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San Francisco is the New J-Pop Epicenter
This weekend thousands of J-Pop fans celebrated the much anticipated opening of San Francisco’s gleaming NEW PEOPLE J-Pop Center.
The shopping and entertainment complex aims to become North America’s epicenter for Japanese fashion, design, art and cinema. Celebrations included a traditional sake drum breaking, Lolita fashion show and movie premiere for 20th Century Boys that brought out the crowds.
Actress Takako Tokiwa and legendary Final Fantasy designer Yoshitaka Amano were among the Japanese celebrities attending the grand opening.
From its ultra-sleek Harajuku-style architecture to it’s San Francisco Japantown location, the center perfectly embodies J-Pop’s signature confection of neon color, wide-eyed comic characters and sophisticated cosplay street fashion.
NEW PEOPLE was conceived by the legendary Seiji Horibuchi (above left with btrax CEO Brandon Hill), who has been the driving force behind the popularization of Japanese manga and anime in the U.S. over the past two decades.
Horibuchi’s passion for introducing Americans to Japanese culture is written into the DNA of the J-Pop Center. Cutting-edge Japanese artists display their work on every floor and the building includes VIZ Cinema – North America’s first theater to show only Japanese films (with English subtitles naturally).
btrax has been proud to collaborate with Horibuchi-san and VIZ Pictures in the revitalization of SF’s Japantown – building up momentum for the grand opening through the NEW PEOPLE website and other online activities.
All Photos by Tim Wagner © 2009
