News

Anime Boston 2020 Convention Canceled

The organizers of the Anime Boston convention announced on Saturday that the 2020 event scheduled for April 10-12 is canceled. The organizers stated that on Friday, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced a ban on gatherings of 250 or more people to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus illness. Baker announced the ban without a specific end date, so the organizers made the decision to cancel the event.

The organizers also stated, "it would not be feasible to reschedule Anime Boston 2020 and meet the same high standards you have come to expect from us." Anime Boston 2021 will be held from April 2-4, 2021. The staff will transfer pre-registered members' registrations to Anime Boston 2021. The staff also provided information on refunds on the convention's website.

The event was scheduled to host host four-member rock band GIRLFRIEND, hip-hop group m-flo, voice actress Minami Takahashi, and Studio Trigger staff members Hiroyuki Imaishi, Hiromi Wakabayashi, and Shigeto Koyama.

The first reported cases of COVID-19 were in Wuhan, China in December, and then the disease began to spread in varying rates and intensities across many parts of the globe through incubation in human hosts. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a world health emergency on January 30, and announced on Wednesday that it is classifying the outbreak as a pandemic. As of Saturday, the WHO reported that there are 142,539 infected individuals worldwide, including 61,518 outside China. 5,393 individuals have died from the disease, including 2,199 outside China.

The WHO has reported that the United States has 1,678 cases of COVID-19 with 41 deaths as of Saturday. Japan has 716 cases with 21 deaths. These numbers do not include the number of cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama. That cruise ship had 697 infected passengers with seven deaths.

Source: Press release