While RIAC has taken a number of steps in the right direction since last year, it’s still got a long way to go before it can be a better event worthy of more than a couple hours. Still, credit where it’s due: the bar was low, but against all odds, it was still better than Fan Expo Boston, which took place the same weekend. Rhode Island Anime Con 2024: Surprisingly, Not the Worst Con that Happened that Weekend - Kennedy (Red Bard ..read more

Date: 7/5/2024 Location: Anime Expo 2024 Anime Herald: The (Momentary Lily) promo mentions “GoHands’ one-of-a-kind visual style!” How did that style develop? Momentary Lily: Speaking of company style: There are fewer than 100 companies capable of producing anime in house, and only a few are based in regional areas. GoHands is the only one of them based out of an office in Osaka. It’s just us. Speaking of the title: It is our first time creating a project centered on women, depicting friendships during their teenage years. Anime Herald: Any thoughts on the level of effort GoHands spends on th ..read more

Date: 7/5/2024 Location: Anime Expo 2024 Anime Herald: What was the idea for Ys X: Nordics? What did you want players to feel or experience? Toshihiro Kondo: For the Ys series, I want every different game to be a different experience. For some recent examples, Ys VIII (Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana) was a dual protagonist system: Adol, Dana . The story is greatly related to both. In the case of Ys IX (Ys IX: Monstrum Nox), the characters can transform into Monstrum, and these Monstrum all have special abilities. For Ys X (Ys X: Nordics), the combat focuses on Adol and Karja, and their combat to ..read more

Table of contents Introduction Exploring RI Anime Con The Exhibition Hall The Panel Room Programming & Panels Sailor Moon Panel In Conclusion Introduction If one were to look at the anime fan community of thirty years ago, it would be nearly unrecognizable to folks today. Streaming services like Crunchyroll and HIDIVE did not exist, and access to the medium was limited to whatever a person could scrounge up at the local comic shop or video store. Those who wanted to go deeper couldn’t hop onto a fandom Discord, and social media was little more than an abject fantasy.  Even so ..read more

Date: 6/8/2024 Location: Five Points Fest 2024 Anime Herald: Please introduce yourself. Henbo: My name is Henbo. I’m a tattooer from England. Manchester, originally. Now, I work and live in Brooklyn, New York. I own a shop called Good Luck NYC. Anime Herald: Just to be clear, this does not mean he roots for Manchester. He roots for Liverpool. We don’t want there to be any confusion about this. Henbo: Yeah. No confusion. No confusion at all. Anime Herald: What is your origin story? What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this? Henbo: In England, you leave high school at 16. I went t ..read more

This is part 3 of a three-part series. The first installment can be found here, and the second can be found here. In Japan, Adventures of the Little Koala and Blinky the Wonderful Koala came, were enjoyed by children, and went with little fanfare. Outside of a singular, later broadcast of Adventures of the Little Koala by IBC Iwate Broadcasting in 1986, the series had little long-term impact in Japan1. The show’s reception proved to be vastly different internationally, as the shows reached France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Portugal, and would be particularly popular ..read more

Misaki Takamatsu’s Skip and Loafer tells the story of Mitsumi and Sousuke, two high school students from very different backgrounds who nevertheless become friends. As the two of them grow closer, they inspire each other to reach outside of their comfort zones and become better people. Skip and Loafer is nominally a romance comic. A mismatched boy and girl, potential love rivals, and dramatic confessions are all there and accounted for. But Takamatsu is less interested in the chemistry between Mitsumi and Sōsuke than she is in depicting how they interact. Mitsumi is unafraid to spea ..read more

On June 10, the New York Times’ Wordle picked “MANGA” as the result of the day, and boomers went ballistic. Even though “SALSA” had been a result just recently, the was flooded with complaints about how “foreign words” were not kosher.  “How many English-speaking people would ever have heard of this word?” asked one frustrated commenter. Wow. Guess I can’t keep saying that everyone and their grandmother knows about manga. “MANGA” may have been the most contentious Wordle result in some time, but manga itself is bigger than ever. In my journalism career, I’ve written about it for mainstrea ..read more

Interview Wi Date: 10/28/2023 Location: Lightbox Expo 2023 Anime Herald: You were originally interested in becoming a Disney artist. Dean Yeagle: I’ve animated Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio for a commercial. I’m an official Disney artist. I’m allowed to draw Disney characters. They put you on a list. If anybody wants someone to draw their characters, they can go to Disney, and Disney will tell them who’s allowed to. Anime Herald: Was getting put on the list one of your life achievements? Dean Yeagle: I didn’t even know I was on it until someone told me, “Yeah, we called them, you’re o ..read more

Good evening, everyone. As you’ve likely seen on social media, we hosted our big annual funding drive last month. We entered the month intending to raise enough via Patreon and Ko-fi to allow us to break even, and begin working toward our next goal of raising rates for our writers and editorial team members. As part of our campaign, I pledged to donate to The Trevor Project in an amount matching the first $800 we raised over the month. As a publication that’s owned and operated by a trans woman, which has numerous LGBTQIA+ team members and works with many LGBTQIA+ writers, this was a genuinely ..read more