0. Why should I join the Otaku House Cosplay Idol?
The Otaku House Cosplay Idol project is an initiative by Otaku House as a fun platform for cosplayers from around the world to showcase their cosplay works, make friends with other cosplayers, and receive feedback from the community. We received lots of positive feedback from contestants last year on how joining our contest have helped them get more following for their works.

So if you’d like to give your cosplay work lots of exposure and receive more opportunities, join the contest!

Oh and did we mention there’s USD4000 worth of prizes to be won? -winks-

1. Who is eligible?
Everybody as long as you’re a human being, minimum age of 13 years old, and as long as you have a personal facebook account. (you need to log in using facebook account to submit your photo)

To give more cosplayers a chance, past champions of Otaku House Cosplay Idol will not be entered into the Finals. But you can still join the Qualifiers to show off your latest costume and see how far you can go!

2. How do I submit my cosplay?
Click here for submission details.

3. What are the rules?
Click here for the rules.

4. Who must I cosplay as?
You can cosplay as any character you want from any anime, manga, game, movie, cartoon, TV show or pop cultural figure. Original characters are accepted too, but try to give some background information on original characters, or it’ll defeat the purpose and just be a dress up game.

5. When is the deadline to submit my photo?
You can submit your photo anytime before the qualifying round ends in Sept 2013. Exact date will be announced later on.

But as my granny used to say : “the early bird gets more worms”, submit your photo earlier to collect more votes!

6. How do I vote for a cosplayer I like?
1. Click on the cosplayers’ pictures to view their entries.
2. If you like a contestant’s cosplay works, click the ‘like’ button or ‘Google +1’ button at the top of that page. The counter on the left will show the collective votes.
3. At the end of the qualifying round, the contestants with the most number of votes enter the Finals.

7. Do tweets count as a vote?
Nope. However, the more you tweet, the more publicity you will be able to garner for the cosplayer, and that will translate to more people coming to vote for him/her.

8. Do I have to make my own costumes?
Ok, we have a huge debate internally on this one.

As much as we would like to enforce this, we cannot make self-made costumes a rule as it is impossible to enforce this for an online contest. An original looking costume may be store bought and then further customized, or may be commissioned, or may even be made by the cosplayer’s grandmother. In fact, an original looking costume to Guy A may look store bought to Guy B. What if only the prop is store bought? What about that pair or Sharingan contacts or the waraji sandals? Is dyed hair better than wigs? Who styled the wigs? … And the list goes on (you get the idea)…

We also cannot require the cosplayers to open up their costume making portfolios online. The web is an uncontrolled environment, and it is unfair for them to be compelled to share their costume-making secrets to the world unless they choose to do so; unsolicited.

We believe most voters can tell which costumes are obviously store bought, and vote with their convictions. We believe if the cosplay community cannot accept store-bought costumes, a particular participant will not get votes.

There are many criteria to a great cosplay. So voting can be based on these points; like how well the cosplayer portrayed the character, costume likeness, props’ details, facial expressions, characters’ personality through poses etc. We decided to leave it to the voters to vote with their personal definition of cosplay.

We have ran an opinion poll on whether the general community thinks that effort in making a costume is THE key criteria of a good cosplay, and it seems that there is no consensus on this issue. At the end of the day, this is an online cosplay contest where judges; in this case the public, cannot feel the fabric of the costumes. So cosplayers must capture the essence of the character they are cosplaying as to get votes.

9. Can I like my photos myself, and can I get my friends to like my photo?
By all means! Rally your supporters and be the this year’s Cosplay Idol!

10. Can I submit more than 1 photo?
Currently, the rule is one photo per person. The top cosplayers with the most ‘likes’ get to choose other photos to submit for competing in the Cosplay Idol Finals! Read our rules by clicking here for more information

11. Which category should I submit under?
You have to submit under the category based on your citizenship only. For eg. if your citizenship is Japanese, but you are currently living/studying/working in France, your submission should be under Asia, instead of Europe.

If you are holding dual/multiple citizenships which are cross-continent, you are then free to choose which region’s category to represent.

To avoid controversy, we may request documentations to prove your citizenship. If you have submitted under a wrong category, the photo will be removed and disqualified. You can re-submit under the correct category, but all previous votes will be void.

12. Can I like another contestant’s photo even though I’m competing?
Yes you can!

13. When and where is the cosplay competition?
The Otaku House Cosplay Idol Contest is held entirely online

14. Why doesn’t the facebook ‘Like’ numbers and Google +1 numbers tally with the counter of total votes?
Not many people know this, but the number of facebook likes that appear on an external non-facebook page is NOT based on the number of times a person click the ‘like’ button on that page. Yes, we all assumed that it is and it’s really difficult to fathom otherwise. But the truth is that alot of factors contribute to that number. Below is a screenshot from the Facebook’s lengthy reference page on what makes up the numbers :

Anyway, to make it fair, the main counter ONLY captures the ‘likes’ and Google +1 clicked directly on your page as a valid vote. Also, to prevent fans from creating multiple accounts to bump up their favorite cosplayer’s votes, the main counter only registers 1 vote per IP address. (Yes, if your entire family shares one computer, the votes only count as 1)

Fair and square; because we care!

15. I am a cosplayer who submitted my photo, and people I don’t know have tagged themselves on my photo! What can I do to remove them?
While we believe most of the people who tagged themselves to your photo did it with the intention of spreading your picture to their friends to help you rally for support because they like your cosplay; we concur that there will be some fringe morons who tag with questionable intentions.

We ban users whom we believe are malicious to the community.

If you find a tagger whom you believe to be malicious, or that they are trying to impersonate you, inform us by emailing to cosplayidol[@]otakuhouse.com with the direct link to your photo, your facebook account name, the account name of the the tagger, and we’ll remove them.

16. Can I submit a photo of another cosplayer I photographed myself?
No. The cosplayer in the photograph you submit must be yourself. We may request for addition documentation from all winners to authenticate that they are the person in the photos.

17. Can I submit a photograph of me and my friends/family cosplaying?
As this is a solo competition, the photo is required to feature only you as a cosplayer. Your friends / family members may submit another photo of themselves to the contest as well.

18. Some annoying assholes are trolling on my photo! What should I do?
Report to cosplayidol[@]otakuhouse.com with the exact link to your photo and the posters’ names. Comments that break rule number 11 here will be moderated.

While we do our best to moderate comments, our resources to moderate the sheer numbers are limited, and thus rely alot on community watch among voters and contestants as well. So we appreciate all reports of misuse!

19. What are the prizes for the contest?
Click here for details of Prizes and Rules

20. What is this “Special Rule” for Latin America category I heard about?
As there were significantly less contestants in the Latin America category compared to the other categories in the past years’ Otaku House Cosplay Idol contest, we will be opening up the Finals for this category only if there is a minimum of 600 Latin American contestants this year. If there are not enough contestants, there will not be a Latin America Finals, and no Latin American Cosplay Idol for 2013.

So tell all your friends about this contest and let’s not make this category obsolete!

If you have any other queries not listed here, feel free to email our team at cosplayidol[@]otakuhouse.com!