Japanese animation showcase heads for Hong Kong

Hong Kong has been chosen as the first city outside Tokyo to host a popular Japanese animation exhibition to ride on the wave of previous successes in the host country.

The C3 in Hong Kong: Japanese Character and Hobby Exhibition will be held at the Kowloon Bay International Trade and Exhibition Centre from April 24 to 26 to showcase Japanese cartoons, comics and animation.

Organizers, noting a growing popularity of Japanese animation in Hong Kong, decided to bring the event overseas for the first time to cash in on the rising trend.

"Hong Kong people seem to have the deepest understanding of Japanese culture outside of Japan and so we thought it an appropriate city for our popular event," organizer Retsu Tamura explained yesterday.

"C3 has been the world's largest animation and toys exhibition, and focuses on the three Cs - character, culture and content - of Japanese animation," he said.

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Japanese Animation - An Overview

Japanese Animation is a style of animation that originated in Japan. There are many differences between American and Japanese Animation. How can you tell the difference between the two pictures below:

The one on the left is Japanese and the one on the right is American. Can you see the difference? The one on the right looks simple and the other one looks more complicated. Not all Japanese Animation looks that simple. In fact, some Japanese animation looks MORE complicated. The best way to tell is by looking at the eyes of a human character. The eyes will always be somewhat simple in the American style.

Not only the animation is drawn a different way, it is also used differently. In America, as you may already know cartoons are for children. In Japan it is for all age groups children, teens, and adults. For them, animation is just as good as "live action!"

Another difference is that the Japanese story line is more interesting. In America it is all about a hero, or a group of heroes and heroines, that fight ugly evil people continuously. In Japan, it is a different story. First of all, the hero is different. Most of the time it is about normal people in their every day environment. Now wait a minute, doesn't that sound boring? Actually it's not, let me explain. Let's take Ranma 1/2, for an example. It is about a boy that turns into a girl with cold water and goes on all these marital arts adventures. Now, that is normal to him because he was born in this strange world. That isn't so boring is it?

Also, the enemies are different, as well. For one thing, they are not all ugly. In fact, some of them are really cute. They don't attack people for any reason either. They ALWAYS have a reason. Sometimes it's revenge and sometimes it's to rule the world (because they were just born power hungry). In Japanese animation, it also shows more of what the enemies' perspective is; why they are being "evil".

The story itself isn't always good against evil. In Japan, it can be about saving the world in different ways as well. Lets look at "Slayers TRY," there really wasn't a real, real bad guy. It's about the gods wanting a clear universe and the people of the universe didn't understand that, but in the end it all gets explained. They die, get married or go their own way, that way you'll never know what the ending is going to be, just like life..

Source : http://library.thinkquest.org/

Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation to hold Symposium at Tokyo International Anime Fair

Leading Industry Experts Speak on the U.S. Anime/Manga Industries and the Announcement of the SPJA Award Finalists

Anaheim, California (March 18, 2008) — The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), the overseeing body of the nation’s largest anime/manga convention (Anime Expo®), will be presenting a symposium presentation/discussion about the history,current status and future of the U.S. Anime/Manga Industries at Tokyo International Anime Fair held within Tokyo Big Sight’s Special Theatre 2(Thursday; March 27, 2008; 16:30-18:00-Tokyo time). In addition, announcements of the finalists of the highly recognized and coveted SPJA Industry Awards will also be made. More information can be found on the website www.spja.org.

Symposium participants include:

Trulee Karahashi, Society for the Promotion of Japanese Anime-Chief Executive Officer

Prior to becoming the Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Karahashi held the position of Chief Financial Officer for the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), Ms. Karahashi was a Financial Consultant for Merrill Lynch Private Client Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate from the University of California at Berkeley, Ms. Karahashi has been involved with Anime Expo® since 1996 (beginning as a volunteer staff) including positions such as Industry Liaison, Division Director and Department Manager. As the CFO for the organization that puts together the nation’s largest Anime/Manga convention, Ms. Karahashi dealt with the internal/external financial needs of its members as well as the analysis of industry trends & relations and financial projections for the organization.

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