Despite the glut of unscripted reality TV shows and the lack of recent breakout hits, there is still some slightly untilled ground. For years I’ve been saying a cosplay competition show would be a natural, although nerdcentric TV shows are vastly less popular than shows focusing on rednecks and nouveau riche wives. Although SyFy’s Fangasm was a ratings disaster, Face-Off has held it’s own, and cosplay would seem to be ripe for the same treatment. Oops because I’m an idiot I forgot about Heroes of Cosplay! So yeah obviously this is an idea whose time has come.
And now comes Call to Cosplay, which will air on Myx TV, a cable channel aimed at Asian Americans. A bit of anrrowcasting there, but give it time. The show debuts Monday June 30, 2014 at 8/7c. Here is the PR and some photos provided by Myx. The show will also be available on Crunchyroll.
Cosplay, a term meaning ‘costume play’ is a popular subculture where participants dress-up and role play various characters from anime, manga, comic books and more. “Call to Cosplay” combines the world of cosplay with all of the exciting elements of a competition design program. Each episode of the series features two cosplayers competing for cash prizes. Contestants are assigned a theme, budget, mystery element and less than eight hours to create a character and costume from scratch. Costumes and performances are then judged by a panel of experts and scored on four main criteria: authenticity, creativity, “wow” factor and craftsmanship.
This competition reality series consists of six episodes, with episodic themes including: sports anime, magical girls, American/non-Japanese characters, throwback anime (pre-1990) and heavy metal armor throw-down. The series is hosted by anime expert, Keith Kawamura.
“‘Call to Cosplay’ is our way of showing genuine respect and affection for the passionate group of fans and artists who represent this thriving sub-culture and we’re happy to give them a place to demonstrate their skills on Myx TV,” said Miguel Santos, General Manager of Myx TV.
Executive Producer of “Call to Cosplay” is George Chung, whose credits include the two-time Emmy Award winning series, “Kanga Roddy,” “49ers Total Access,” “Fight Night at the Playboy Mansion” and most recently “Super Fight League.” For Myx TV, Executive Producer and Executive in Charge of Production is Miguel Santos.
This announcement comes at the heels of the finale episode of the network’s first original reality series, “I’m Asian American and…”. In addition to airing on Myx TV, each episode of “Call to Cosplay” will be exclusively available the next day on the anime website, Crunchyroll, for its premium members for one week. Myx TV is distributed by International Media Distribution, which is owned by NBCUniversal.
The quality of this show sucks!! Why? because the capturing video is poo; even WAPA PR has better quality, the space for the poor competitors is small and uncomfortable. The host Keith Kawamura is so boring and disrespectful. I was checking on him on the background all the time talking with DJ Wednesday making fun of the cosplayers. How do you have A DJ without music called DJ Wednesday but finally in episode 2 they finally put music. I will advise you guest and judges. You need to be hard core. Obviously if the costume was freaking horrible tell the truth like Mr. wonderful. You finally have a show of cosplay which I love but not the makers of it booO! Put better music also. If the Theme is Monster Hunter put on your empty walls some poster, its so dead. Oh and mention on the beginning of the competition the prizes. Sucks how you score the cosplayer such as you make them take photo shoots and don’t actually show the actual photos taken and the runaway (stop showing your dang on exit door and camera guys. Focus on your competitor from top to bottom ( I want to see what they actually made), put a freakin wall behind them instead of capturing the host and DJ. Im very disappointed. You guys are so cheap and unprofesional.
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