The Illustrations of Bishoujo panel was held on May 29th, in Salon 3 at the Marriott. This 18+ event was carded and the special guest speaker was Mamoru Yokota. Unfortunately this event was not very well planned, and instead of being a presentation of Yokota’s illustrations, it became more or less a Q&A panel about his work and his personal experience working in the industry.
Mamoru Yokota is an experienced character designer, director and producer. Mr. Yokota has also worked on well-known anime titles such as the Toei version of Kanon, the theatrical version of Air, Magical Kanan, DEATH NOTE, True Mazinger Impact! Z, Macross Frontier, Astro Fighter Sunred, and HELLSING IV. His most notable work is probably his illustrations in the light novel series, Rune Soldier Louie.
The first half of the panel was filled with Yokota’s personal experience at Fanime. He was very delighted to see that Fanime held a video room dedicated to hentai, but more so he was surprised that the room had guys--and girls. After the short monologue from Yokota, he opened the floor up to questions from the audience.
In summary, the audience asked questions concerning Yokota’s feelings about the growth of hentai visual novel games in America to his views about eroge companies blocking international visitors to their websites. He stated that he didn't know very much about America's preference for hentai games apart from what is heard from local news mediums, and he was a little surprised about the blockage of foreign visitors from eroge creator websites. He mentioned he would talk to one of his good friends back in Japan who is the founder of one of the companies mentioned.
The panel lasted until 11pm and ended with Mamoru Yokota selling off some of his doujinshis, figures, and t-shirts he had brought with him. None of goods he brought along were phenomenally amazing, but interesting at the very least.
