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Ben Watanabe
555 CEO - anime’s biggest TikTok account and UGC expanded universes
Benjamin Watanabe is a highly accomplished professional with an array of expertise in mobile app, web design, copywriting, CMS design, and digital marketing. He studied business management and marketing at Holy Names University, Temple University, and the University of Utah. With his acute business acumen, he founded and currently heads Everyst Stories, which is a division of the multitalented 96 Problems.
Benjamin has held several key positions, including Product Manager/Designer and Co-Founder at TenTen Ltd, Designer and Growth Hacker at COOKPAD Inc., Founder and Designer at TweetGoGo, Founder and Designer at Cobypic, and New Media at G-Unit Records, amongst others.
His expertise in CMS design and copywriting is highly noteworthy, and he has previously worked as an Online Marketing Manager at Empire Skateboard Distribution, Marketing & Social Media Consultant, and Marketing Consultant at CNI Merchandising.
Overall, Benjamin is an expert in leading mobile app and web design projects, and his digital marketing skills have put him in a position of great demand in the industry.
Highlights
Need an animation team to collab with to avoid an end-of-year crunch? Check out our new partnerships page: https://lnkd.in/ggZccNB2
Thanks to Pedro Marcelino da Silva and our amazing team building out our 555 Comic Animation Studio we have some extra bandwidth! We'd love to use it to collab with you or your network. Whether it's "crunch" you need help avoiding, or a big project that's going to kick off the new year.
Check out some of their amazing work in the demo reel or on Luna's TikTok (https://lnkd.in/g7Pp672m) where their animations delight 3.1M+ fans!
I'm so excited for our @CRC_Luna to debut on TV Tokyo this Sunday night! It's amazing to have a half-Japanese "anime" get half the show of アニレコ (AniReco, short for "Anime Recommendations").
Getting into Japan hasn't been easy…
When you're called "futuristic" here, while it's a complement, it comes loaded with the literal meaning too. You're not the present.
If you're "futuristic," you're going to need more than being the world's biggest anime TikTok account. You'll need someone to put their name on the line for you. Or not their name, since we're in Japan, their 判子 ("hanko" - red Japanese signature stamp).
For Luna, that someone's 判子 was our COO Rob Pereyda.
Rob pulled Luna's future forward, vouching she wasn't too far out. He leveraged trust he built over decades working in the anime industry, and with TV Tokyo, from his time as employee 8 at Crunchyroll, to Bandai Namco, to a Head of Anime at Netflix.
Then Christine Busby took Luna over the top, getting Miyamura Yuko of Neon Genesis Evangelion Asuka fame to put not just her name, but her voice too, behind Luna! (yes, that Asuka of "Anta Baka!?" fame 🤩)
It means a lot to get a half-Japanese anime accepted in Japan.
I won't get into what it means personally as a half-Japanese founder of an anime startup…
We've had our anime jokingly referred to as a "california roll" to our face. Not just from Japan, but by international anime aficionados too. We've learned to smile and remind them that new foreign sushi fans don't get to uni (sea-urchin) without california rolls 😅
I also like to think with our in-house animation studio being based in Brazil, lead by Pedro Marcelino da Silva that what we do is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It makes sense since our prices, design, and art usually starts her in Japan with industry talent, we give a new spin on anime with our team from Tokyo to Brazil and beyond, making the art accessible to the masses. Much like Brazil did with Jiu Jitsu! (and cause Pedro is a former BJJ National Champion in Brazil!)
To wrap up, for a long time anime has been based on being purely from the source, Japan. We're happy to be a small part of muddying things up. It's time to evolve anime, while respecting the roots, into an intersectional accessible adjective or brand. (yes, I think of anime more as an adjective than a noun)
I’m psyched to now safely say or shout, "Luna is anime!!"
She's not just any anime, but "Recommended" anime, by TV Tokyo!
p.s. sorry for Luna's hair getting in the way of the translation, but an anime character's hair ALWAYS has to come first!!
