Jump Festa

• Jump Fest happens annually in December.

Tokyo is home to some of the biggest video games, manga, and anime conventions in the world. And even among those, Jump Festa is a giant (and its logo was designed by The Akira Toriyama).

This expo takes place every year in December since 1999. The event is organized by Shueisha (you know who we’re talking about: One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, Gintama, One Punch Man, HunterxHunter, Bleach, Death Note, Boku No Hero Academia…).

Jump Festa takes place in the massive Makuhari Messe Hall, just outside of Tokyo, stepping into Chiba. Over a period of two days over 100,000 people attend every year, but Shueisha Jump’s manga and anime is not all that they find. In fact, numerous major video game companies also attend the event to introduce fans to new titles and to let us try them.

Here is a glance at some of the titles showcased at Jump Festa 2019: Jump Force, Dragon Ball Fighter, Godeater 3, Tales of Vesperia, Digimon ReArise, BlackClover: Infinite Knights. In addition, fans could play DMC5 and Resident Evil: RE2, in a large booth set up like a small theme park to enjoy an IRL walk through a zombie-infested survival experience.

Now, should you want to take a break from playing not-yet-released video games, there’s a lot more to do at Jump Festa.

How about a bunch of rare figurines ranging from miniature ones to life-sized ones? You’re into cosplay? Lot of that going on as well, and mostly, it’s visitors who create the best, coolest, funniest (and at times, the sexiest costumes ?).

For those of you who need to be on top of all the most recent news, each year, Jump Festa has that in spades. For example, in 2019, attendees got a sneak peek of Dragon Ball Super: Broly (which recently crashed the box office in America).

On top of that, it featured a panel for One Piece, which celebrated its 20 years anniversary by offering a show with its voice actors, and commentary on their experience during the franchise. Expect that and more at each annual event!