Filipino cosplaying duo Team Namikaze was already on cloud nine for being able to participate in the World Cosplay Summit for the first time, but bagging one of the top awards for the country is certainly a cherry on top.
The duo’s Jin Jameson and AC Hernandez channeled their inner shinobi as they turned into Uzumaki Naruto and Jiraiya from the hit anime “Naruto.” This earned them the Brother Award from the international summit yesterday, Aug. 8, World Cosplay Summit Philippines (WCS Philippines) announced via Facebook on the same day.
“Cosplaying as Uzumaki Naruto (Jin) and Jiraiya (Hernandez) from the hit anime series ‘Naruto,’ the duo got the special award which is given to the team with the best costume,” the organization announced.
“World Cosplay Summit Philippines would like to congratulate our Philippines representatives for winning the Brother Special Award,” WCS Philippines greeted Team Namikaze.
It also extended its congratulations to the duo’s fellow participants and the summit’s winning countries.
Meanwhile, Jameson expressed how ecstatic she was over winning the special award by showing Team Namikaze’s winning moment on her Facebook page also yesterday.
“It’s our first time ever to join WCS so I wasn’t expecting anything but AC and I won one of the top awards — the Brother Award — and somehow have our names next to these amazing people,” the cosplayer said.
“I felt like it was such an honor just to be the first to bring our beloved Naruto to the WCS stage and to get the kind of comments that we did from the judges and the viewers,” Jameson added. “But on top of that, we get a major award for the Philippines and plant our flag on the list of awardees for a historic first time!”
Just like most events held over the past year, the World Cosplay Summit also had to break off tradition given the COVID-19 pandemic. It was supposed to be held in Nagoya, Japan this year, but was instead done through video skits submitted by 30 participating countries with one “observer country.”
Team Germany was hailed the grand winner for this year’s video championship. IB
RELATED STORIES:
Marvel’s new local Captain America is Fil-Am college student Ari Agbayani
‘G.I. Joe’ comics to welcome its first Filipino Joe, Multo