Aya Kanno of Otomen and Requiem of the Rose King To Make First North American Convention Appearance at Toronto Comics Art Festival

Manga star Aya Kanno, author and artist of The Blank Slate, Otomen, and Requiem of the Rose King, is making her first North American convention appearance at the 2015 Toronto Comics Arts Festival, where she will appear as a Featured Guest and engage in a feature interview, panel discussion, and book signings. Aya Kanno will attend with her editor, Yuri Yamamoto of Akita Shoten, and with the support of her North American publisher VIZ Media.  The full schedule of her appearances at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival will be released in April.

Aya Kanno is most famous in North America for the eighteen volume shojo manga comedy, Otomen, which has nontraditional characters that rebel against gender roles in Japanese society.  Otomen itself is a portmanteau of the Japanese word otome, which means young girl, and the English word men.  Kanno’s most recent work to be introduced to North American audiences is Requiem of the Rose King, a dark fantasy variation on Shakespeare’s Richard III and Henry VI in which the manga creator continues to explore her themes of gender, sexuality, and identity.  You can read Nerdspan’s review of Requiem of the Rose King Volume 1 by following this link.

“We’re so happy to be able to welcome Aya Kanno to North America for the first time,” enthused Festival Director Christopher Butcher. “To my mind Kanno’s work really reinforces what TCAF is all about: unique, diverse voices and great comics! Shoujo manga, or ‘girls’ manga, doesn’t really get the respect it deserves in general, and Kanno’s work is specifically great, smartly interrogating the medium and its approach to gender, sexuality, and storytelling.”

Toronto Comics Art Festival has already announced a selection of Japanese manga creators, such as the duo Gurihiru (Avatar: The Last Airbender), gay manga originator Gengoroh Tagame (The Passion of…), and indy manga creator Ken Niimura (Henshin, I Kill Giants).

The Toronto Comics Art Festival 2015 will be held at the Toronto Reference Library, 780 Yonge Street on Saturday May 9th from 9am to 5pm, and Sunday May 10th, from 11am to 5pm.  The Toronto Comics Art Festival is one of very few remaining FREE comic conventions in North America.  The conventions’ primary sponsors are the Toronto Public Library and The Beguiling Books & Art, and funding is also provided by the Ontario Arts Council.  Select guest bios and images are available upon request. Please send all inquiries to media@torontocomics.com.