By Erica Friedman
New York is once again hosting a pop culture event — this time welcoming AnimeNYC back for its third year at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. Despite the event’s name, manga fans are going to have a chance to experience a veritable wonderland of Japanese comics during this three-day event, held November 15-17.
Industry panels this year have a lot to interest readers of all kinds.
Viz Media‘s Shonen Jump magazine is hosting the creators of Shogakukan Manga Award-winning title Dr. Stone, Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi. Shonen Jump is the bestselling manga magazine in both Japan and America, with simulpubs in America and Japan.
Denpa Manga are sponsoring popular Fate/spinoff cooking manga Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family, artist TAa. Square Enix Manga/Books will be launching their new US office with their first official NYC panel and publishing announcements. Manga publisher Yen Press always runs lively panels with announcements and giveaways. Kodansha Comics and Vertical Publishing are once again doing a joint Panel, along with Illustrator VoFan (Colorful Dreams).
Publishers with no panels, but who can be found in among the exhibitors include One Peace with their smash hit Shield of the Rising Hero, and their manga classics line. 18+ manga publisher FAKKU will also be exhibiting. (Bwa-wah-wah~~.)
J-Novel Club, which localizes and publishes Light Novels that are the source or extensions of so many manga and anime series, will have their Industry Panel, while fans of Visual Novels will want to check out the Manga Gamer panel.
Anime company Funimation will be holding an Industry Panel as well. Both Funimation and Viz are sponsoring anime premiers at the event.
A number of live-drawing events are scheduled. Fans will be able to watch Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family artist TAa, manga artist and illustrator Shiki Satoshi (Attack on Titan Before the Fall), Mamoru Yokota (animation director for Death Note and Naruto Shippuden), and LAM (character designer for Tokyo Chronos) draw live. Illustrator Kippu (No Rin) will also appear on panels and do live drawing. Japanese manga magazine Dengeki Moeoh artist Pan will be selling their wares in the Artist Alley.
X-Pen and Clip Studio is featuring two artists, Singapore-based artist Rachta Lin and Eterna-S to teach folks how to use the tools.
Fans of LGBTQ manga can join researcher and The Beat contributor Erica Friedman, who will be presenting on “100 Years of the Yuri Genre.” The “That’s Gay! Anime and Manga for the LGBTQ Audience” panel will cover the excellent BL, Yuri and queer manga and anime of recent years.
Attendees looking to listen to pros talk about the manga industry will enjoy translator Zack Davisson’s panels and “Localize this! Secrets of Localization Revealed.” Erik Ko, publisher of Udon Entertainment and Manga Classics will be participating in “The US Versus Japan: Making Manga in Two Very Different Publishing Environments” panel.
And if you don’t know where to begin, why not start at the beginning with “The Discovery of Anime and Manga”?
Despite attempts by New York Comic Con and ReedPop to deflect attention to their own AnimeFest, Leftfield Media is proving once again that it takes more than just a title to put on an event that gives fans of Japanese comics what they want. And what they want will be at AnimeNYC, November 15-17 at Javits.
