The Manalili Mastersplan on the YKP 10th and Others

Like any other industry or multimedia franchise, it is important to know about what the plans are for the upcoming months and the things that are cooked for the fans and followers, and the Yona Kuromatoki Platform is no exception. Because I'm not only doing its tenth anniversary, which is celebrated this year besides my 15th cosplay one, but I also did two special cosplay lineup series from the previous year. But how the heck these plans have been really planned from the start?

Known as the Manalili Masterplan, I came up these ideas in mind shortly after the first Yona Kuromatoki's Interactive Podcast Part 3.0 episode in 2022 and originally had plans to solely focus on my 30th birth anniversary in 2023 and the preps for the platform's first decade in 2024. But when the Pretty Cure 20th anniversary festivities were kicking off so early (Delicious Party was the season aired at the time), then I took the opportunity to bring back something that I had done before - the Ultimate Pretty Cure Cosplay Line Up! The special cosplay lineup series was the first in YKP and introduced during the franchise's 15th anniversary, when the former was known as the Yona Kuromatoki Cosplay Page (2014-19) and later the Yona Kuromatoki Page during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic before rebranding once more to its present name. Then another iconic franchise would celebrate another milestone, Doctor Who, which would be turned 60th in that year, and I thought that it'd be great to have its first cosplay lineup series too.

Plans for the UPCCLU 2.0 made clear when Hirogaru Sky! would be the next season of Pretty Cure, so the thought of adding at least one new cosplay from the show would be a good addition to both promote it and spread the wholesome agenda in pop culture cons. The then upcoming cosplans were Laura/Cure La Mer (mermaid form ver.), Takumi Shinada/Black Pepper and Nagisa Misumi/Cure Black, in addition to the active cosplays like Seiji Sagara, Yui Nanase, Pikario/Rio Kuroki/Cure Waffles and Emiru Aisaki/Cure Macherie. However, only Black Pepper made a cosplay debut in Pinoy Otaku Festival 2023, while Cure Black would be retained for the 2024 cosplans alongside Nozomi Yumehara/Cure Dream (Otona PreCure ver., currently on the canvassing stage), Ellee/Cure Majesty (currently in progress) and Nodoka Hanadera/Cure Grace (currently on the plans). There were also plans to bring back Ako Shirabe/Cure Muse for the cosplay lineup series but it was ultimately scrapped due to constraints. Fortunately, its first phrase made a huge success thanks to the constant hype over the 20th anniversary and a second phrase is currently ongoing for the Wonderful! season and the YKP tenth anniversary, so there's a possibility to push the comeback still within this year.

Speaking of which, I also considered the 15th Doctor for the first Ultimate Doctor Who Cosplay Line Up alongside Thasmin aka the 13th Doctor and Yasmin Khan, but also met the same fate as Cure Muse unfortunately.

The initial plan for the UPCCLU 2.0 would be held at Otaku Expo Anime and Manga Drawing Special 2023 day 2 to coincide with the Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure finale, but because I already debuted Hizuru Minakata on that con, it was later moved to the Ozine Summer Fest 2023 TriNoma leg on the day after EDSA People Power Day and I thought it'd be a perfect time to celebrate HUGtto!'s fifth anniversary with Macherie! The aforementioned stuff weren't the only ones to consider, the much-awaited comebacks of my Seiji Sagara cosplay and Yui-Yui's winter casual outfit were also part of my plans for the cosplay lineup series and proved to be successful with minor revamps and newly acquired props.

As for the DWUCLU, I would still push 13 and Yaz for it at least to commemorate Who's 60th and it became a success, notably thanks to Cosplay Mania 2023 day 2 and the recent watchalong party organized by the Whovian Philippines group. But also, here's to more cosplays from the silly but very iconic blue box show.

The advanced and the belated namida surprise fiestas at cons for Waffles and Black Pep on the other hand were my ideas, but what's more interesting to know that the latter also coincided with the actual one of Makoto Kenzaki/Cure Sword last Sugoi Anime Fest 2023 at Robinsons Antipolo in Rizal Province, so that's that. When All Stars F was first announced in March, I was excited and decided to take that opportunity to bring up the hype as much as possible. Three months later, the first trailer came out and the special teams had been revealed! Due to that, the idea of a helpers group was born and it was taking inspiration from the companions group from Jodie Whittaker's last regular Doccy Who episode, The Power of the Doctor, but a Cure-esque twist. And so, the three special cosplay cards featuring Black Pep (representing Teams Sky and Prism), Yui-Yui (representing Team Wing and Majesty) and Waffles (representing Team Butterfly) were released for a limited time and debuted at CosHabatsu 2023 day 2.

I even said in the YKIP Part 3.0 penultimate episode that the early plans for the YKP 10th were on the works and one of which was planning to attend a Visayas or Mindanao con first then an international one next, in addition to the continuation of the YKIP Live Panels and a theme song for the year-long party, much like the ones of the anime industry centenary in 2017 and the Pretty Cure series in 2023. The logo for the aforementioned would be the same as the podcast's current season , 4F, and it was made as early as September with little adjustments. When Wonderful Pretty Cure! was officially unveiled, sinabay ko talaga 'yun with the YKP tenth anniversary logo and poof, surprise guys! :p

And oh, speaking of anniversaries, December 2023 came out and the theme slogan had been revealed shortly after the YKIP Year End Special with "Sama-Sama I-Angat ang Lahat! Onward to the Extremely Wonderful Decade!" and a pubmat for my Cosplay Carnival 2023 day 3 lineup with the anniversary logo. Then more than a month later aka shortly after the Hirogaru Sky! finale episode, the YKP tenth anniversary song would be "Fighter" performed by Tali. Not only this is the first time that a Eurovision song, specifically the current seasonal roster from a comeback participated country Luxembourg after a 31-year hiatus, is used for the aforementioned, but this is also technically the second non-English one to do so after MNL48's "First Rabbit," which was used for the platform's fifth anniversary in 2019. Both songs are dealing with the struggles and perseverance that us humans do everyday, but just with two different genres from east and west hehe. That aside, they're also related to me and how I deal with the suffering and despair, but with multiple drops of determination and hope, and used the latter to overcome the former.

Oof, looks like we've gotta end this long-ass essay on how the Manalili Masterplan came to life! But I do hope you guys enjoy reading it from start to finish and apologies for not posting on the vlog due to busy schedules. Till the next random ramble on Yona's Blog, fellas!