Anime Expo 2023 is already off to a great start with the announcement that Japanese Visual Artist and Character Designer Yoshitaka Amano will be a guest of honor this year.
If the name may right a bell, Yoshitaka Amano has worked on various video games, manga, anime, and comic books, with the list constantly growing. You may know his work from the Vampire Hunter D series where he was both the characters designer and illustrator for both the manga and anime. He recently did a special 1:25 cover for Detective Comics #1063but you may best know him from his work on the Final Fantasy series where he was in charge of character design and illustrations of the first game back on the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System and continues works on the series providing some amazing illustrations to this day, with the announcement that he is working with Studio MDHR to add a little something special to the physical editions of Cuphead in Japan.
We're elated to reveal our collaboration with the legendary Yoshitaka Amano!
Paying homage to classic fantasy RPGs, Amano-san's art will adorn the DLC soundtrack included in 1st Run copies of Cuphead's Japanese Physical Edition.
Global pre-orders here: https://t.co/wMuBoimLeX pic.twitter.com/mz1YolDaq5
— Studio MDHR (@StudioMDHR) February 15, 2023
This marks two big things for Anime Expo, the first going back to 2019 where at the closing ceremonies it was announced that Amano would be the guest of honor for Anime Expo 2020…sadly due to the pandemic we wouldn’t see the return of Anime Expo until 2022 so it’s great he is coming to Anime Expo this year.
The second thing for Anime Expo is the return of big-name Japanese guests, that’s not to say we didn’t have any in 2022 but the lack of Japanese voice actors, musical guests, and such was really felt compared to previous years, at least for me.
With less than 5 months away until Anime Expo, I look forward to seeing what other guests will be announced. Make sure you get your tickets before they sell out.