDE of 70 ninjas from konoha, akatsuki and god knows what. With their huge numbers, they vastly outnumbered every team in the team cosplay category. That’s not to say that was a bad thing. Their performance to the tune of Closer by Inoue Joe was synced and riddled with fanservice, ranging from team poses and fight sequences, much to the joy of narutards. Kudos to the team leader (who was cosplaying as Sasuke) for amassing such a huge group and bringing a breathe of fresh air to an otherwise boring anime series to cosplay as.

Throngs of Naruto Ninjas!

As much as Team BakaNinjas did a great job, i was equally impressed with the Team Kuroshitsuji, consisting of three cosplayers dancing to the tune of various jpop songs, the only one of which i recognised was Truth by Arashi ( name courtesy from one of the Japanese Studies sempai i happened to chance upon). Seldom do you find cosplayers who can dance as good as that.

The giant mecha role was undertaken by Lancelot from Code Geass.  As with every giant mecha, it attracted quite a bit of attention, and rightfully so.  Giant mechas are ostensibly difficult to construct, and even more tiresome to don for long periods of time.  In my opinion, the organisers should seriously consider consider a giant mecha award. DO THAT you hear me!

All Hail Lancelot!

I Look Cool I Know

HoHoi-San!

Yea I am a Code Geass Fan all rite

Other notable cosplayers include Yuko from XXXHolic (had to wiki that!),  some bald guy from FFIV and Yuki Cross from Vampire Knight ,this creepy Nurse from Silent Hill….(gave me quite a shock!) and Road Kamelot and Jasdevi from D.Gray-man. Do note this is only what i can recall from memory though…

Yuko Won the Best Female Cosplayer

Baldy guy

Thank you for looking at my camera!

I am gonna have nightmares for days

Awesome Dgrayman Cosplay

Well, i am grateful for the retro theme. It’s extremely nostalgic to watch retro characters the likes of Rama, Akazukin cha cha,Kenshin and Card Captor Sakura come to life. Having music from retro anime blaring over the speakers further adds on to that sensation of deja vu, especially when you come to realise how long anime has come!  It also comes as a relief that for once, a cosplay event was not dominated by the likes of Haruhi, Shinigamis and whatnot.  The cosplay was also a step-up over the various years. The one qualm i have is that EOY has outgrew its audience base. If today was any indication, Hall 1 can no longer hold the ever-increasingly patrons that come to EOY. Heck the stage could barely hold Team BakaNinja. Eitherway, i look forward to next year’s EOY. You can check out my album here and here. More photos below!

Awww Kawaii!

Too cute to resist!

Cockroach Killer!

Gai-sensei approves!

Took her only two days to make this!

Burst Angels

It’s dan… i mean Gordonator or ID Holder!

Cute and lethal I like!

Objection!

Gundam girl!

Shigofumi

After a quick lunch at burger kings (from which tedfox owes me 2 bucks for), we headed off to the Marquee, the tradition venue for this awesome event, armed with our measly little digital cameras hoping to catch a glimpse of some singapore cosplaying hurhur.

Yes, the crowd was this big and yes, my camera stinks.

The event started at 2pm, with the cosplay compeition for singles and groups. I was surprised by the large number of arrancars cosplayers for the singles compeition, demonstrating a complete lack of creativity on their part truth be told. But then again, they are in it for fun, and one shouldn’t chatise them for something as trivial as having fun!

The group cosplayers were a tad more interesting. Everyone was particulay amused by the Dordonii-Ichigo yaoi relationship. One aspect of the performance I appreciated was the use of voice-overs. Given the fact that cosplayers have to perform some action of some sort on stage, blunders in speech are unavoidable. Voice-overs allows cosplayers more leeway on stage and makes the performance more visceral and most importantly, more audible.

While I didn’t catch the results for the singles, the group category was won by a team numbered 5, whose character names escapes me.

I didn’t pay much attention to the cosplay compeition, mainly because like everyone else armed with a camera of some sort be it a cellphone, digital cam or those huge dslrs, everyone was busy snapping photos. The main crowd puller was ostensibly the huge Exia from Gundam 00 and rightfully so. Heck, I have to push my way through the sea of excited crowd to get a good shot of this baby.The detail on the suit was astounding, right down to the flashing lights on the head and the solar furnace.
Ascaloth from Riuva, pointed out that this was the same cosplayer who did Dynames for EOY 2007, so props to him for continuing in his commitment to bring us some really incredible gundam cosplay.

All Hail ME!

Some Exia Organsm

So while tedfox was chasing after his Haruhi I was taking note of the other cosplayers.
Other notable cosplayers were Haruhi and her Dgrayman gang as well as Maka and Dr. Stein from Soul Eater. Maka’s deathscythe also known as Soul, was crafted to the same detail as that of the anime. Not only was Dr. Stein’s costume excellent, but he really got into the role of the character, spinning on that wheelchair of his and chewing on his cigarette. Inphyy and Tyurru from Ninety Nine Nights, one of the teams which in my opinion should have won the group compeition were very very cute (especially Tyurru) heh heh. (No for the last time I am not a pedophile Tedfox!).

Don’t ask me how the meido got there

Dgrayman

Oh Great Haruhi-sama

Oh Great Kanda-sama

I vote for Maka to win anytime

Maka-chan!

Dr. Stein The BEST sensei to ever hope for

Kawaii!

I am so gonna play Ninety-Nights NOT (no offence meant!)

Loli + Cleaver = ???

This was one awesome group but I couldn’t recognise the characters

Hi kid what are you staring at?

I was kinda disappointed by the absence of the awesome Air Gear group since I have always been a fan of Oh Great! Artwork. But hey, plenty of photos can be found on the sgcafe forums as well as the numerous anime blogs which will no doubt be coming up as we speak.

Having been to Cosfest for the past four years or so, I must admit I do agree that the event is getting too big for its own good. That said, the Marquee in Downtown East has been an excellent venue and should not be ditched for both nostalgic value and market appeal to the downtown east crowd. I believe the event continue to be held in the marquee without the need for an entrance fee, mainly because it will drive potential customers away from the booths and deprive the “normal” general public of the growing cosplay scene in Singapore. And mind you at this rate, Singapore will emerge as an excellent player in the cosplay scene around the world. This I am sure. Until then I hope to be able to attend the next CosFest event next year!

PS: One unique thing about this year cosfest was the caramell dance and the train. It’s quite a joy to see cosplayers taking the initiative to break away from traditon. Does anyone have videos of those? thanks!

Went for cosfest at downtown east today. I think I’m getting too old for this. Cosfest is also getting too popular. The crowd was amazing. Good and bad depending on how you look at it. For me? I’d rather pay a nominal entrance fee, and have a smaller crowd. Easier to interact with the cosplayers like that. A lot of time, the contestants were also busy preparing for their performance. A pity. aha.

The only person that caught my attention was a very cute haruhi. Very young as well. But very cute. *roar*

Stayed there for around 4 hours, which was already too much for me already. There’s only so much people that I want to squeeze with. Not too many good cosplayers to look at either. Maybe mostly because I could only see the crowd. zzzz. getting too old. I thought Day 1 seemed to have more familiar faces and much better cosplayers. ah wellz.

Cute photos after the break

Very Very cute Haruhi.

Chiobu Rose. hoho.

One of the competing pairs. I wonder if they did well. I did like this pair

Meido. Heee heee

Photos this time hosted on picasaweb, they might look like crap because i’m a lousy photographer, but could also be because of low-res version. High res versions are available when you click through to picasaweb.

Surprisingly there weren’t tons of bleach and naruto groups around. In fact, there were not that many cosplayers I felt. Not sure if it is due to the fact that cosfest was spread over 3 days this time round. In fact, insane crowd pretty much gave me a headache and left me feeling mostly unmotivated.

Crazy number of otaku photographers

The format of cosfest was as normal, including the competition to see who should be sent to the world cosplay summit. In fact, they were even showing promotional videos of Japan and that of last years competition. The video only left me wondering as to why Singapore’s cosplay base is still mostly made up of kids. And I really mean kids.

Individual Competition

Anyway, here goes some of those cosplayers that I preferred. Mostly girls. haha (in no particular order)

Saber/Dark Saber makes an appearance as maid saber this time. Was pretty much enchanted by this maid uniform. Wouldn’t mind stalking her. Personal opinion is that you can pretty much attract any guy just wearing this. *roar*

Wanderveiss gave me the creeps for absolutely accurate portrayal of childlike innocence. The vaizard team led by Chibified Kitsune, one of the more professional groups as usual.

Pretty. Very pretty!

Very elegant looking. No idea who she is supposed to be though.

Second photo from Ginmata? But really, my photos do not do them justice. haha.

Lenneth, one of the more professional individual cosplayers I’ve seen around, this time as Ignis. Never failing to impress as usual.

Finally! A haruhi that’s totally different from all the other haruhis. My friend was practically stalking her, even though I was damn tired by then and wanted to go home.

But I really liked this Mikuru…..

My favorite goes to this archer, for being giving a totally refreshing feel as compared to everyone else. + he just looks real cool to me.

And of course, there are many other cosplayers that I didn’t manage to highlight. There just ain’t enough space. But I took over 170 photos this time round.

Now where would we be without Danny Choo lookalikes.

Till the next cosplay event! It was fun! kinda!

Yup, I was just like one of those sideline photographers

Be patient with the slow loading k!

Haruhi caught everybody’s attention, including mine. Well… it’s Haruhi! Oh, and she was one of the earliest cosplayers there.

Don’t forget the robots. Apparently the robot had her character name at the back of her helmet too. Robot cosplays are amazing. The props themselves are a pain in the ass and nobody can see who you are either.

Oh yah, must mention. The gundam seed one was initially still moving around. But by late afternoon, he just plunked himself at one corner and stopped moving. (too hard to move around). And he had to stand and can’t sit! Poor thing! *commendable*

These three ladies get my vote for babes of EOY. Couldn’t get a good photo of the one in the middle cause she was more photographer than cosplayer, and couldn’t get a good photo of the one on the right cause she was busy at the entrance most of the time

Those two at the bottom get my vote of being really into their poses and being real daring too.

Of course, must highlight the two little cousins. One from onepiece, the other from bleach.

And my favorite group of the event, from School Rumble. They seemed a little too young to me though. haha. And well… I couldn’t really recognise who is who. =X

And yeah… I have tons of other photos, 80 of them. Wondering if I would want to do another entry highlighting them. It’s not easy posting all these photos. The html takes more time than I would like. haha. We’ll see.

Anyway, all my photos, (including those highlighted here) are available HERE.

Download all the photos you want, they are available in original sizes at the above link. (you know… those 2000 by 2000 pixel sized originals). Would appreciate if you left a comment telling me you took some though.

]]> http://anime.tedfox.com/2006/others/cosplay/stac-resolutions-eoy-2006-photo-highlights/feed/ 4 http://anime.tedfox.com/2006/others/cosplay/stac-resolutions-eoy-2006-cosplay-cosafe/ http://anime.tedfox.com/2006/others/cosplay/stac-resolutions-eoy-2006-cosplay-cosafe/#comments Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:17:10 +0000 tedfox http://anime.tedfox.com/2006/others/cosplay/stac-resolutions-eoy-2006-cosplay-cosafe/ The waitresses from the Maid Cafe, aka Cosafe had a performance at EOY 2006, “dancing” to a jingle before dispersing into the crowd.

Video of their performance after the break

They were practising right beside the stage in front of everybody, yet chasing away everybody who took any photos of them.

Surprisingly though, there were hardly any advertisement of the Cosafe, just a short introduction of where they are from. I guess the assumption is that everybody would know what on earth Cosafe is.

A shot of them from behind!! heh heh.

My thoughts? I think from various reviews and all, It’s not so much a meido cafe, but more of a cosplay cafe. They seem more to be chosen for energy rather than the “ability to serve” -shrugs- Wish them all the best though.