Anime Contents Expo Day 2
by Ko Ransom,Day 2
Kadokawa Group
Kadokawa Group's booth featuring a host of its subsidiaries and brands including ASCII Media Works, Enterbrain, Kadokawa Shoten, and Fujimi Shobo took up a large part of the floor right in front of the entrance to the hall. As a result, the booth was promoting a huge number of series, such as Is This a Zombie?, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Thermae Romae, and more. The impressive display of promotional materials included anime-branded cars and motorcycles, paper Thermae Romae cutouts to take commemorative photos with, storyboards from A Letter to Momo, and more. The booth also featured a stage where smaller Kadokawa-related events were held, as well as an area for fans to buy items including signed light novels and manga.
Auction
Like Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF), ACE held a charity auction featuring unique and signed goods, with all of the proceeds going to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Though the selection of items for auction was not as large as TAF's Association of Japanese Animation-run event, the ACE auction nevertheless had its fair share of interesting items, such as signed Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! staff-only shirts, retailer-exclusive Steins;Gate displays, and even a pre-worn afro wig used by Nitroplus's crazed PR man Joy Max.
Bushiroad
Bushiroad's ACE display was a scaled-down version of their TAF booth, once again with large sections promoting franchises including Cardfight!! Vanguard, Milky Holmes, and Da Capo III. The large statues of Cardfight!! Vanguard's Dragonic Overlord and Blaster Blade characters also reappeared here. Overall, the more otaku-oriented franchises such as Milky Holmes and Da Capo seemed to have a stronger presence here than at TAF, not only in the booth itself but also in that the two had a special talk show and concert on day 1, showing a keen awareness of the different kinds of crowds that TAF and ACE would draw.
Nico Nico Douga
Nico Nico Douga's ACE booth was also similar in appearance to their TAF showing, with heavy promotion of their upcoming Nico Nico Choukaigi (Super Convention), as well as the traveling Nico Nico Shrine where visitors could send their prayers out to the internet and see viewers' responses in real time. However, the website's booth had a small stage inside where they held live-streamed talk and radio shows all day long, featuring various guests from anime series such as The Idolm@ster, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, AKB0048, and so on, gathering a large throng of onlookers throughout the entire event.
Nitroplus
Like many of the smaller booths at ACE, Nitroplus devoted most of their floor space to selling goods, in their case titles from their "Nitroplus Books" line, including Guity Crown: Princess of Deadpool,a novelized side story to the Guilty Crown anime series. More Guilty Crown-related promotion also took place at the event, with the company showing a new promotional video and holding a small stage event for their upcoming Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas PC game.
Food Court
In a show of just how fan-oriented ACE could make their entire event, even the menu of the food court was full of official anime-related food and drink items. Smaller items such as 250 yen (about US$3) bottles of Doctor Pepper that came with a Steins;Gate "Dk. Makise" coaster or 300 yen (about US$3.50) servings of Idolm@ster bean sprouts, as well as larger entrees like 700 yen (about US$8.50) Fate/Zero okonomiyaki and 600 yen (about US$7.25) Waiting in the Summer sandwiches were available, though the line just to get food reportedly required a wait of as much as 90 minutes at peak times.
Geneon Universal
Geneon Universal's round booth featured a large display at its front that played promotional videos for various titles such as Waiting for Summer and Hakuōki, while a small stage area where they held live events promoting their titles could be found inside. Also inside was an area full of military props promoting the upcoming Jormungand anime series.
Good Smile Company
Good Smile Company's ACE display was similar to their TAF booth, mostly consisting of a large box showing off new and upcoming figures from titles such as Black Rock Shooter, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Guilty Crown. However, for ACE, they also brought along a space to buy curry from the Indotei Indian restaurant as well as drinks inspired by Black Rock Shooter and Lagrange -The Flower of Rin-ne.
Here are the rest of our images from the show. See you next year!
Additional images by Gwyn Campbell and Adrian Lozano
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