Anime Expo 2012

Sunrise

Panelist: Masayuki Ozaki

Introducing the Sunrise panel was Tiger & Bunny producer Masayuki Ozaki, who's also in charge of Sunrise's overseas division, and Bandai USA marketing specialist Loy Fruel. Their presentation started with a video featuring Sunrise's lineup for 2012. It began with a retrospective on 30 years of the Gundam franchise, starting with the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and ending with last year's Mobile Suit Gundam AGE and the recent Mobile Suit Gundam UC. The video also mentioned the HD remaster of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed. The video also showcased works like Short Peace, Battle Spirits –Heroes-, Natsu-iro Kiseki, Phi Brain, Accel World, Lovelive!, Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere 2, Binbogami ga!, Nerawareta Gakuen, Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, and Tiger & Bunny –The Beginning-.

Afterward, they briefly talked about each of the titles. Notably, they confirmed some of the names who will contributing to Short Peace, an omnibus of shorts inspired by Otomo's manga anthology of the same name. Involved will be Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira), Hajime Katoki (Gundam), Shuhei Morita (Kakurenbo), and Katsuhito Ishii (Redline).

Also revealed during the panel was that an American distributor has picked up the rights for Binbogami ga!, and will be announcing it later this convention. Directed by Yōichi Fujita of Gintama fame, the series is about a girl whose blissful life is powered by sapping energy from the people around her, and the poverty god who wants to eliminate her.

To the delight of the attendees, Ozaki also introduced Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, which will take place between seasons one and two, and Tiger and Bunny -The Beginning-, which will include some reused footage, but will mostly have new animation.