Heroes of Cosplay’s second part of Wizard World New Orleans is the team competition of the convention. This convention focuses not just on costumes for the judging in the team competition, but a skit is also required.

The previous episode set up a lot of what we’re seeing this episode, but what’s interesting is how so disorganized everyone is. Everyone is either rushing to finish their costumes, or trying to figure out their skit. The amount of chaos and lack of solid planning is pretty staggering.

What’s also interesting is Yaya Han’s being out of her comfort zone. She’s decided to have her character on stilts, and to see her not having her shit together is actually refreshing.

Chloe, Holly, and Jessica also are putting together a twisted Peter Pan, and their carefree attitude is interesting. As Chloe said “we’re doing it live.” There’s so many factors in their skit they don’t know, it’s amazing these “professional” cosplayers aren’t doing more to get the answers to the questions they don’t know.

The thing that really stuck out to me the entire episode is how not together everyone is. For much of the series, from the first episode, there’s been a theme of how difficult all of this is to get together and do. It’s this episode where we finally see that’s the case.

This is the episode we really see the human side of many of the individuals, to the point some break down crying for their accomplishments. What’s more important this season is that the episodes have shifted from some of the cosplayers that were showing more T&A in the first half, and instead focusing on more about the costumes, the art, the creation, and the competition.

This second half, of the “first” season, the series has gained it’s voice, moving away from the sexual nature of some cosplay, and instead showing us more of the art and imagination of it all.

Overall Score: 7.5

Heroes of Cosplay’s fifth episode of the second season takes us to Wizard World New Orleans where there’s not just one, but two different cosplay competitions. One is the normal that we see, and the other is a group competition. In this episode is folks we’ve seen before this season, with ideas ranging from a twisted Peter Pan, the video game Soul Caliber, and the comic Haunt. It’s a great mix of inspiration.

As with every episode, getting some insight into how all of the costumes are put together, and this one in particular shows off some of the decision-making process and how good ideas some times don’t work out.

The competition is impressive, in that there’s not only some fantastic costumes, but the crowd looks huge. I’ve never attended a Wizard World, but this definitely piqued my interest in checking one out.

The episode covers the individual competition, as this is just a first part, so it’ll be interesting how they fill the next episode with the group competition. The decisions weren’t too shocking, and everyone picked were some impressive costumes. And there’s a lot of folks and awards.

Overall, this isn’t the strongest episode, but it definitely had enough to keep folks interested in cosplay entertained.

Overall Score: 7

Heroes of Cosplay’s fourth episode episode of the second season introduces us to even more new individuals in a very DC centric episode. Along with Chloe, Yaya, and Ricki, we now also have newcomers to the show Meg, Michelle, and Katie. This episode takes place at Wizard Portland Comicon 2014 which features no prejudging and no categories.

Chloe in the episode works with Meg and Michelle in a DC trio of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman, while Katie sports a Wonder Woman costume, and Ricki is Ashe from League of Legends.

What gets me with this episode is theirs a continuation of these folks reaching out to other individuals helping them putting their costumes together. If they’re so good and at such a level, the outside help, especially help with such name recognition as they get, seems to be unfair and also a misrepresentation of what they’ve done to put everything together. At least Chloe admitted to it, which is solid of her. There’s also an issue with two contestants having light up items, and not bringing extra batteries. Why aren’t you prepared!!!! Luckily another contestant has some extras to help out. There’s still some technical issues.

Overall, you get the usual behind the scenes in how the various costumes and items are made, cool for anyone remotely interested in cosplay. I do have to bring up the fact, other than Yaya Han, and Miguel from one episode this year, where’s the minority cosplayers? We’ve seen more men this season, but it’d be nice to show off not just the diversity of costumes, but also the diversity of the participants and community. This show is continually evolving in what it shows off, it needs to take some more steps to fully reach its potential.

Overall Score: 7.25

Heroes of Cosplay’s third episode introduces us to two “new” individuals to the series, two more guys, one Carl, from Austin and one from Queens, Miguel as they head to Animate Miami.

As always, the episode is fascinating to see everything going into putting together these amazing costumes, but what’s especially interesting here is the two new individuals, and how they are reacted to by our usual cast of characters. So far this season has been very much focused on the positive community aspect of cosplay, so seeing that played out here is of special interest to me.

Also, this episode has Chloe depict a new character Sara, a city elf archer, from Dragon Age Inquisition, her cosplay actually affecting the design of the video game character. To see that, and the thought about how the character designs might impact each other gives us a peek into an interesting aspect of the video game industry.

This episode also features prejudging, so as always, seeing the judge’s reaction and then what the contestants say to me is some solid insight. I’m fairly new to this aspect of cosplay (I only just check it out at shows), so getting the curtain lifted a bit is always fun to see.

I think the episode especially shows off the ambition some have, and how it can get ahead of the actual execution. The overall winner is predictable once you see it on stage, but as usual, some of our folks win, and some of them lose. Another solid episode, especially for folks interested in cosplay.

Overall Score: 7.25

Heroes of Cosplay second episode sends the group to compete at the Ottawa Pop Expo. This is a big show as it uses the International Costumers Guild Guidelines…. which I didn’t know even existed.

The stakes are clearly high, and everyone is freaking out about it. I can’t think of an episode where so many of the individuals were so unsure of themselves. It’s interesting to see how everyone handles the pressure to come up with an awesome costume.

Compared to the season debut episode, this one is full of chaos with folks scrambling to finish their costumes, and some not even sure they’re going to make it. You can feel their tenseness oozing from the television.

As usual, the episode hinges on the fun of watching the cosplay be put together from beginning to end. The end awards as always is a toss up as far as who wins, and who doesn’t. It’s great to see our “characters” not win all the time, it adds to the show greatly. As expected, the episode is pretty tame, but fun. If you’re into costumes and cosplay, this is a series for you.

Overall Score: 7

Heroes of Cosplay returned tonight with a brand new episode, picking up where last season left off. This episode takes everyone to Stan Lee’s Comikaze, a convention that’s really taken off these last few years. The episode quickly caught us up with, and reintroduced us to some of the individuals from last year, and some new individuals as well, expanding upon what’s been built.

In general, I enjoyed last year’s season, especially with its honesty of the cliquish nature of geekdom. There were villains, there were heroes, and yes, there were a lot of costumes. Part of the show’s appeal was seeing what goes into these amazing costumes, but at the same time it lifted the veil at how cutthroat it all is at times. But what was more fascinating was the gender roles, and sexualization at times of non-sexual characters.

This second season dives right into all of that, having numerous individuals from last season prepping for the next competition. A new “character” is Indra, a former cosplayer who is returning back to competition after some time off. Indra seeks out Yaya Han’s advice, Yaya being one of the most well-known cosplayers out there. Thankfully some of the poorer (ie “sex it up”) advice from last year wasn’t given by Yaya, instead we see an encouragement, a sign of the positive cosplay community that exists.

Jessica and Holly have interestingly teamed up with Chloe for a cool Pokemon group entry, and last year’s Jesse is going with Mega Man. All of them should be impressive if pulled off. We get to see what goes into creating the costumes, and that’s a draw for the series, much like it is for other SyFy shows Face/Off and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. I did have some issues with Chloe’s burlesque characters based on websites. Why does it have to be burlesque? Body positive is mentioned, but how about just creative cosplay instead?

Also shown off is Yaya Han who travel’s to Argentina for an impressive convention that’s more about photos and showing off one’s creation.

But really, this comes down to the competition at the convention, which usually ends the show and the costumes on display are impressive. Beyond what these individuals put together, there’s some others shown that are truly amazing. And that’s a fantastic part of the show, there’s numerous times when none of the individuals followed win. To see their wins AND losses is excellent, and I think one of the strongest narrative parts of the show.

That truly is a great thing about the show. For all of the catty nature at times. For all of the questionable sexing up of characters. There’s a positive community vibe, and that’s what keeps me coming back….. that and the awesome cosplay.

Overall Score: 7