Anime NYC as a whole was pretty fun, if also too busy at points. But what about the publishers who went to the convention? Well, outside of a very few companies (who may have to strongly consider making plans to New York for 2019), most of the industry went to the Javits Center. They also had announcements, giveaways, and Q&A’s.
…Well, some of them didn’t. Time to see who they all were!
Aniplex
+ Was tempted to throw this as a negative for two reasons: no Q&A, and I was personally told that photos weren’t allowed. (Outside of obviously exclusive clips, there wasn’t any other industry panel that did this.)
But I did show up a bit late to the panel and might’ve missed that announcement, and despite that, it was one of the panels that was paced pretty well all things considered. They went over their anime streaming on different services, made announcements (like Black Butler and the GGO dub for example), and took advantage of the run time, which was longest of the industry panels I went to. Of course, the announcement of when I Want to Eat Your Pancreas would be in theaters next year was the reason it gets a pass.
Sentai
+ Well paced, hosts had personality, etc. While the announcements didn’t get me excited (well, maybe the Danmachi movie should), releasing the dub cast for Land of the Lustrous and Girls’ Last Tour was cool, though maybe having a list like VIZ did for their Megalobox dub announcement MIGHT have been better for…personal reasons.
Anywho, had a nice round of quizzes for prizes, but wish they had a bit of time for Q&A. But overall was a solid panel.
Sunrise
– I will at least say this: this panel felt like it was more about their other Sunrise titles instead of just Gundam. But for the most part, it was just about Gundam. If you’re into that franchise, them revealing their crazy new project of bringing all sorts of media (anime, manga, etc) to people around the world is exciting. If you’re not, you’re at least wondering what the company is up to anime-wise, and if they can say anything on where the live action Tiger & Bunny is at.
FUNimation
– Probably the one panel where a Q&A would’ve automatically made me give this a +, even if it went poorly. That’s mainly because I didn’t expect they would have one, else they’d be flooded with Sony Pictures questions. Was definitely a generic panel, mainly covering their streaming service, their current home video releases, and their future releases. Kinda disappointing, but I guess they didn’t want to announce anything for this con.
Kodansha Comics/Vertical
+ I’m not sure the joint panel was all that great, and if you compare it to NYCC, that definitely had the better announcements. But it did come down to, oh hey, Princess Jellyfish is going to be sold as a complete box set!…I already have 5 volumes of it, but it’s important to note that years ago it was said josei just doesn’t sell. And sure, maybe this is just the power of Higashimura at work.
But yeah, Princess Jellyfish is getting a box set, so much for publishers losing money!!! But I guess I was hoping for Vertical to share another title (artbooks for now aren’t my thing), and I was surprised there wasn’t a digital title going to print for Kodansha. None of those things happened, and hence why this panel just passes the interest test for me.
DENPA
– The announcements were actually nice enough (well, at least Pleasure and Corruption will attract some eyes). Licensing something like Heavenly Delusion is a huge gamble when it’s just coming out in Japan, and yeah it’s by Masakazu Ishiguro, the Soremachi creator…it’s still a big risk. I can totally respect that. And from the titles they are bringing over (PEZ, Kaiji, Maiden Railways, etc), they’re certainly not shy in what they want to bring over, the publishers they can reach in Japan, and explaining how nice the books will be in your possession.
But this panel didn’t get started on time. Ed and Jacob were late, and then there was a technical issue that was either on them or AnimeNYC (from doing panels, this is gotta be an ANYC issue?), so that delayed things more. There was really little time to go over their titles or ask questions. So not a great first impression on that front.
VIZ
+ VIZ’s panel was all over the place…in a good way. From the usual VIZ prize breaks to having Hiroyuki Asada talk about Tegami Bachi and PEZ, there was a lot of variety, which ended with a video made by Slushii involving a pivotal fight in My Hero Academia volume 16.
But of course, the announcements they had were the difference. You had your continuing journey to bring over everything from your popular franchise (My Hero Academia Smash); A manga from Shonen Sunday (Komi Can’t Communicate); the license of an award winning manga (Beastars); and a novel for the Haikasoru line (Automatic Eve). Reveal the dub cast for Megalobox to get people ready for the Toonami premiere, and yeah, this was one of the better panels of the convention.
Yen Press
+ By default this panel gets a plus for multiple reasons. For one, they let me livestream it.
(Totally biased, yes.)
In all seriousness, Yen Press definitely is making Anime NYC their go-to con for announcements, and they certainly announced a lot…a lot. It was also a bit of a mix, from manga and light novels, to yuri manga, ecchi manga, period manga, and more isekai light novels! And a slice of life LN! So yeah, the variety was there for sure. Also they had enough time for a Q&A, which a few didn’t do (or just ran out of time). So this basically meant giving them anything else would’ve been unfair.
…so all of that said, there were mistakes.
The minor: they gave away really huge posters, and to get them you had to name what they were. You had to guess what it was from the bottom and see what color, design, etc it was. For most of them the name was right there. They may want to come up with something simple next time.
The major: there was a pretty heated conversation regarding the name for the yuri anthology (Whenever Our Eyes Meet…) that I’m not sure they handled well. Then during the Q&A, there were two questions involving scanlations. One I personally thought was handled well (someone asked if scanlators and Yen Press could work together. You can expect how well that went). The other involved translation choices in Bungo Stray Dogs that could’ve been handled a lot better. Obviously trying to compare fan translations to pros is a no-no, but then just kinda calling out Crunchyroll for how they subbed it is a bit much. The better idea would’ve been to emphasize clearly that since Crunchyroll has to simulcast a weekly show, while Yen has a lot more time to make sure the process is as thorough as possible, they can bring out, in their opinion, the best translation.
That wasn’t really done. Instead, it was mostly admonishing the questioner for asking such a question. At this point, you create an untenable environment. They might want to consider doing what FUNimation does: having a slide that says what can be asked or not.
GKIDS
+ I missed the early portions of the panel so I was tempted to mark this as incomplete, but I didn’t miss much. They didn’t really announce much major. It was mostly talk and clips about Mirai (which they had to do) and highlighting Ghibli stuff. Didn’t say anything about Perfect Blue. And their panel ended really early. But they did open things up to a personal Q&A. What I mean by that is the panel was over and people could leave, but we could personally go talk to the hosts and ask questions. Unusual, but it was kinda cool. I don’t know if I’d recommend that all the time, but it just worked in GKIDS’ favor!
Crunchyroll
– “But Justin, you weren’t even at the panel! How can you even give this a mark???” The better question is why list a panel I didn’t even attend, but both are fine I guess. Anywho, I did actually want to go to this panel, but I simply was stuck in the GKIDS panel talking to people. When I went over, the room was booked. Not surprising actually. But what continues to be a surprise is Crunchyroll not having any announcements of new stuff. They didn’t announce anything at NYCC so you’d expect they’d save some things for the convention they’re powering. But no news hit any news sites for Crunchyroll, so it’s safe to say they didn’t bring anything new to the table, and that is a disappointment.
Pony Canyon
+ I didn’t like the host trying to talk over any of the trailers, mainly because I couldn’t hear her. So maybe dial back the sound on the trailer or speak after the trailer. But outside of them being unable to say who is distributing Kase San, the panel was pretty good. It totally sold me on The Girl in Twilight, which has turned out to be a pretty fun watch. They had the staff for Kase-san, Shinichi Nakamura and Yusuke Terada, at the panel and had a Q&A, so all of that meant Pony Canyon did a good job of being interesting and making sure fans were involved.
No really, they made us do Jan-Ken-Pon at the end, and I almost made it into the top three, but lost in a sudden death match, which was epic (think we chose the same one twice before I ultimately fell).
Overall, this is very much becoming a convention that’s about as close to a must go if you’re in the industry. Maybe in 2019 we will see a few new faces that’ll be here, and maybe they’ll be bringing forth some major announcements. Or make everyone play Jan-Ken-Pon.