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Anime Expo Hosts Gundam Mechanical Designer Mika Akitaka
posted on by Alex Mateo
The staff of Anime Expo revealed on Tuesday that this year's convention will host Mobile Suit Gundam mechanical designer, illustrator, and game creator Mika Akitaka.
Akitaka was the mechanical designer of several Gundam series, including Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (pictured right), Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: A War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon. He was also mechanical designer for Date A Live, A Certain Scientific Railgun S, Strike the Blood, Martian Successor Nadesico, Silent Mobius, and City Hunter. He is the creator of Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. He also illustrated the MS Girl series for Model Graphix Magazine.
Akitaka designed MAX, the mascot of Anime Expo. He previously attended the convention in 1999.
The event will return as an in-person convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 1-4, 2022.
The convention will require attendees to the Anime Expo 2022 event to show proof of vaccination for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or a negative COVID-19 test taken 72 hours prior to attending the event. Regardless of vaccination status, masks will be required indoors (except in designated eating areas) and will be optional outdoors.
The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) hosted the Anime Expo Lite 2021 virtual event in place of an in-person Anime Expo convention last year.
Source: Anime Expo