Pop culture publishing and consulting company ICv2 will be holding its first ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga, titled “Inside the Otaku Generation,” in conjunction with the New York Anime Festival (NYAF), which we discussed in this article (which will be 7-9 December 2007).
“Inside the Otaku Generation” will be held on Thursday afternoon, 6 December 2007 at the Javits Center, the night before NYAF begins in the same location. “Anime and manga are a multi-billion dollar business in the US, with television programming, graphic novel and DVD sales, top-selling tabletop and videogames, and other licensed products all driven by the otaku (fans) that lead pop culture and technology adoption curves,” said ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp about the Conference. “Understanding the ‘otaku generation,’ the powerful group of young consumers that are driving this phenomenon across multiple categories, can help anyone who wants to reach this audience and ride the wave of Japanese and Japanese-influenced content that’s sweeping the globe.”
Confirmed panelists include executives from anime and manga companies and intellectual property houses; digital content, anime and manga, and youth marketing experts; and trade buyers. Some of those panelists are: Lillian Diaz-Przybyl (Senior Editor for Original Global Manga Development at Tokyopop), Larissa Faw (editor of Youth Markets Alert), Gen Fukunaga (President and CEO of Funimation Entertainent), Kurt Hassler­ (Co-Publisher of Yen Press), Al Kahn (CEO of 4Kids Entertainment), James Killen (Graphic Novel Buyer at Barnes & Noble), Christopher MacDonald (Editor in Chief of Anime News Network Editor), Daniel Marks­­ (Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for Viz Media), Kevin McFeeley­­ (Vice President of Affiliate Sales and New Media for Anime Network), Dallas Middaugh (Associate Publisher of Del Rey Manga), Lawrence Neves (Editorial Director of Pokemon USA), Jeremy Ross (Director of New Product Development for Tokyopop), and Jill Snider (Senior Brand Manager of Funimation Entertainment).
Tickets for the Conference are available on the NYAF Website.