New York Anime Festival 2009 Masquerade

The New York Anime Festival 2009 Yume Cosplay Masquerade was held on Saturday, September 26, 2009, started after 6:30pm and ended close to 11:00pm. The big cosplay event was held in the ANA Theater, which were rooms 1A08-12, and the overflow rooms 1A24 and 1A23. The ANA Theater had the stage and live performance, while the overflow rooms had a screen displaying a live feed of the stage performances. Because of the excitement, many waited eagerly for the doors to open. The waiting area was too small for a continuous straight line, but that did not stop the event from happening. The line was probably longer than a python, and it curved and swung around like a snake. Convention attendees wanted to see the cosplayers and what the performers had in store for them.

This was my first anime/manga cosplay masquerade event, and I too had my own fair share of excitement and curiosity. I sat in the center set of seats near the front close to the stage. The ANA Theater was more or less packed with people all waiting for the show to start. When the show begun, there was some waiting, gasping, laughter and cheers from the supportive crowd. Overall, it was quite an entertaining and eye-opening show. Now I will talk about certain acts, in order of performance, which I felt were unique, interesting or simply different from the rest.

The third performance of the night was Paradise Kiss by Laura Hale and Hannah McCue. Hale was wearing the floor length blue dress, while McCue was wearing a pink knee length dress. Before I realized that the young ladies were part of the masquerade, I initially spotted them, while they were in the cafeteria downstairs, from the lobby floor. The first thing that caught my eye was the blue dress. It was such a beautiful looking dress that I had to go downstairs just to take a picture of it.

Next time I saw the dress was at the masquerade, and it was not just me who recognized the beauty of the dress. While the pair was setting up on stage for their performance, the audience gave a few Oo’s and Ah’s for the blue dress. It was not the skit that caught my attention, however, it was the blue dress. I rarely take photos of cosplay, but for this dress, I just had to. Yes, I really like that dress.

Then came the ninth performance, which was the interpretation of a Death Note character, L, and what would this character do during his day off by Kenneth Pingad. Out of all the skits in the masquerade, this was the most comical and humorous one. However, it does help to know one tiny detail about L: he LOVES sugary food, like candy and ice cream. While keeping that detail in mind, the performer was making a ridiculously sugar infected sundae! The performer timed each action in creating the dessert with the music perfectly to evoke audience reactions. The interpretation of L during his day off caused uproar of laughter and outrageous cheering. The audience loved this skit so much that loud cheers continued after the completion of the performance. One member of the audience shouted “you’re the best L ever!” and in return L offered the audience his sugary delight.

Following Pingad’s performance was another one that I liked, Trinity Blood by Cybele Arnaud and Diana Li. Initially, when one of the performers stepped into audience view, I was unsure of the character. However, I had a gut feeling that it was Esther Blanchett from Trinity Blood. During the performance, my favorite character from Trinity Blood stepped out from a prop: Abel Nightroad. The performer did look a lot like Nightroad and it was not just the costume either. ☺ To be honest though, the reason I liked this performance was because Trinity Blood is one of my favorite anime. However, the performance itself had slight moments of humor and intentional silliness by Nightroad. For example, during the skit, while dancing to music, Nightroad decided to use Blanchett’s beautifully detailed white dress as napkin to clean his mouth with. Bad Nightroad.

Several performances later, the seventeenth performers were Brittany Wood and Amy Scholl as characters from Kaleido Star. It was interesting to see cosplayers take the concept “being in character” beyond just behaving and dressing as the respective characters. Wood and Scholl were performing gymnastic moves, which is similar to Kaleido Star’ acrobatic theme. However, I highly doubt the performers would have had the ability to do acrobatic acts, even if they knew how, due to space limitations and possible injuries. I do not think the people of New York Anime Festival would want the performance to go too far that would cause injury now, do you?

The last and eighteenth performer of the night rocked the house! Picture this: the host of the masquerade, Uncle Yo, was speaking to the audience. When suddenly, a huge yellow looking figure appears behind him. Guess what? It was Bumble Bee from Transformers! HUGE life size version! Seriously, no joke! There was an uproar of cheers from the crowd due to the presence of Bumble Bee, which was performed by Thomas M DePetrillo, while Jacqueline Cella was his partner on stage. Even though the costume looks awesome and extremely difficult to create, the performance was fairly simple. Regardless, the fans loved seeing a life size Bumble Bee.

During the competition, there were exhibition performances by four groups: Team Japan; Team Mexico; Team France and a Canadian young man with his assistant Mario Bueno. After the eleventh competitor, Team Japan performed a skit from Vocaloid as Rex and Lin, who were played by Sakura Isei and Ran Isei. The performance contained an impressive usage of props, ranging from umbrellas to a pre-cut Asian wall panel, and the performers used the entire stage, including the runway.

After Bumble Bee’s performance, the next exhibition was by Team Mexico, which comprised of Abigal Mascherpa Garcia and Sabina Iglesias Arvide. Unfortunately, I do not know what anime or manga series they are portraying. However, this team made an excellent usage of their costumes, which I like to call the engineering of costuming. Similar to professional behind the scenes quick costume changes, this pair of young ladies where able to pull off an on stage ripping and tearing of costumes as part of the skit. In the end, they were able to put back the pieces of the outfits as if it was never ripped off.

Following Team Mexico was Team France, Albanese Cecilia and Turpin Eva portraying the characters Hikaru Shidou and Umi Ryuuzaki from Magic Knight Rayearth. Because I read and watched the anime for this series, at first, I got confused with their performance. Then I realized that the girls got creative with the name of the series. They were performing magic acts, while continuing to match the respective colors of the individual characters: red for Hikaru and blue for Umi. The one thing that I wish they did was pull a rabbit that represented Mokona out of a hat. However, I highly doubt it would have been allowed. Other then that, I enjoyed the overall creative performance.

Lastly, following Team France, was a giant Red Robot, which was nicely built! It looked like the man was wearing body armor! The person in the Red Robot outfit was Ed Hoff, who is a Canadian citizen living in Japan and flew to New York City for NYAF 2009. After posing for pictures on stage, his friend Bueno, helped Hoff with the microphone, so he can give the audience a message. Hoff did not want the attendees to think that he made the costume, so he announced that Goley, a “master in robot making in Japan,” was the one who made the Red Robot costume. He also wanted the audience to send Goley a message about the costume. Well, my message to Goley is that your costume looks professional and superb! It looked so good that I thought it came from a movie set.

After all the contestants and exhibitions were finished, the winner of the New York Anime Festival 2009 Yume Cosplay Masquerade was the fourteenth performance of the night: Carmilla and Charlotte by Yaya Han and Anna Raper. After the show was over, I knew that there were going to be people comparing and contrasting, why one should or should not have won the competition, and which performance and/or costume was better than another. Initially, I had no opinion, because performance wise, I prefer L, but costume wise I prefer Bumble Bee. In other words, I was indifferent. However, after re-watching the performance by Han and Raper, I understood why they won the competition. Other then having great detailed, complex and well done looking costumes, the competition is also about the performance. As a team, they had to convince the audience that Charlotte (Raper) was being possessed and controlled by Carmilla (Han). What made Han and Raper's performance different from the other performers was their usage in timing and acting skills. Although Han was facing the back of Raper, she had to time her movements correctly not only with the music but also with Raper’s movements, who was facing the audience. Along with the need to have convincing body movements, the acting ability of both ladies had to come into play, such as facial, vocal and body expressions. Even if Han portrayed the vampire character to its wickedness, Raper had to show the audience that she was in fear, then possessed and had no free will. Because of the level of difficulty in the performance and the team effort required to execute such a scene, I believe that is why Han and Raper became the winners of the Yume Cosplay Prize trip to Japan.

To those who wanted Bumble Bee to win, I think the only way he could have won is if he could transform into a car just like the character Bumble Bee. However, if that actually happened, I think most of us would either freeze on the spot or run for the door. In another words, freaked out, but very cool.

Congratulations to all the contestants for an entertaining night of dazzle and comedy! Good luck in your future cosplay endeavors!
© 2010 Linda Thai

For more information on this event check out the posts from Meduim at Large:
Friday, June 26, 2009 Metrocon Masquerade Winners Coming to NYAF
Friday, July 17, 2009 NYAF Masquerade Revealed - Introducing the Yume Cosplay Prize!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 NYAF Masquerade and AMV Contests Online
Saturday, September 26, 2009 NYAF Continues!
Thursday, October 15, 2009 Anime USA is a Yume Cosplay Prize Preliminary
Monday, November 23, 2009 Anime USA Masquerade Winners!

Photography by Petrina Cheng (unwatermarked), Jason Davis and Linda Thai