anime cosplay costumes on Sale

Posted By admin on February 28, 2010

Cosplay, or dressing up like a favorite character and acting like them, is one of the biggest aspects of geekdom. Many conventions are built around the masquerade, or cosplay competition, where fans act out scenes from their favorite anime, movie or video game.

Often, the most rewarding part of cosplay is showing off your handiwork. Many fans craft their own costumes, and some can do it with great skill ? fiberglass armor is popular, as is recreating stunning gowns worn by female characters.

One solution to separating crafters from performers is holding different competitions for costuming and cosplay, or actually performing as the characters. While a fiberglass suit of armor may be crafted well, the 10-year olds in cardboard armor could have a funnier skit. This is a great solution to ending the war between performers and crafters.

Many cosplay commissioners do not allow the wearers of pre-made costumes to enter costume contests. Others that do allow it require the wearer to disclose that he or she did not make the costume. Trying to pass off a purchased costume as one?s own work is a huge taboo in the cosplay world, and can earn the practitioner incredible ire. At the same time, it can be a large boost to business if someone enters your pre-made costume into a contest and wins ? you can now claim to be an award-winning cosplayer, and that can earn great publicity.

Not everyone has the skill necessary to make these costumes. Countless cosplayers make costumes for other people to wear (often for exorbitant prices), and fans may take the costuming into their own hands with cardboard armor and fabric crudely glued together. While some may be impressed with the ability to take cheap materials and turn them into costumes, others will turn up their noses.

Should those who make cheap costumes without a lot of skill compete on the same level as those who painstakingly sew together $1,000 costumes? Should those who purchase costumes compete in the masquerade?

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Posted By admin on January 22, 2010

Others, however, were more neutral on the data. “Inflation prints in NZ have been volatile of late and we are reluctant to read too much into today’s negative print. In part it reflects some correction to the large jump in inflation in the previous quarter,” said a note from RBC Capital Markets.
Boots, whose retail arm is in Nottingham, said the joint venture would bring together strong local management and “our extensive experience in running pharmaceutical wholesaling businesses”.

Yang Rongming, chairman of the joint venture partner, said: “We are delighted to be forming this joint venture with such an experienced international partner with proven excellence in the operation, acquisition and integration of pharmaceutical distribution businesses.”

* In South Korea, the swaps basis widened as interest rate swaps rose amid hedging by foreign investors while cross currency swaps were trading flat.

* One year interest rate swaps KRQMCD1Y=KMBC were 2 bps higher at 3.46 percent with the swaps basis, the difference between CCS and IRS, rising to 175 bps from 153 bps at the start of the month.

* South Korean treasury bonds fell and debt futures came under pressure amid selling by foreign investors who were eyeing the weakness in U.S. Treasuries.

* “Futures have recovered but swaps are still there. There is a feeling that bond swaps could be normalising, so people are using the IRS as a hedging tool rather than futures,” said a Seoul-based analyst.

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Posted By admin on January 20, 2010

American Idol highlighted contestant Mere Doyle during the Boston auditions. Doyle called herself an “otaku, which is another word for anime freak.” Doyle also said anime inspired her to design and make her own kimono. The segment highlighted Doyle wearing a kimono and also other cosplay items such as a jacket worn by the titular character in Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto manga and anime. Doyle said her aspirations are to “become a singer and be successful in Japan.” Doyle sang Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” for her audition.

The characters in the double-episode premiere of the new FX animated series Archer referenced cosplayers. The series is about Sterling Archer, a secret agent, and the agency for which he works. The agency operates just like any other office — with paperwork and a Human Resources department. When a person on fire appears in the episode, Archer asks fellow agent Lana Kane what kind of person would wear a flaming suit, and Lana replies, “Cosplay enthusiasts!”

Guest star James Franco, playing himself, acted as though he were in love with a dakimakura (literally, a “hugging pillow”). In the episode, Franco starts a fake celebrity relationship with Jenna (Jane Krakowski) to dispel tabloid rumors that said he was in love with a hugging pillow. In the meeting to set up the fake relationship, Franco said, “Are you familiar with Japanese ‘moe’ relationships where socially dysfunctional men develop deep emotional attachments to body pillows with women painted on them?” Franco refers to the pillow as “Kimiko” and “Kimiko-tan” throughout the episode, and at the end of the episode announces that he is “in love with, and common-law married to, a Japanese body pillow!” The full episode can be watched on NBC’s website.

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Posted By admin on January 5, 2010

Before saying a final farewell to the last 10 years, here’s an alphabetical list of the 10 live-action films I feel had great impact between 2000 and 2009.
Summing up the output of a 10 period is always a challenge and a joy. I don’t pretend to present this as the definitive list, but here is a handful of films that I believe will have lasting importance:
“Avatar”: Although I didn’t put James Cameron’s epic on my top-10 films of 2009 list, the visually staggering work belongs on a list of the most important films of the decade due to its groundbreaking effects. With his $220 million-plus budget, the Oscar-winning filmmaker (“Titanic”) took us where no man has gone before in terms of visuals.
It’s a mind-bending visual trip that has left audience members wanting more and cemented Cameron’s position as king of the film world.
Like it or not, “Avatar” — with its immersive 3-D and computer-created characters — points the direction in which cinema will be going in the future. Some (including me) may argue that “Avatar” lacks a story with an ounce of originality and that the images echo those of video games, but that doesn’t matter.
Movie fans are flooding theaters to take Cameron’s unforgettable journey to a galaxy far, far away.

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2010

The word cosplay was coined by journalist Nobuyuki Takahashi and first appeared in print in an article he wrote in a June 1983 article in the magazine “My Anime.”" Takahashi shortened the word to “cosplay” after hearing that “costume play” was not actually an English word. The history of cosplay is intertwined with the West — it was not developed in a vacuum! A direct Japanese translation of masquerade, with its aristocratic nuances, would not suffice. “Costume” and “play,”" both borrowed words in Japanese, became “cosplay,” In the early 1980s, attendees at doujin manga show Comic Market, or Comiket, began drawing pictures of their favorite manga and anime characters on their shirts. This evolved into a handful of individuals dressing up as actual characters.

While Japanese fandom was trying to find its footing in expressing itself, its American counterparts had been dressed up at science fiction conventions for decades. Takahashi was surprised to see Trekkies in full Star Trek gear at the 1984 Worldcon (The World Science Fiction Convention) in Los Angeles. Takahashi hoped that the trend would catch on in his native Japan, and now had the newly minted term he needed to sell it. Geek culture is largely universal. The idea of dressing as one’s favorite characters — whether that be from Star Trek or Mobile Suit Gundam — has undeniable appeal.

“Cosplay” is Japanese for “costume play” — individuals dressing up in costume. In Japan, it is not restricted to video game, manga or anime characters, but can encompass dressing in all sorts of outfits: maid, nurse, schoolgirl, etc. The term is a shortened form of borrowed English, yet cosplay is viewed as something uniquely for and by the Japanese.

In the West, dressing up in costumes has a myriad of meanings — all different. There is a rich and long history of masquerade in European aristocracy, which was centuries later appropriated by the sci-fi expos as “costume contests” with participants dressing up as characters from domestic movies or TV shows. The West gave birth to Halloween, a holiday in which children don typically monster costumes. Finally, there is cosplay.

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Posted By admin on December 30, 2009

The country’s movie-making industry is experiencing a boom, with ticket sales increasing and more quality offerings from homegrown talents. Liu Wei reports

Box office takings in China have been rising 20 percent annually for the past five years, and though Hollywood blockbusters such as Transformers 2 and 2012 were the most profitable films this year, local productions were big hits too.

And 2009 was a bumper year for moviegoers with the gross box office surpassing last year’s 4.3 billion yuan ($630 million) to reach 6 billion yuan.

The Cow is almost a one-man show. It signifies the coming-of-age for Huang Bo, the comedian who specializes in playing low-life characters. His nabbing of the Golden Horse - as best actor for this performance - is much deserved.

The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) is as often filmed in China, as the European theater of WWII is for Western cinema. So it is not easy to squeeze anything fresh out of it. Writer and director Guan Hu adopted a small-scale approach that was ingenious in both concept and execution. The story revolves around a cow, a gift from a European country, and how it has an unexpected impact on different people, including Japanese soldiers.

The flashbacks are seamless. The locale is so intricately integrated into the plot the audience has a strong sense of participation. All characters are richly delineated and not even the Japanese invaders are caricatured. An actor with star power may boost the box office, but Huang Bo brings out the poignancy of the human dilemma in this slightly farcical tale.

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Posted By admin on December 27, 2009

Naruto knows tragedy intimately. His parents were killed in a war; Sasuke, his best friend, lost his entire clan to a murderous brother and became hell-bent on revenge; Jiraya, Naruto’s favorite teacher, was murdered by another student named Pain, whose aim was to destroy the world. Sai, the newest member to join Naruto’s ninja team, had to kill his classmates in order to graduate from his martial arts school.

Magic, romance and martial arts aside, the story of Naruto would put horror master Stephen King’s novels to shame. Yet the Japanese manga (comic book or graphic novel) and anime (Japanese animation) series has become wildly popular all over the world. And in the United States, it has presented children with a radically divergent narrative than that of fairytales told a generation ago.

There are no soft landings, no candy-coated protection in the story lines from the Far East. Behind those round, puppy-eyed, cuddly characters, with their perfect western features, lies a set of ancient eastern sensibilities informed by human suffering rarely known in the land of “happily ever after.” It is why, now in middle age, as an immigrant from a war torn country, Vietnam, I watch Naruto religiously.

“The characters may have some powers, but they are vulnerable. They might be beaten by somebody, and people who read manga sympathize deeply with these characters.” Lone wolf and cub

For Japanese adults, good manga is seen on the same level as a contemporary novel. “If Superman and Spiderman have wives and kids and real domestic dramas,” Koike said, “they will have adult readers.”

Koike, a history professor, can speak with authority. The first issue of the “Lone Wolf and Cub” U.S. edition sold around 120,000 copies in the late 1970s, making it the best-selling manga in the United States for decades. In Japan, the epic became one of the longest-running TV shows in its history, and was made into a six-film series.

It’s the story of a samurai who took his baby boy on a “road to hell” and became an assassin for hire while seeking vengeance against Retsudo, a powerful man who ordered the massacre of his clan. Daigoro grew up watching his samurai-turned-assassin father slash, stab and chop their enemies. In the final confrontation, with his father slain and Retsudo, their arch nemesis, wounded, the little boy picks up his enemy’s spear and rushes furiously toward him. Recognizing spiritual kinship in Daigoro’s warrior spirit, Retsudo embraces the boy and, as his own spear pierces his heart, cries out: “Grandson of my heart!”

Not exactly kid stuff of the late 70s. But these narratives are now vying for the attention of American kids. The saccharine happily-ever-after ending that has been spoon-fed to children by the church of Disney since the end of World War II is being seriously challenged.

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Posted By admin on December 20, 2009

An intimate large of fans swarmed the Sandestin Hilton and Beach Resort this weekend for the fifth annual Cosplay South convention.

The event catered to local fans of Japanese comics who used to have to travel to larger cities like Atlanta and Tampa to learn more about modern leather techniques for costuming and the ethics of cosplay (wearing anime costumes).

stin resident Kristina Koenig loves participating in the cosplay and meeting people with the same interests. This year, she brought her sister.

“It’s really small but it’s always a lot of fun,” Koenig said.

The event featured anime “edge rock” music group Eyeshine and Vincent Payne, known as hip hop artist Maja in anime circles. Both acts held question and answer sessions after performances.

Payne relished his time with the fans, spending 90 minutes instead of the scheduled 60.

“In a lot of conventions, it’s hard to get that intimate feeling. There are lots of people and everybody’s doing their own thing,” he said. “But this was awesome.”

“In most cities, the percentage of fans of not just anime, but any Japanese animation is about 3 to 7 percent of the population,” said Marc Yu, organizer of the event. “When you have such a low population density, they’re going to be miles apart. [The convention] is a time, place and subject matter where a community can come together for a common interest.”

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Posted By admin on December 13, 2009

Lovers of Japanese pop culture were gathered for the Anime Cosplay Festival in 2009 held at Suntec City Convention hall. The ‘I Love Anisong’ Mega Music Concert was a highlight of the festival, with performances from renowned anime theme song singer Ichirou Mizuki hailed as Japan’s “King of Anime Songs” and J-Pop performer Shoko Nagasawa who has sung anime theme songs most notably for popular franchise, Pokemon.

Another highlight is the Regional Cosplay Championship which attracted top cosplay teams from the region and judged by a panel notably consisting of prominent cosplayer in the international scene, Kaname.

While targeting specific fans of Japanese animation, the festival also aims to introduce Japanese pop culture to the region and give Japanese performers and personalities more exposure.

Countless booths littered the convention hall showcasing many aspects of Japanese pop culture, from Japanese animation to toys and figurine collectibles.

Most of the attendees also made an effort to dress up for the occasion in their favourite anime characters.

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Posted By admin on December 9, 2009

Games and cosplay industry finds opportunities for development in crisis. A game company, says that in many Western countries, it is because the financial crisis of unemployment at home, watching TV and playing games lead to more people. According to reports, North Zone with animation companies and gaming companies a total of more than 30, not only failed to be affected, but better than before export.

If you ever wondered why Game Informer continues to be the most popular videogame magazine here in the West, here’s why. Leveraging their immense power in both the editorial and retail markets, the old GI is showing there’s plenty of life in the ink and paper market, and they can still spit out a killer exclusive when they need to.

They promise to go “in-depth with 10 pages of exclusive details on what awaits Isaac Clarke in his new battle against the vicious necromorphs,” and it should be something to watch for when it hits newstands…and online blogs ten minutes later. Watch for Isaac’s totally new (and shredded) look, which has more in common with the anime-classic Guyver than any engineer I’ve ever seen.

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