I’ve been so remiss that I forgot to do this for Anime Weekend Atlanta! But here’s the list of people I’ll be seeing and watching for New York Anime Fest this weekend:

INTERVIEWS:
- Rie Tanaka
- Hideyuki Kikuchi/Yoshitaka Amano/Kevin Leahy

Please! Give me questions for these! I want to know what YOU want to know. Here’s my interview with Kikuchi-sensei and mangaka Saiko Takaki, who is creating the manga adaptation of Vampire Hunter D– feel free to ask me to follow up on those or at least not retread them, yes? ;)

Companies:
- FUNimation (who will be announcing the Darker than Black cast)
- Bandai Entertainment (whose panel I will miss because I’ll be in the Anime Journalism Panel, but don’t worry, I’ll get that news ASAP afterwards)
- Vertical
- Media Blasters/Kitty Media
- Del Rey Manga
- Yen Press

Okay, so, let’s hear it guys: what questions do you have?

Ahhh, my last Anime Expo post for the ‘08 con (not including the pending roundup). And what a doozie it’ll be– I got to sit down with the legendary sci-fi/horror novelist Hideyuki Kikuchi, most famous in the US for his Vampire Hunter D novels (although his list of works published in Japan is incredibly long, including Demon City Shinjuku and Wicked City) and with Saiko Takaki, who is adapting his novels into a manga that is being simultaneously released in the US (by Digital Manga Publishing) and Japan! (And a quick thanks to DMP’s Duke Takuma Yanagi for translating.)

Hit the jump for the interview!

Read more…

So Digital Manga Publishing is bringing Vampire Hunter D creator Hideyuki Kikuchi and the artist for the new VHD manga, Saiko Takaki, to Anime Expo this year. Unfortunately, they’ll just miss crossing paths with another Vampire Hunter D name– Yoshitaka Amano, who illustrated the original VHD novels (and, yes, did character designs for Final Fantasy, and that one volume of Sandman, blah blah blah). Amano is a guest of Radical Comics at the convention. Radical is publishing Mateki: The Magic Flute, Amano’s take on Mozart’s popular opera; apparently they’re opening up a new line of comics created for the Asian market.

Meanwhile, Anime Expo just announced a new guest: Masahiro Ando, who’ll be there to pimp Bones’ new movie Stranger(/Sword of the Stranger/Mukoh Hadan), which we can probably presume will be announced for a US release at the con. Ando is also known for his work as animation director on Sailor Moon and various roles in Fullmetal Alchemist.