With Australia's first representatives for the World Cosplay Summit chosen, the organiser Kenny was kind enough to answer some questions about how things went.

-Now that Australia's first preliminary contest has been run, how do you think it went?

It went even better than I imagine. The competition ran smoothly, we had amazing entrants, and all the entrants were supportive of one another. It was a lot of fun to organise, to watch and to participate in, so I think after this year, everyone that had any reservations about the competition will join next year.

-What were your general thoughts on Australia's preliminary entries?

Seriously, I didn't expect Australia to do that good. I was expecting the level of cosplay to raise, but not to the point of being blown away by amazing costumes and performances. All the finalist should be proud of themselves, they did an excellent job, and I hope they will come back again next year.

-Who was the WCS representative to come to the Australian judging?

The WCS representative was Akiko Okhubo. She was recently promoted to an executive position. She is not a cosplayer herself, but she has been involved in organizing WCS for a few year, and she has been to several WCS preliminaries in USA, France and Singapore. During the judging process, I immediately saw that she was looking for a particular type of cosplayer to represent Australia at WCS, and it was fitting exactly what the Australian judges were looking for too.

-Did they have anything to say about the Australian entries or Australian cosplay in general?

At first, she was surprised how small the Australian cosplay community was; I guess mainly because she was comparing it to France and USA, but then she was blown away with the quality. She didn't expect such high standard from a country entering the first time WCS. You can read her comments about Australia on the WCS blog, and you can see that they loved Australia, as half of the blog is currently filled with interviews of the Australian representatives, Cattypatra and Tsubaki chan. (Found here: WCS Blog)

-Will Australia be entering future WCS events and if so will anything about how it is run change?

Yes, definitely. Animania will continue to hold the Australian pre-selection as long as it can, and I will be involved until I feel its time to move on to something else. I'm currently working on the new rules for next year. I hope to have them up on the Animania website by the end of November. There will be several changes.

-What changes would you like to see made to how things went this year?

Next year, there will be two major changes. The first is that Round 4 will be canceled, and the finals will be running in Sydney on the Saturday. This means that entrants must attend one of the Animania before the main event to enter the competition (dates are on the website).

The second major change is regarding the way entrants will be selected in the pre-selection rounds. It will be very similar to Australian idol, cosplayers will perform on stage, then judges will immediately give their opinion (positive and negative) about costumes and performances, then  give their verdict by saying "yes" or "no". There will be 5 judges at each round. In order to get to the finals, entrants will need 4 "yes" out of 5.

-Will other cities such as Perth and Adelaide get their own qualifiers?

Animania would be very interested to run qualifiers in Perth and Adelaide, but it will probably be a while until Animania can run an event in these two cities, mainly because it is far away, and all the Animania equipment needed to follow. We have had some interest from other organisation, wanting to organise a round, but they were not ready to help to finance the event.

-Anything you would like to say to those considering entering?

If you are planning to enter the competition next year, you better find a partner soon, and get started on your costumes, as the competition will be even tougher next year. I recommend joining the Animania forum, as most WCS entrants use it to chat about the competition, and support each other throughout the competition.

Good luck, and I am looking forward to what Australia is going to do next year to amaze the whole world!!

-Thank you very much for your time Kenny and all the best for future competitions!