Tokyo – The sixth edition of the annual Tokyo International Anime Festival opened on March 22 with a record 270 exhibitors, including 55 from overseas, occupying 750 booths at Tokyo Big Sight. Out of 457 entries, Kadokawa Movies' feature film The Girl Who Leapt through Time was declared the year’s best anime and its director Mamoru Hosoda took the best director's award.

 

One innovation this year is the Robot Animation Expo, exhibiting 55 robot anime from the early days of Astro Boys of Osamu Tezukae to the present. Foreign participants include seven Canadian companies which just joined the TIAF, six of them technology firms, and French banners SIP (Saban International Paris) Animation and DEF2Shoot, which are working with small Nerima, Tokyo, anime houses on joint productions for French and Japanese markets. The 4-day fair was expected to attract 100,000 visitors.