Tokyo anime fair may end in upset

The upcoming Tokyo International Anime Fair is in danger of becoming a fiasco after more than one-third of the companies that had been expected to take part announced they were withdrawing.

For the last decade, the fair has been one of the biggest anime, manga and cosplay events in the world - attracting more than 132,000 visitors last year - but ten of the largest publishers of manga in Japan announced they would pull out to protest the decision by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in December to pass a revised law that bans the sale of sexually explicit or violent manga to young people.

That protest has since snowballed and 91 exhibitors have now withdrawn from the event. The fair will still go ahead, Tokyo officials say, but they admit there will be only 153 exhibitors, of which 125 are Japanese and the remainder are foreign.

The fair is scheduled to take place at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center between March 24 and 27, but visitor numbers are expected to be dramatically down from last year after the rebel publishers announced their own event - to be titled the Anime Contents Expo - at the Makuhari Messe convention center on the clashing weekend of March 26 and 27.

The industry says existing laws were adequate to stop minors from seeing graphic images and have been angered at the authorities' refusal to negotiate on the issue. Companies that violate the new law can be fined as much as Y300,000 (€2,780).

The companies that are protesting the ordinance include industry giant Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., which was one of the prime movers behind setting up the alternative event.

Organizers of the alternative event say the exhibition will feature new content from the global hit series Pocket Monsters.

JR