This German-Japanese Duo Brings Japanese Superstars to Europe

You have started to offer a very unique service in 2025. What is it?

Daniel Vetter: We are providing Japanese video game talents to conventions around the world. This could be video game conventions like gamescom or pop culture conventions like a Comic-Con, but also game developer conferences who would like to represent Japanese talent as well, which maybe have difficulties to reach out to Japanese talents because there's a language barrier or maybe there is not a reliable way to contact them at all.

We think that Japanese talents are underrepresented at cons like these, and there are a lot of fantastic people who have a lot of fans. There's a huge fan base, and we just want to make sure that they get recognized and they get the recognition that they deserve.

It's hard to imagine the opportunity to bring Japanese talents to Germany without prior connection to them, or at least to the Japanese culture industry. How did this connection start for Gentle Gamer?

Vetter: Well, this is the perfect opportunity for you to answer Animo, since without you, this wouldn't be possible. So, maybe you could introduce yourself, what you do and how we got it started.

Anemone "Animo" Mournian: Okay, we often hear from the fans directly that they want to meet Japanese video game creators, and we often hear from Japanese creators themselves who want to go overseas conventions, attend fairs and widen their fan base at these overseas events.

I used to work for Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy series, and I got to go to concerts or cons overseas together with him, helping him translate, interpreting his words to fans overseas. And while working at his office, I already was a vocalist in the video game industry myself and got lots of connections besides Nobuo Uematsu-san himself. And now this is working perfectly for our business.

Vetter: I would like to add that I think both of us are really playing well off of each other, since Animo has so many connections to the Japanese video game industry. And since she is Japanese, she brings the sensibilities how to approach the talent, how to talk to them and how to provide a great service for them. Since there's always a bit of a cultural difference.

And with my connections to all the conventions worldwide, we are the perfect team to make all sides happy. The creators, the conventions and the fans. And  since we are huge fans as well, we know what fans actually want.

Animo: Yes, we're big time nerds as well!

Some of your talents are their own icon and very famous, like Swery65. Others, players in Europe might have never heard of, even though they might have played their game. What are the criteria for you to represent someone?

Animo: I don't think we really have a certain criteria. Fame alone is not our main thing. It's not like that we're saying, okay, you are not eligible for being represented by us and you are eligible more than others.

Vetter: I think it's two things. The one thing is, do we already know them? And for other people, we are discussing people who are interesting for us and who we are fans of. And then, with Kenji Ozawa, for example, it was just a bit of coincidence.

Either Animo knows them or we just contact them. And sometimes the conventions are approaching us and asking, do you know XYZ and could you help us provide XYZ?

Animo: Their contribution to the industry is not connected right now to their fame itself. So we're in a way approaching the cons or the fans like “Hey, you know the games, you should know this guy who created them.” 

Vetter: So there are more things to appreciate about those creators and interesting stories to know that are yet to be discovered. Some things are well known, but some are not. For example, if we take Comic-Con Stuttgart now with Hafu Hafu Ode-n from Hakababunko: He is a fantastic indie game developer from Kobe Japan and we brought him over to Stuttgart Comic Con to attend the Gamezone (organized by BXDXO Stefan Dettmering & Freyja Melhorn). The fan outreach was amazing and it was great. We had Chihiro Fujioka-san (known for Super Mario RPG, SaGa 3, Fantasian) , Kenji Ozawa-san (Director of Visions of Mana and founder of Studio Sasanqua Inc.), Hafu Hafu Ode-n-san and Animo-san there, having two panels and several musical performances. They also signed autographs each day for over two hours for the fans.

It was also great for the gaming developer Hakababunko and for the publisher Shueisha Games, because we could help them make their game Urban Myth Dissolution Center more famous overseas. They were very happy about the recognition their fantastic game got. Because most of the time it takes a lot of manpower, hours and a lot of money to make a game known, especially these days. And with the presence of Ode-n-san, we had the chance to make Urban Myth Dissolution Center a bit more famous in Germany as well. 

Animo:  Yes, absolutely. When a game is as popular as it is in Japan, then they'll be the first ones to discover the game in Germany as well. Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a cultural phenomenon in Japan, actually. Tons of merchandise, two books, a manga right now, and more is still coming.

So how did all this start, then?

Vetter: Even before we started the service, actually, this is how Animo and I met and got in contact. That was three years ago already. I provided Nobuo Uematsu together with his conTIKI band to Ritro Spilmesse in Norway, which, funnily enough, GamesMarkt actually reported on. We met again 2025 in June in Tokyo and discussed our business plan. When I came back in July, I started reaching out to conventions worldwide.

So Stuttgart was now our first official convention. And for 2026, we have a lot planned. I can't really disclose any convention names because it's their obligation and opportunity to unveil and release. But I can say that there are cities in the US, Australia, Greece, Italy, South Asia and more. 

Animo: I am so looking forward to it. Stuttgart Comic-Con was so much fun and it was fantastic to meet the German fans and feel their energy. I can’t wait to visit more places and meet the fans.

Vetter: Absolutely. Yeah, because besides the fact that Animo is also one of our talents with music, with voice acting, with writing articles for gaming outlets, with being a media personality, being someone who is very creative also on YouTube and so on, she's also my business partner and obviously, the person with the Japanese skills to translate at the conventions.

Animo: As Daniel mentioned, I'm a writer as well for Japanese media. I was actually asked to write a report about Comic-Con Stuttgart that we attended.

Speaking of writing: Gentle Gamer started as a Games review blog and it is still operated that way as well. What is the connection between the blog and Gentle Gamer Talent Service?

Vetter: So, basically, I called it Gentle Gamer Talent Service just to have an opportunity to host our portfolio on my website with the same name. We haven't actually decided on a concrete name. I just thought I could use my logo and my website to host our talent pool there. There is not that big of a connection. It's not like Animo is an employee of Gentle Gamer.

Gentle Gamer is basically me (and my colleague Arne Schreiber), while she is still Animo and we're working together. But Gentle Gamer is still an online gaming magazine on the side. We've been doing that for 19 years now. We started in 2006 because we wanted to create a hub, a place for people who like video games from a cultural perspective. We have talks at city libraries and universities and teach teachers, professors, parents and many more about gaming and the culture behind it.

Do you have plans to scale the talent representation up, not just more talents, but also maybe to other countries?

Animo: Yes, absolutely. We plan to expand both the number of talents to work with and countries.

Vetter: Indeed. It's always quite amazing to talk to Animo-san and then realize who she knows. I told her once she's like the Japanese video game industry telephone book because she knows so many people.

Animo: The cons sometimes ask us, do you know this person? And then I realize, oh yeah, I have a contact.

Daniel: Currently I would say 97 per cent of our talent pool is Japanese. Apart from that, we have our shared buddy, Benjamin Nuss, who is a German accomplished pianist and also a composer. He actually tours a lot in Japan because he's quite popular there. The other person is a very dear friend of mine. His name is Tom Dubois. He's an American graphics designer. And he was the guy who was in charge for almost all the Konami artworks in the 80s and 90s, in Europe and America. He was very influential and he is still getting work from Limited Run for most of the Konami special editions.

I tried to reach out to some of the European and American talents, but they are not as open as the Japanese, surprisingly. 

So obviously, we would like to scale it up. Sometimes it happens by coincidence and sometimes we discuss it. But we're already expanding as we talk. 

Animo: Yes. Which is amazing. We're doing it very carefully as well. But since we were able to show the fun that we are having overseas, people are contacting me and Daniel like: “Hey, I want to do that too”. It's actually very helpful that we can start to show what we did on the Stuttgart convention. So they realize we're the real deal.

Vetter:  And as Animo said, seeing how much fun we had, especially with the fans is a great way to earn trust. Which is very important for us.

What would you like to accomplish in the future?

Animo:  The ultimate goal? I think gaining so much trust that if people want to get talent in their event, they think of us immediately. We want to inspire the next generations of Japanese game designers as well. We want to grow big together and help them grow the games and the cons and the concerts. We would love to have our own concert tours as well, everywhere in the world. The creators deserve to connect with the fans worldwide. Some of them don’t even know how beloved they really are until they meet their fans. We should all have the chance to give that joy or to enjoy their creations more.

Vetter: I could say we want to get bigger, but I think it's fine for both of us to be modest at the start. But I can only join Animo’s answer. My ultimate goal would be to become the Go-To people if anybody overseas thinks of inviting a Japanese creator.