Anime @ Work : Anime scriptwriter Yamanobe Kazuki's Anime and Historical Drama Update - No.10

For this edition, I would like to provide some observational information on the San Diego Comicon International Convention, held in San Diego, California from July 26-29.
As usual, the conference was held at the San Diego Convention Center. When I attended Comicon, I was frankly impressed by the massive number of convention-goers and company exhibits. More than 1000 booths lined the convention center, with rows of displays of comic book companies, movies, game companies, figurines and items for sale running throughout the entire area. Around town as well, everywhere from hotels to restaurants was filled with people wearing Comicon name tags dangling from their necks throughout the duration of the conference. The fact that advance tickets covering the four days were completely sold out is evidence of the success of this event, and I sensed the excitement created in the city by this huge event.
In truth, however, while the Japanese comic book publishing industry did receive some recognition at the San Diego Comicon, it wasn't as well represented as the Japanese animation industry at the Long Beach Anime Expo. Compared to the Anime Expo, Comicon had nearly three times as many participants. I would like to point out two important reasons why Japanese comics are not as well known as the animation industry.
First of all, Comicon is an event unto itself, taking American comics as its base medium, with displays targeting fans of long-running comics such as Marvel Comics and DC comics. At present, representative popular characters in America such as Spiderman and the Fantastic Four movie are also well known in Japan through cable TV, but in the past, only a small core of anime and comic fans would have been familiar with them. In short, information itself has not spread.
Secondly, there are more talks about the business of Japanese animation at the Anime Expo, so the Japanese industry is dealt with from within. If Japanese publishers want to enter the market of comic books, a visual form of the novel, then they naturally need to pay attention to the American market. For animation, however, I think it is more effective to provide informative speeches on a large scale at a separate video exhibition.
Next time, however, we can undoubtedly expect a higher level of awareness about the workings of the Japanese business world. I say this because starting with San Diego, at present Comicon covers much more than just the comic book industry. From animation, games, movies, and media messages of TV dramas, to figurines and other related items for sale, Comicon is a huge event disseminating information about a large number of characters and their stories. I believe that in the future, the name may very well change from "Comic Conference" to "Character Conference."


Profile of Yamanobe Kazuki
Scriptwriter
Member of the Writer's Guild of Japan
Representative Director of the scenario production company, Edgeworks

Official site of Edgeworks http://www.edge-works.co.jp