Jump Festa 2015 was held over the span of two days, on Dec. 20 and 21. The event was co-sponsored and organized by five Jump magazines, including the ever-popular manga Weekly Shonen Jump, which has released countless chapters of Naruto and One Piece, among many other titles. A total of approximately 158,000 visitors came to the event venue over the short span of two days—a recorded increase of over 8% compared to last year’s 145,000 visitors.
At the venue, both Shueisha booths and maker booths enjoyed extreme popularity. Popular Shueisha booths included the Jump Original Artwork World and Weekly Shonen Jump booths, which exhibited precious original artwork and original creator autographs from various Jump titles. The various maker booths were centered on games, anime, movies and on-stage events associated with Jump. All of these booths were surrounded by incredible crowds of people.
On the Jump Super Stage—the same stage on which the now finished Naruto series announced The Last: Naruto the Movie—the main voice actors and actresses of Naruto entered, and cheers rose time and again from the audience of over 6,000 people. Also taking the stage was the creator of Naruto himself, Masashi Kishimoto, whom the voice actors and actresses bombarded with questions. When asked which character he found difficult to draw, he chose Sasuke, commenting candidly, “It was difficult because he is such a good-looking character.” Additionally, he disclosed that “in next year’s new movie, Sasuke and Bolt will both play active roles,” eliciting unanimous cheers from the audience.
At the “One Piece x Dragon Ball” Super Stage, the voice actress and actor for Goku and Frieza in the new Dragon Ball movie Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection of F, Masako Nozawa and Ryusei Nakao, took the stage. In One Piece, Nozawa performed the role of Dr. Kureha, and Nakao acted as Caesar Clown. The voices of the characters from both series were mixed together and filled the venue at once, creating a uniquely fun and exciting atmosphere!
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.