Aniplex is hosting a spectacular online festival later this month and fans have every reason to be gritting their teeth in anticipation of the large event. In addition to the guests and shows previously announced as part of the festival, even more guests and events have been revealed.
Aniplex has been synonymous with the anime industry, with over 500 previous titles released under its name, many of them timeless classics like Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. After holding its first large-scale online festival in 2020, Aniplex held another online festival in 2021 that was just as successful and has been releasing plenty of updates regarding the upcoming online festival on the 23rd of this month.
One of Aniplex’s most recent announcements regarding Aniplex Online Fest 2022 included the exciting news that the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra will conduct an exclusive special edition performance of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba orchestra concert. The concert will feature scenes from the anime series to accompany live music during the 20-minute performance. At the moment, song requests to be performed separately by DJ Kazu are being accepted through the comment sections of Aniplex’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. Series with exclusive information to be revealed at the online festival include Solo Leveling, My Dress-Up Darling, Lycoris Recoil, Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, and many others.
Fans will be excited to know that many voice actors from those series and others will also make appearances. Previous Aniplex Online Fests have included unconventional segments like cast members doing quizzes on their own show titles in different languages or the MCs doing athletic challenges to stay healthy during the event. Surely, it’s safe to assume that this online fest will also provide viewers with entertaining segments.
Other than Aniplex Online Fest and the Crunchyroll Expo, the annual Crunchyroll awards have been one of the few related online events for anime fans to tune in to. In the past few years, they’ve been especially lackluster, and many viewers have criticized Crunchyroll for the lack of diverse options in their awards show, which has led to some fan favorites or hidden gems being easily overlooked for seemingly less deserving series. The Aniplex Online Fest will definitely be something to mark on the calendar, especially considering the diversity in show genres the fest will cover.
At the same time, some viewers may be tired of the old virtual song and dance. They may prefer to attend a physical event as in the covid-free days of yore. Since the online fest will still require hopping onto YouTube at a specific time, 8 pm, some viewers may be unable to attend or might want to just catch a recording of the Aniplex Online Fest 2022 later on instead.
Source: Crunchyroll