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Spring 2014 will mark the birth of a new major anime event. On Oct. 9, a press conference to announce plans for a new anime industry event was held at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo in Shinjuku, Tokyo. At the press conference, the AnimeJapan Planning Committee revealed that AnimeJapan 2014, an event which will deliver information throughout Japan and abroad about anime culture and industry, will be held over two days on March 22 and 23 of 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight.
This new event is an expansion of two large anime events that up until now have been held in spring: Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) and Anime Contents Expo (ACE). Combining these two large events will give the information an even wider reach. In keeping with this, TAF, which was scheduled for March 19-22, 2014, will no longer be held. ACE, which has run for the past three years (it was canceled in 2011 due to the disaster), will also not take place. In addition to the AnimeJapan Planning Committee, which is organizing the event, the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) and “Comic 11 Society” are also offering support as sponsors. It has gained the support of the anime and manga industry. Tokyo Metropolis, which played a major role in TAF, will not be involved.
The event has secured a line-up of big name companies. In the Planning Committee are the AJA, which was involved in running TAF, as well as companies such as Aniplex and Kadokawa, who were major participants in ACE. In total, it is comprised of 19 companies and one organization, including animation production companies such as Toei Animation, Tezuka Productions, and Sunrise and visual software makers like King Record, Bandai Visual, and Pony Canyon. The round-up of major Japanese anime companies will continue to bring excitement to the event.
AnimeJapan 2014 will take over TAF 2014’s scheduled dates as well as its venue, Tokyo Big Sight. However, it has been shortened to two days. It is possible that this will reduce the fee for the large venue. On the other hand, as they are combining two events, the venue space has expanded. The event will be held in East Hall 1-6. This means that it will use all of the East Hall venues at Tokyo Big Sight. It can be easy to see how much space this is when considering that last year’s TAF used East Hall 1-3. The event will also include features aimed at businesses that were not part of ACE. With the integrating of two big events often seen as a division in anime industry events, there is much to anticipate in this new development in the industry.
The planning committee chair is Yuji Nunokawa, the president of AJA. Also, Koji Kitakawa of AJA and Yuma Takahashi of Aniplex, who presided over ACE, will be in charge of running the event as its producers. This also shows how AnimeJapan has evolved from TAF and ACE. Regarding the integration of these two parallel events, Mr. Nunokawa explained, “Looking at the big picture, it seemed like these events were splitting the industry in two. At the early stages we decided that we had to unite the industry and we moved on from there.” About the new event he said, “I’d like it be recognized as the world’s biggest anime celebration,” and, showing his high hopes for the event, added, “We’re aiming for 100,000 visitors.”
AnimeJapan Planning Committee:
Aniplex Inc., Animate Ltd., Kadokawa Corporation, King Record Co. Ltd., Satelight Inc., Sunrise Inc., Geneon Universal Entertainment, Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co. Ltd., Tezuka Productions, Toei Animation Co. Ltd., TMS Entertainment Co. Ltd., Nihon Ad Systems Inc., Nippon Animation Co. Ltd., Bandai Visual Co. Ltd., Pierrot Co. Ltd., Production I.G., Frontier Works Inc., Pony Canyon Inc., MarvelousAQL Inc. (19 business, listed alphabetically), along with the Association of Japanese Animations
Source: animeanime