Shopping Guide
Last year was a phenomenal year for anime events. In the spring, the first Anime Contents Expo (ACE) was held, which, despite the weather being bad, attracted a huge number of fans and was a great success. The scope is already widening for the event, as the planning for this year’s ACE is well underway. Many fans anticipating great things from this event once again this year.
Looking at manga and anime events in the Kansai region, September’s Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair (Kyomaf) was one of the biggest successes. The three-day event brought in 24 thousand fans. Plans are also already underway for this year’s Kyomaf. The long-running Tokyo event Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) saw a decrease in attendance for 2012 due to the dates for the event being so close to ACE.
The power and fan support of ACE as a product promotion event and TAF as a business trade fair is unrivalled. However, anime and manga events in 2012 were not just limited to these two categories; there were also many events that toured all over Japan. The most popular events from this category were the One Piece Grand Arena Tour and an exhibition themed around JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, which took place in both Sendai and Tokyo. Due to the success of both of these events, the scale of these types of events is being expanded to bring in even more revenue.
Other limited-time events were also held in 2012, including the indoor theme park Gundam Front Tokyo, which opened in April, and a theme park based on Shonen Jump. More and more, events that allow fans to step into the world of their favorite anime are being created.
From the looks of it, 2013 is going to be another great year for anime fans! For those who want to live their daily lives surrounded by anime, why not come to Japan?
Source:
http://animeanime.jp/article/2013/01/06/12592.html (Japanese)