Interest
AKB48 Founder Appointed Honorary President of Yoyogi Animation Academy
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
The Yoyogi Animation Academy, which has branches around Japan, appointed AKB48 founder Yasushi Akimoto as its honorary president and general producer on Monday.
Yoyogi Animation Academy recently acquired the "Ginga Gekijō" theater in Tokyo and will set up its "Practical Idol Course" training sessions beginning in June.
Akimoto said at his inauguration that the move looks to further infuse the world of idols into anime. The sub-genre has become immensely popular lately, including the powerhouse Love Live! series, The IDOLM@STER franchise, Aikatsu!, PriPara, and male idol shows like Uta no Prince Sama, Shōnen Hollywood, and STARMYU. Announcements at last weekend's AnimeJapan 2016 event alone included four new idol-centric anime series.
Yasushi Akimoto is a nationally recognized figure in Japan's music industry as both an accomplished songwriter (he wrote Hibari Misora's famous swan song, "Kawa-no Nagare-no You-ni") and producer behind the vast girl group AKB48 and its predecessor, Onyanko Club. Akimoto is planning to create an idol group called "Japan48" by the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The group will pull from Akimoto's previously created idol groups, like the AKB48, SKE48, NMB48, NGT48, and HKT48.
Yoyogi Animation Academy recently held courses for aspiring animators and voice actors using Mr. Osomatsu as a basis.
Source: Yahoo! Japan News via Otakomu
