JAST USA's Anime Expo 2007 Panel Topic

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Read the full transcript here: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3887

Hi everyone, I’m here at AX 2007 in Long Beach and will doing a live report of JAST USA’s panel tonite from 7:30 - 8:30 pm. Check this topic for the latest news from the panel - with the most juicy bits being the new two new cquisitions announcement.

Some other tidbits:

  • Media Blasters has acquired a PC title but it’s not a visual-novel type game. I think it was called Dokapon or something. I think it’s either an action game or a shooter. It won’t come until at least 2008.

  • Discipline is getting the translation fixed up. They do not have Discipline Excellent. They have the original release but they’re looking into trying to include the extra days in the story.

  • Circus is here for evaluation purposes to see how people react to their products. The panel is on Sunday. They have a website opening soon called Akihabara Channel - http://www.akiba-ch.com. It pre-opens July 2007.

  • Hirameki has absolutely no titles in development. More on this later.

[ 06-30-2007, 06:25 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

#2

Ok. The panel is being set up. Got some photos. The line to get in was huge btw…

The giveaway item is a Yume Miru Kusuri poster. Looks awesome. The back is a catalog. Discipline is listed with Discipline Excellent as the cove. The price is $34.95.

The room is completely packed.

The following is a live panel report for JAST USA’s Dating Sim Games panel at Anime Expo 2007 on June 29, 2007 from 7:30 - 8:30 pm. A complete transcript of the panel will follow later on today or tomorrow.

All attendees receive a Yume Miru Kusuri poster with a dating sim catalog on the other side.

Though dating sim games may not be popular in North America, the panel is packed. There was a long line to enter. And remember - this is 18+ only.

Peter starts the panel off introducing the concept of bishoujo games. JAST-USA has been releasing bishoujo games for the past 10 years. The company announces that as part of the 10th anniversary celebration they will be giving out collectible cards. In total it’s a set of 55 cards.

[ 06-30-2007, 04:47 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

#3

Lamuness is here too. Liar!

The panel hosts are Peter Payne and Shingo. Peter goes over the history of the company, all the way from their first release - Three Sisters Story. The PC game industry is already a more niche market, and with the erotic content that JAST puts out, it’s likea niche within a niche. There’s no distribution system for bishoujo games in the US, so JAST USA was created. It’s main goal is to be the facilitator of bishoujo games and distribute it.

The company now goes over their recent announcements.

The first title is Yume Miru Kusuri :: A Drug that Makes You Dream (The title scored an 8.7 from AMN Anime), which was relesed on April 24, 2007. The game was originally released in late 2005. The game is not part of their latest licensing blitz, however.

The first of the blitz is Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048, announced in Janujary. it will be the first G-Collections title out. Shingo then holds up the golden master. It will be available at Comic-Con 2007.

(EDIT by Lamuness: you know what i edited out)

[ 06-30-2007, 03:19 AM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

#4

The next title in the blitz is Bazooka Cafe from developer Sekilala, which was announced at the same time as Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048. The game is out later this year.

Snow Sakura (Yuki Zakura) is shown next. There is a mahjong part in the game. A character is a real history buff here too.

Lightning Warrior Raidy is shown next. It’s a remake of the original title that was released in 1996. It’s a 3-D RPG type title by developer ZyX.

The most recent game announced is Amorous Professor Cherry.

#5

Then I was at AKon last year, there were less than twenty persons at the “dating-sims” panel… and the panel hosts didn’t even come!!! (Apparently, they didn’t make it on time)
In the end, I had to animate the panel (for true!), when I had came as an attendee (since the hosts weren’t coming, a staff member asked if someone even knew what “dating-sims” were and I got the bad idea answering… :o )
Now that I think about it, Peter was there as well (as a dealer in the dealers’ room, not hosting a panel) so I wonder how successful he was…

#6

New Announcement:

KAzoku Keikaku (Family Project)

#7

Oh, good, now I can freely talk about it~

#8

The new title announcements are as follows:

G-Collections, a label of JAST-USA specializing in the release of adult-bishoujo games from the CD-Bros. line of titles, announced today at their Anime Expo 2007 panel the acquisition of D.O. Game’s Family Project (known as Kazoku Keikaku in Japan) for release in the North American market.

Kazoku Keikaku, featuring veteran scenario writer Hajime Yamada (Kana ~Little Sister~), is heralded as one of the most popular releases by developer D.O. Game (Crescendo, Snow Sakura) - even receiving a “Best Game” award from popular Japanese bishoujo game information site Getchu.com when it was first released on November 2, 2001. The title is also the highest rated title on eroscape. The game tells of a group of individual misfits whom by circumstance get together and attempt to form a family.

Click here to visit the official Japanese page for Kazoku Keikaku. The game’s theme song from the demo movie “Onaji Sora no Shita de” (Under the Same Sky) is sung by popular I’ve Record artist Kotoko of Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins fame.

The game is currently in production.

Next Title Announcement:

Princess Waltz by developer Pulltop will be released for the Peach Princess label. This visual novel game features an innovative card battle combat system. The game was released in April 2006 in Japan.

Both title are expected sometime in 2008. Possibly late 2007.

JAST hopes to use the new titles just announced as a springboard towards even bigger titles.

Question and Answer Summary:

  • The company will consider releasing the Kazoku Keikaku soundtrack. The company does not have the rights to the soundtrack right now, however.

  • Regarding the line of yaoi titles, there are currently two out, but there hasn’t been a huge demand for them, however.

  • No plans to release adult content for console titles because the first party companies will not allow such releases.

[ 06-29-2007, 11:21 PM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

#9

Yeah, Lamuness didn’t do a very good job of “denying” Kazoku Keikaku. It’s one of the classic BS techniques.

If I hadn’t caught him using the exact same technique before, it might have worked OK.

But wewt! Princess Waltz! That means we have access to Pulltop after all … maybe. It IS a game by them. Hopefully this means we’ll be seeing Yu no Hana? Or might be?

[ 06-29-2007, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]

#10

Panel report is over. Have fun! I’ll have a full transcript later on.

Please excuse the html in my posts btw. I was updating the forums and AMN Anime at the same time and basically just copy and pasted the stuff I wrote for AMN Anime.

Edit: All the forum mods are gone. Time to go craaaaaaaazy!

[ 06-29-2007, 11:58 PM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

#11

No twincest. :frowning:

#12

Woah, thanks for the awesome run down. Wish I could have made it there. I totally fell for the all out denail of Kazoku Keikaku from Lamuness… XD Looking foward to that one. It sucks that the yaoi titles haven’t taken off. I’d like to hear more on Hirameki’s situation too, if that’s okay.

[ 06-30-2007, 12:48 AM: Message edited by: Evila ]

#13

i hope mockingbird enjoys the counterfeit money i gave him for the transformers toys :stuck_out_tongue:

first of all, i would like to thank everyone for coming to our panel. it was almost fully packed; i told peter and shingo earlier that i will be surprised if it was even half full.

we have missed out some relatively minor announcements so i will address them here:

  • as part of the jastusa 10th anniversary, the cards will be given to all customers who have bought our games, and we will start giving them out to people who purchased our games tomrrow. if any of you have purchased our games on friday (day1), at any time during the con please drop by our booth and show us the copy of the game you purchased and we will gladly give you a card pack. we will also work on a method to give these cards to download game customers in the near future as well
  • we will be starting to give out new variants of our catalogs, featuring new posters on the back and new items on our catalog, starting saturday (day2). due to limited quantities we have to restrict to one catalog per attendee, but if you purchase games at our booth, you will be given the liberty to request for more. for people who could not attend AX, we will be giving those out (as well as the cards) for all game orders, so you will get your share

ADD:
finally i would like to seriously and sincerely commend shingo for being a very good host and being able to control the audience really well at the panel; i wouldn’t have been able to do so myself (i am very bad at speech), so he is indeed a very suitable replacement of mine

[ 06-30-2007, 04:08 AM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

#14

Ohhh, very nice.

#15

I’ve finished the full transcript: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3887

There are proably some typos in there, which I’ll have to fix after the expo. Sorry about the lack of pics. I realized that I can’t spot update and take pics at the same time apparently. It’s harder to do this stuff without a colleague at my side. :roll:

[ 06-30-2007, 06:29 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]

#16

HAHAHA! I won this “battle” with Benoit, who said it couldn’t be done… I must be psychic…

(Of course, he’s banned now, but this is funny, we were arguing whether it could be licensed, AND IT WAS.)

#17

another (and prolly my last) shameless AX plug

ok there will also be a somewhat con exclusive gift from us and pulltop with any game purchase at our booth, besides the aforementioned cards.

we will also be giving out to all game customers at AX free cellphone straps from pulltop, below is a censored photo of the product (other than the pulltop logo and the strap itself) just for the hell of it :stuck_out_tongue: (although we have started giving them out to customers today):

     :p

unfortunately, due to the irregular shape and size of the strap, we have no plans of giving those out to non-convention customers such as those of online orders (because it will make things more difficult to ship). this means that we will only give out to customers in person. i have already confirmed this with peter, so sorry about this :stuck_out_tongue:

as such, you can pretty much consider the strap as a “con exclusive” so to speak. we might give those out during the upcoming comic-con later this month as well, but if supplies run out by the end of AX then you are out of luck. therefore, if you have the time (and money) drop by our booth and get some games from us if you haven’t done so already!

[ 07-01-2007, 04:38 AM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

#18

Peapri played the aces, I see. Oh well, me I find Princess Waltz vastly more appealing than Kazoku Keikaku, even though it’s more a novel than a game, in my opinion.
However, I want to see 1): the English reviews/comments, and 2): if/how the We won’t really consider it too much of a risk. I mean obviously, we target the adults and we target to adults policy will be enforced before deciding my options. In the meanwhile, I can (finally!) buy the downloadable versions of those untranslated CROWD games with no worry of future English versions :wink: :stuck_out_tongue: ?

#19

now now now…that doesnt mean that we wont be releasing crowd titles; it only means that we chose not to announce any crowd titles…yet? :stuck_out_tongue:

now if you will excuse me, i have to put a hidden video camera in the shower room so i can take a video of shingo taking a shower and upload that to youtube :stuck_out_tongue:

#20

I remember that time, and I think this was a somewhat well-deserved victory.

On another ntoe:

http://www.nnl1.com/releases/14.html

I hope gp32’s happy now.