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AnimeJapan 2021 Gets Overseas Stream With English Commentary

Singaporean events and marketing agency Sozo Pte. Ltd., the organizer of the Anime Festival Asia convention, announced on Monday that it is working with the AnimeJapan 2021 convention to provide an on-demand live streaming program for the stage events for this year's online-only convention.

The stream will be available for all stage programs, and with special English commentary. The stream will be available in the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Tickets are already available on the site. Tickets cost 3,200 yen (about US$30) for each day of the show's public days (March 27 and 28) or a two-day ticket for 6,100 yen (about US$57).

Prices for tickets in Japan differ from the English stream: Tickets cost 3,800 yen (about US$36) for each day of the show's public days (March 27 and 28) or a two-day ticket for 7,300 yen (about US$69). The ticket will also allow buyers to watch an archive of streams for one day following the stream. The event will also have an online-only "Business Days" portion on March 29 and 30 that will cost 11,000 yen to participate.

The organizers of the event announced in February that the event will be online only since they have canceled the convention's in-person March 27-30 half at Tokyo Big Sight due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the new state of emergency in Tokyo and other prefectures in Japan. The convention was previously planned as both a physical and online event.

The online event will stream panels from companies that would have had booths at the physical event, and will also stream stage panels. Merchandise will be available for purchase online.

The organizers canceled last year's event also due to concerns of the spread of COVID-19.

Source: Press release, AnimeJapan 2021 website