New York Comic-Con 2014

Crunchyroll Panel

This was the first Crunchyroll panel in New York, and the first panel Crunchyroll had given at New York Comic-con. The room was packed.

The panelists talked about Crunchyroll-hime, the new mascot of Crunchyroll with art by Shiori ABE, and that LINE stickers were available – and then went right into announcements:

• A live-action Japanese drama version of Future Diary;
• Switch Girl!! – a live-action romantic comedy focusing on a girl's true self;
• Bonjour~ Sweet Love Patisserie – an animated series simulcast based off of a girl's (otome) game of the same name;
• Ultraman Max – Tuesday October 14 debut, with all of it available – notable especially as it was the first Ultraman series to have a non-Japanese character in the main cast;
• and finally Case Closed, simulcast for Fall 2014.

There was a separate Crunchyroll Manga panel on Sunday, and no new announcements. However, of special note were the new features for the web reader rolling out in the next week or so (roughly, the week of October 15th), and that there were new features such as improved page selection and push notifications for the Crunchyroll manga reader application. Unfortunately, the iOS version of said reader is still in review, but should be rolling out to the App Store soon.

Both Crunchyroll panels mentioned opportunities for and the processes of working at Crunchyroll; Crunchyroll is not a “magical kingdom” where animation and manga magically get released to hungry eyes, but that it involved a ton of hard work. However, the work is very rewarding, and so spotlighting this aspect of the company and that Crunchyroll was recruiting was important to the panelists and the company.