16th Impact - Manga and anime: back among the very best!

The French audience is not mistaken: Japan Expo is indeed a unique event for all manga passionates.  You had the chance to meet some stars, scriptwriters and illustrators, such as our guest of honor Ken AKAMATSU, Shichirô KOBAYASHI, Boichi, Kenjiro HATA, during exciting conferences, signing sessions and even masterclasses to learn from them. More than 40 publishers were there to make you discover the full length of their collections. Not to forget the fanzine authors, who nearly occupied 80 booths, showing how much this genre has become popular!

The most famous anime series were honored during this 16th Impact. Yoshiyuki SADAMOTO talked to us about the 20 year-long, continued success of his saga Neon Genesis Evangelion. Sword Art Online was also a must with its 16 million books already sold worldwide for the first volume, and you were 3 500 spectators to attend the conference given by his creator Reki KAWAHARA along with abec, the illustrator of the light novel and chara-designer of the anime.

Four exhibitions on more than 300 m2 were proposed to you: two of them traced back the masterful work of Shichirô KOBAYASHI and Hiromu ARAKAWA (Fullmetal Alchemist), one was dedicated to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the last one let you see the young generation’s talents, with the students of the Vantan Game Academy. Several conferences allowed you to deepen your knowledge on different aspects of the manga and anime design, in Japan and in France. You could even move on to practical work, with workshops on digital techniques, organized in partnership with Wacom.

Of course, the video room which streamed your favorite anime and some exclusive ones was full of spectators all day through, as well as the areas dedicated to reading such as the Manga Café. There were lots of associations that had the pleasure to entertain you with their projects (scale models, video clips) or their games and contests, which gave you an opportunity to evaluate your manga and anime general culture! As it’s not about winning but participating, we hope you will come back with similar enthusiasm to the next festival under preparation!

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL THE PHOTO ALBUMS OF OUR GUESTS, PUBLISHERS AND ACTIVITIES AND FIND THE COMPLETE REVIEW ABOUT MANGA AND ANIME !

Which were the greatest moments you shared with the mangaka and your favorite series’ creators? What about your most beautiful discoveries during this festival? Do not hesitate to share them with us!