{"id":28113,"date":"2019-03-10T19:27:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/?p=28113"},"modified":"2020-03-11T17:10:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T00:10:08","slug":"454a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/454a\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Tours Festival 2020 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Contributed by FoxyladyCPZ<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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The 6th edition of the Japan Tours Festival was held in France between February 28th and March 1st, 2020. It was a great opportunity to celebrate the upcoming french release of Yamato 2199<\/em>, announced 3 years ago. The wait has been rather long, but totally worth it! <\/p>\n

Director Nobuyoshi Habara was one of the guests of honor, along with Mamoru Yokota (DNA\u00b2, Naruto Shippuden, Death Note, One Piece Stampede)<\/em> and Hiroshi Shimizu (Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Jin-Roh, Sky Crawlers, Space Dandy, Megalobox, Lupin III,<\/em> and more).<\/p>\n

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Japan Tours Festival set up an official exhibition to present the Space Battleship Yamato<\/em> saga. Believe it or not, Yamato<\/em> has, until now, remained quite unknown in France. French people grew up with Captain Harlock<\/em>, but not with the Space Battleship.<\/p>\n

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The Webring Leiji Matsumoto & Yamato<\/em> fan club set up a presentation of the Yamato 2199\/2202<\/em> series (plus vintage anime such as Yamato 2520).<\/em> The exhibition included theater bonuses, posters, a display shelf with a bunch of goodies, and fan creations like art and papercraft. <\/p>\n

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The second half of the exhibition was dedicated to Captain Harlock<\/em>‘s 40th anniversary in France, and displayed vintage toys, Dimension Voyage<\/em> and J\u00e9r\u00f4me Alquie’s Harlock<\/em> comic, as well as two gigantic bronze Arcadias<\/em> (the green one signed by Leiji Matsumoto) built by french sculptor Olivier Duhec<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Day 1: February 28<\/h3>\n

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Nobuyoshi Habara introduced himself during a panel celebrating his 40-year career in Japanese animation and presented some of his really early works, along with pretty rare stuff. <\/p>\n

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Habara-san gave us the immense pleasure of sketching and signing autographs. Yamato<\/em> was much preferred, especially Captain Okita, Yuki Mori, the ship itself, Andromeda<\/em>, Analyzer and Klaus Keyman (gotcha!). Two other signing sessions were held on Saturday and Sunday. The fans were very pleased!<\/p>\n

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A private dinner with guests of honor and Yamato<\/em> fans finished the day. It was an opportunity to taste regional dishes and wines, and to discuss Yamato 2202<\/em>, the upcoming movie and the merchandising choices. Fans did their best to find rare, personalized gifts for their guests. Habara-san received a vintage french video tape of the anime Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos<\/em> (for which he did character design).<\/p>\n

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Day 2: February 29<\/h3>\n

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The second day started with a “meet and greet” for a few very happy attendees (you needed a precious VIP ticket for this) with Nobuyoshi Habara and Stanislas Brunet (currently working on Yamato 2205).<\/em> Habara-san was kind enough to bring some Yamato Crew gifts for the fans (iphone case, bags, Under Armour shirts & caps, towels, etc.) and was given a few souvenirs in return (including a print of my Keyman & Akira painting \u2013 sorry not sorry XD). <\/p>\n

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As mentioned above, Yamato<\/em> is quite unknown in France. And yet, festival-goers were pretty enthusiasts about Yamato 2199<\/em>, which premiered here in a screening a few weeks before the official French release.<\/p>\n

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Panel: Space Battleship Yamato, finally in France!<\/em><\/p>\n

Nobuyoshi Habara, Mamoru Yokota, and Ken Arto and Medhi Aouichahoui (both French animators on Yamato 2202<\/em> Episode 14) were invited to this panel introducing the Yamato<\/em> saga. The panel was presented by Julien Pirou (French Leijiverse specialist – see his website here<\/a>) and Olivier Fallaix (Crunchyroll). <\/p>\n

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Mamoru Yokota surprised everyone by singing the Yamato<\/em> theme a capella. See it on Youtube (with some of the panel) here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Japan Tours Festival held their greatest live drawing event in six years: Mamoru Yokota, Hiroshi Shimizu and Nobuyoshi Habara all drew at the same time before the eyes of the amazed audience. Fantastic!<\/p>\n

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The finished works! Photo posted on Twitter by Gensodo<\/a><\/p>\n

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Day 3: March 1<\/h3>\n

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Sunday was much quieter than the previous days due to Covid-19 restrictions (ticket sales were closed). Habara-san took the opportunity to visit the Webring Leiji Matsumoto & Yamato<\/em> fan booth.<\/p>\n

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As a fan of Leiji Matsumoto\u2019s works, Nobuyoshi Habara was quite enthusiastic about meeting Jerome Alquie<\/a>, the French author of a comic reboot of Captain Harlock<\/em>. Habara-san flipped his whole portfolio and J\u00e9r\u00f4me drew him a little souvenir.<\/p>\n

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Jerome’s Harlock manga is supervised by Leiji Matsumoto and titled Memories of the Arcadia<\/em>. See his amazing work at these links:<\/p>\n

Kana Editions (French publisher)<\/a><\/p>\n

Art gallery at Kana Editions website<\/a><\/p>\n

Letra Blanka (Spanish publisher)<\/a><\/p>\n

Completed chapters in Japanese<\/a><\/p>\n

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The French collector’s edition of Yamato 2199<\/em> (vol 1) is scheduled for March\/April 2020. It will contain several art books as bonuses:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Earth (68 pages)
\n\u2022 Solar System (56 pages)
\n\u2022 Earth Fleet (72 pages)
\n\u2022 Yamato Technical manual Vol. 1 (72 pages)
\n\u2022 Yamato Crew (76 pages)<\/p>\n

French fans can order it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Related links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Japan Tours Festival website<\/a><\/p>\n

Video footage from Japan Tours Festival on Youtube<\/a> (relevant coverage starts at 11:40)<\/p>\n

Yamato Universe<\/em> French website<\/a><\/p>\n

Webring Leiji Matsumoto<\/em> website<\/a><\/p>\n

Webring Leiji Matsumoto<\/em> page on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Triple 9, the French Leijiverse website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28113"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28118,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28113\/revisions\/28118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}