Programme TAPE 2025

A selection of Japan/Anime/Manga related goods. All money raised on this stand will be used to help fund future Kotatsu Festival events. To reduce the use of plastic bags, please bring your own bags if possible.

Manga Kissa (Manga Café)

We have a wide variety of manga and reading materials. Why not have a browse and settle down for some reading? We do our best to be sustainable, please consider donating your pre-loved comics/ books/DVDs to us.

Please do not take any of the books home. You can buy them at an affordable price if you like.

Dr Dario Lolli

Assistant Professor in Japanese and Visual Cultures

Dario Lolli is an Assistant Professor at Durham University, where he teaches Japanese cinema, animation, and courses on visual cultures and digital media. His in-progress monograph examines anime franchises at the interface of appropriation, counterfeiting and the rise of transnational licensing. In Japan, he has been researching anime production materials since 2017 as a permanent member of the Archive Centre for Anime Studies at Niigata University. His work has appeared in journals including Convergence, Media, Culture & Society, and Mechademia, as well as in edited collections such as The Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime

Seiji Kano

Seiji Kano is a scholar of film and a specially appointed professor at Tokyo Zokei University. He has lectured at Asia University, Joshibi University of Art and Design, and Taisho University.

The director of the Institute of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki Films, he advised, spoke at, and contributed to the exhibition catalogue for the Takahata Isao Exhibition – The Man who Planted Japanese Animation. He directed and organized the Ohtsuka Yasuo Exhibition: Toy Box of Animation & Military, and has written several contributions for Asahi Shimbun’s Ronza magazine, among other publications. He edited and compiled the following books: Ohtsuka Yasuo: Miscellany of a Hobbyist (dourakumono zakkijou), Ohtsuka Yasuo: Social Chronicles of a Hobbyist (dourakumono kouyuuki), and the Panda! Go, Panda! Fanbook. He was also lead editor of Filmmakers 25: Isao Takahata. As an author, he has written The Complete Hayao Miyazaki, Light and Shadow in Frozen (Anna to yuki no jouou no hikari to kage), and The Pioneers of Japanese Animation: New Edition (Nihon no animeshon wo kizuita hitobito shinban), among other works.

Yuichi Ito

Animation Director

Born 1962, co-director of I.TOON Ltd. He is a skilled animator in several mediums, most notably clay, using those skills in everything from character design to animation itself. His representative works include NHS E’s Knyacki!, which celebrates its 30th anniversary, NORABBITS’MINUTES for Shochiku’s 110th anniversary, Mister Donut’s Pon de Lion TV advertisements, the animation segments of Hikaru Utada’s traveling music video, and the music video for Ken Hirai’s kimi ha tomodachi  (“You’re my friend”). His 2011 short work Harbor Tale won the prize for best animation and the audience award at the Zlin Film Festival in the Czech Republic. In 2020, he sat on the international jury for the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. He is a Professor of Animation at Tokyo University of the Arts’ Graduate School of Film and New Media, auditor at the Japan Animation Association, and a board member of ASIFA-JAPAN.