The hottest places in the Anime & Manga industry, brought to you by the SMAC! News Team… This is TOKYO MANGA DEEP WALKER! Continuing from last week, here’s part 2 of our two week speical!! Introducing the largest Otaku event in Japan: “AnimeJapan2015” And we’re back to the event! This booth is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the magazine that serialized Mobile Suit Gundam, “Monthly Newtype”! Illustrations with comments from the manga artists are on display, attracting a huge crowd of fans! This booth belongs to ANIPLEX, the company that produced the anime for the hugely popular Naruto and Puella Magi Madoka Magica! Which one is your favorite? This is a booth introducing the latest Dragonball Z movie: Resurrection ‘F’. The huge dragon (Shenron) is smiling for the camera!! Look at all the Dragonball Z cosplayers! Kame-hame–HAAAAA! This booth belongs to Love Live, the series that’s taking the anime/game world by storm! It was just announced that a new movie is scheduled to be released in June! There were hundreds of fans who wanted to take pictures! “Get back to work!” This witch taught him a lesson! Now that we’ve collected ourselves… Let’s introduce a few of Dai’s choices! This is Japan’s most “Moe” character: Hatsune Miku!! Miku started out as a vocaloid. Users could create songs using her voice, a mechanic which captured the hearts of Otaku all over Japan!! There are ordinary people who have created CDs with her voice and released them online. Some of these songs have been listened to over 1 million times! She is definitely an important part of the Otaku world!! This booth is for Saint Seiya – Soul of Gold, which will be broadcast all over the world (to 246 countries and regions) on 11th April!! Standing next to the giant sparkling Gold Cloth, Dai looks even cooler than usual!!   It was getting late, and we were about to go home… when we discovered this! The GALAX-Z, which will be featured in season 2 of the anime Gatchaman Crowds, scheduled to be broadcast from July 2015. It looks so awesome that a huge crowd gathered to see it!   Next up… This car is based on Wish Upon the Pleiades, a collaboration between the animation company Gainax and the automobile company Subaru. Cars that are decorated with manga and anime characters are called “Itasha” in Japanese. (Translators note: “Itasha” literally means “painful car”, since non-fans consider them embarrassing and painful to look at.) You’ll very rarely see them on the road, so seeing one up-close like this is a valuable chance! Additionally… This truck belongs to the convenience store company Lawson! It was used to bring refreshments to the staff working at this event. The companies backing this event also work hard to make it more exciting, helping to grow the event year by year!   Even though it’s almost closing time… look how many people are still here!!! I think you can see the passion that Japanese otaku have for anime and manga!! It was announced that this year, 122,000 visitors attended AnimeJapan 2015! Last year was about 111,000 so this event is definitely growing! Make no mistake, events where Otaku fans can gather and share their passion are definitely on the rise!  

Tokyo Big Sight

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