Convention AnimeNEXT Announces MAPPA’s ‘Banana Fish’ Anime Staff as Guests

It was announced on Sunday that the New Jersey-based anime convention AnimeNEXT will be bringing the staff of MAPPA who worked for the popular Banana Fish anime series as one of their guests.

Confirmed staff members attending the convention are director Hiroko Utsumi, supervising anime director Ayumi Yamada, animation director and character designer Akemi Hayashi, international developer Andrew Michael Upton, and setting producer Erika Ando.

The Banana Fish anime series premiered on July 2018 and aired on Fuji TV’s Noitamina block for a total of 24 episodes. The name of the series is taken from the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J.D. Salinger.

The series is based from the manga of same name written and illustrated by Akimi Yoshida first released in 1985 in the magazine Shojo Comic until 1994. It was then compiled into a total of 19 volumes. VIZ Media is officially releasing the manga to English.

AnimeNEXT is a three-day anime convention held every year in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The convention had a record of more than 11,000 in attendance last year. This year’s convention will be happening on June 7 to 9 at the Atlantic City Convention Center. The convention began in 2002 and organized by Universal Animation, Inc.

Aside from MAPPA staff, AnimeNEXT will also bringing in Hirokatsu Kihara, a writer and former desk employee of Studio Ghibli.

Source: AnimeNEXT (Twitter), Anime News Network