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Otakon to Host Studio MAPPA's Masao Maruyama, Yasuaki Iwase, Toru Kubo
posted on by Karen Ressler
Maryland anime convention Otakon announced on Thursday that it will host chief creative officer Masao Maruyama, chief executive officer Yasuaki Iwase, and producer Tōru Kubo of Studio MAPPA.
Maruyama was involved in the establishment of MADHOUSE in 1972. Since then, he has nurtured talents such as Tetsuro Araki, Atsuko Ishizuka and the late Satoshi Kon. Among the anime he has produced are Unico, Ninja Scroll, Card Captor Sakura, Monster, Death Note, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Paprika, Redline, and Supernatural the Animation.
Maruyama left MADHOUSE in 2011 to form MAPPA.
Iwase began his career at MADHOUSE in 1974, where he worked on anime such as Manga World Fairytale, Card Captor Sakura and Barefoot Gen. He was promoted to executive officer at MADHOUSE, where he stayed until 2014. He joined MAPPA in 2013.
Kubo's works include monster design on Rage of Bahamut and card design on Cardfight!! Vanguard. He provided artwork for Garo: Live Action Series and served as planning producer on the Garo: Honoo no Kokuin anime.
Otakon will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center from July 24-26. Previously announced guests include ORE SKA BAND, manga artist and character designer Hiroyuki Takei, directors Ei Aoki, Yuichiro Hayashi, Seiji Kishi and Shinji Takamatsu, producers Shizuka Kurosaki and Toshiyuki Nagano, voice actor and singer Toshiyuki Toyonaga, and voice actress Romi Park.
