Shopping Guide
Japan Expo 2013 will be held for four days from July 4-7 at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center in Paris, France. Japan Expo is Europe’s largest Japanese culture event, with more than 200,000 people visiting the expo during its duration.
In recent years, countless organizations and businesses from Japan have begun participating in the expo. The event is livened up by the original booth displays made by these participants. Japan Foundation is one such participant for this year. From traditional culture to manga, the expo features diverse content to appeal to fans of Japanese culture.
Among these, what seems to be picking up attention is a lecture by the president of Crypton Future Media, Hiroyuki Itoh. Crypton Future Media is the company that sells the voice synthesis software, Hatsune Miku. Thus, Itoh is known as the father of Hatsune Miku.
Vocaloid has grown into having tremendous support from all over the world and has carved out a new musical genre. It has had a huge influence on Japan’s pop culture scene and has gathered huge attention from the business side as well. What Itoh will talk about in France is on the minds of many fans from Europe and Japan.
Another noteworthy plan for this year’s Japan Expo is a screening for the French subtitled version of the anime film Doraemon: Nobita’s Dinosaur 2006. The screening is being made possible by backing from Fujiko Productions.
In 2008, Doraemon was appointed the anime culture ambassador by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also currently a special ambassador for Tokyo’s Olympic bid committee. Due to having such overwhelming popularity in Asia, it will be curious to see how viewers in Europe react to him at the expo.
In addition to these events, tea ceremony demonstrations by Enshuryu Sado will also be held. Through its various events, Japan Expo 2013 will showcase the characteristic of Japan Foundation for introducing collectively both new and old Japanese culture.
Source:
http://animeanime.jp/article/2013/06/21/14520.html (Japanese)
Source article written by Yushi Makari
