Michael Lattanzio Interview – AX 2010 Press Junket

EDIT, 11:36 PM: corrected video now up. Sorry for the confusion.

Michael Lattanzio Interview – AX 2010 Press Junket from Anime Diet on Vimeo.

Here’s a no-holds-barred interview with the CEO of the SPJA, Michael Lattanzio, about the promise and the challenges of running an anime convention. We don’t shy away from asking about some of the controversies that have surrounded the convention under new management, but we strove to be fair, and see what he has to say about it. So hear his side of the story in this interview!

This is our last English interview–all the junket interviews remaining, which include May’n, Masakazu Morita, and the Eden of the East Production Team, have Japanese in them. They are being translated at the moment and subtitled. Look for, very soon, a Horie Yui/Eri Kitamura press conference transcript too! The coverage is still coming!

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.

5 thoughts on “Michael Lattanzio Interview – AX 2010 Press Junket

  1. @AXKing: Obvious exiled staffer is obvious.

    As for the interview, it’s as though they dragged some random introverted attendee to ask the questions.

  2. I couldn’t take his first long-winded answer. Sorry, but good score with the interview Mike. Was that you asking the questions? It sounded like someone else.

  3. He is a total businessman, that’s fine with me, but I’m worried for next year, like raising the exhibitor’s price for 50%, this will certainly turn away a lot of exhibitors as most of them are mom and pop stores. This year’s exhibit hall is already quite emptier than last year, imagining next year will be half emptier…yikes…

  4. We make no official comment on Mr. Lattanzio other than what was said in the interview. Also, while of course we can always improve in many ways, we also always try our best. We’ll take any critique into account for next time as we continue to better ourselves.

    The interview was not conducted by me Sean–it was done by Jeremy (named in the credits). I mostly did still photography in this one. As for the thing with the dealers…stay tuned for some additional coverage about that.

Comments are closed.