News

1st AnimeJapan Event Attracts 110,000 Across 2 Days

The first AnimeJapan event at the Tokyo Big Sight complex drew 110,000 people over the weekend. The event ran from Saturday, March 22 to Sunday, March 23. The number exceeds the event's target audience of 100,000 visitors.

The AnimeJapan event debuted this year as the merger of two previous events — Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) and Anime Contents Expo (ACE).

TAF drew 105,855 across four days last year. ACE brought in 70,675 visitors over two days.

Background

A group of anime and manga companies created ACE in response to the controversy surrounding TAF and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's amendment to Tokyo's Youth Healthy Development Ordinance. The amendment expands the number of manga and anime that fall under "harmful publications," the legal category of works that must not be sold or rented to people under the age of 18.

Among others, 10 major manga publishers planned to boycott TAF 2011 because of the amended ordinance, although not all of them would have formally exhibited at TAF or ACE.

However, the first planned ACE event was cancelled six days after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster of March 11, 2011. If it had been held, it would have been held in Chiba during the same weekend as TAF, which was also cancelled in 2011.

The first ACE was eventually held March 31-April 1, 2012, one week after TAF was held that same year. In 2013, TAF was held at Tokyo Big Sight on March 21-24 , while ACE was held one week later at Makuhari Messe in Chiba on March 30-31.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun'sMantan Web