I think everyone who saw the schedule has about the same though, “Why would I want to go to a panel about and Amerimanga He-Man?” OK. I might be the only person who had that thought but I think most people who saw these panels assumed they were about some mediocre OEL manga titles with some talented American comic artists forced to ULTRA-ANIMIZE their artwork to try to capitalize on the long over manga boom. The only people who would be interested in the panel would be someone who was interested in one of the artists involved outside of the Masters of Animanga project. But that was not the case.

In actuality Kazuo Koike, Takashi Okazaki, Sin’Ichi Hiromoto, and Masao Maruyama were all on the panel. A panel of two well-known manga artists, one legendary manga artist, and one anime producer whose career is almost as old as modern anime itself. This was a surprisingly high-profile line-up. I think most major cons would love a row of anime and manga guests like that. And here they were not getting anywhere near the attention they deserved. There was some signage about it around the con so it was not totally unadvertised but I think the name alone turned away 80% of the people who would have normally flocked to such a panel.

 These panels put on by Wikia win the award for worst names ever. I honestly think they were preventing people from coming; I know I skipped over them in the schedule at first. A name like Kazuo Koike shouldn’t be buried in the fine print and yet there he was.

Mr. Koike is one of the few manga-ka known by comic fans and could have easily filled a room to just chat about Lone Wolf and Cub. Instead, the Wikia panels were focusing on their latest venture which one might describe as hyper fan-fiction.

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