It’s kind of interesting how for the past couple years, if you follow the industry, you’ll see a number of publishers hold their last round of announcements of the year at Anime NYC except for VIZ Media. Now the question for next year is will this hold up across the board? As in, sure VIZ might have to think about holding their announcements in August if they decide to come back next year, but for the other publishers who’ve been coming to this convention since its inception, will they be able to swing it?
I note all of this upfront since there wasn’t anything too notable industry panel wise that stood out this year, especially compared to last year. Of course announcements of forthcoming manga and light novels are always exciting, and especially so if you follow the scene in Japan, but last year, Innocent being picked up by Dark Horse, J-Novel Club entering a print partnership with Yen Press, and a variety of licenses across the board was very notable. This year? A lot more restrained, or at least it felt like that to me. That can go into many directions, but even despite the restraint, there were lots of announcements at the con.
Yet, there’s more to just doing lots of announcements at a convention, so let’s get into who wowed and who didn’t overall!
+ Crunchyroll: I seem to find at least one anime industry panel to go to every year, and with them having their own stage, it made some sense to see what Crunchyroll had in store. And they had some things in store! The only thing of note for me personally was when Tower of God Season 2 would air, but other announcements (True Beauty, Solo Leveling English dub cast announcement) likely made some fans happy, though the jury will be out on whether True Beauty will get the time and budget to be worth a look. But the hosts (Lauren and Tim) did a good job acting as panelists in front of the large crowd, there were timely trailers, etc. Naturally the only real demerit is if you’re into home media, the lack of any new announcements is much cause for concern, but if streaming’s your game, then this was a good panel.
– Solmare: Yes, I’m giving a negative review to a panel I spent maybe 10 minutes in (J-Novel Club panel conflict). Totally not fair right? It’s not like the start wasn’t good since they did offer a free sample of the titles on their MangaPlaza service to attendees and a raffle so it couldn’t have gone that bad right? Let’s agree that the actual panel was probably fine to attend. But they were supposed to have a “Big” announcement to share at the convention. A few weeks later, and it hasn’t gotten out anywhere what the announcement was supposed to be, not even on their own Twitter account. There was a good amount of people at the panel from what I saw so you’d think it’d get around somewhere. Either way, to not even at least share the announcement on their social media or at least send a press release to media outlets is disappointing. With the number of publishers publishing manga, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out what announcement you made at your own industry panel, unless the announcement was actually not that big.
+ J-Novel Club: In a vacuum, solid overall. They had a couple announcements, some I’m reading now (Like the RV isekai), that fits what they normally do. And this year they’re reminding everyone of their Original Light Novel Contest, so they didn’t just limit their panel to licenses. But out of all the manga/light novel publishers at this year’s ANYC they had the biggest announcement with the license rescue of Chivalry of a Failed Knight. I guess the only critique on that front is the light novel’s supposed to come out this month, but no word on exactly when yet. (It’d be funny if they make it live on Christmas, but I think it’ll be up before then). But if that’s my only criticism, then yeah, I think J-Novel Club had a good panel.
+ Denpa: Not too many license announcements, especially since at this point there’s books they have to release first before trying to take on more, but they did announce two (ODD TAXI, Wolf Pack for their KUMA imprint) that will interest a number of people. The Q&A portion was the highlight though. Ed Chavez (Founder) is usually as forthright as can be when it comes to manga, so that made the reveal of how poorly Heavenly Delusion was selling before the anime came out very notable to me. He did joke a bit that he couldn’t reveal the exact numbers since there might be someone from Kodansha in the room, but the numbers were “atrocious” in his own words. Like it was so bad, it’s possible if this got released back in the day (he didn’t necessary say when, so for this case, let’s say in the early 2010s), it would’ve been cancelled. He would’ve had no choice but to cancel it this time if the anime didn’t give it a boost because he put in reprints for the first two volumes. That’s how dire it was.
Despite it being on Hulu (and marketed with the Japanese title), the gamble paid off big time, and it’s certainly one of Denpa’s better selling titles.
+ Comikey: Overall, more subdued panel compared to last year, probably because they had so much to announce last year that even they realized they had to slow down. It being the 9PM panel (on a Friday) might’ve also played a role. There wasn’t firm release dates on a couple of their releases, but they have some intriguing ones, they announced a couple titles that are on other platforms will be on their service, and communicated what they needed to in what was a pretty decent turnout for a industry panel.
+ Yen Press: I think of terms of overall licenses, there wasn’t too many that stood out. It does fit what Yen Press normally does (License spinoffs and anthologies of popular titles, one with a wild name, and light novels) but in terms of any major surprises, nothing of note. But overall they made sure to make the panel engaging, as they had their editors explain what they do, some of the challenges they have when editing a work into English, some VERY useful Nihongo, and do their best to sell the audience on what they’ve licensed. And I believe everyone at the panel walked out with a free copy of Agents of Four Seasons, so in terms of activity they stood out compared to the rest. Now whether they can pull this off again next year or somehow top it…we’ll have to see!
– Dark Horse: Carl Horn (Senior Editor) said it best: if you attended Anime Boston or another convention this year where they were at, chances are everything he mentioned was probably the same at this one. Those didn’t apply to me, but since I’ve attended Dark Horse panels before, then yeah, it’s more just history of the company and what they do than anything new, with only some reprint news. That actually doesn’t make it a bad panel, so despite my rating, I’d say this is more typical Dark Horse than anything really wrong. It just means it’ll be more for some folks than some others. I will give a negative rating to the one attendee who interrupted Carl and translator Zack Davisson and asked if there’d be any new licenses. Not every industry panel will have them. (See VIZ Media, who announced nothing, but they did have two guests.)
+ Kodansha: Their announcements had some intrigue (Uta Isaki’s The Spellbook Library being English-first, a new manga from Sweat and Soap creator Kintetsu Yamada licensed to name a few), but the Q&A was one of the better parts of the panel since this allowed the panelists to answer some burning questions, like why do omnibuses of some of their (and especially popular) manga. (Paraphrasing, but it’s apparently more convenient to have it in omnibus format for libraries as one of the reasons to do so). Don’t think it was as much as last year, but it’s interesting looking back and realizing what was announced and hasn’t come out yet (King in Limbo is planned for January, Vinland Saga Deluxe and Blue Period Box Set also aren’t coming out this year) and what just came out or what will soon (Magic Knight Rayearth in paperback, She’s My Knight, Ultramarine Sky). The moral of the story is their print licenses are planned for Fall 2024. Maybe one or two of them will fall out of this window and slip into 2025.
+ Azuki: It’s interesting to see where Azuki is going since Kodansha simulpubs are no longer on their service, and while they did announce two new titles they licensed (Our Aimless Nights and You’re So Sloppy, Hotta-sensei), their relationships with other publishers will be their bread and butter for the foreseeable future (see: MediBang and Star Fruit Books titles on their service). Evan Minto (Co-Founder of Azuki) did mention that with the amount of time they had had to rush a few things during the panel, so possible there needed to be improvement on that, but overall, they explained to newcomers who they were and what’s next for the service, and that is good enough.
+ Star Fruit Books: It was the very first company panel for Matt Haasch (as a reminder, he hopped onto Azuki’s panel last year), and while I can bet he was nervous, it didn’t show. Had a pretty good turnout for a still new publisher in the manga industry. Mentioned they’ll be hiring new letterers in January, provided upcoming release dates for their titles, had some licenses — three for their Blood Orange horror imprint — and even took some questions from the audience. It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for them — though along the way it appears a lot of Hideshi Hino will be on the docket!
TheOASG checked out AnimeNYC this year; follow along for coverage of the convention, from panels to overall thoughts of the weekend, and check out our Instagram for convention highlights and cosplays!