On 17 & 18th of December this year, the annual Jump Exhibition: Jump Festa was held! At Jump Festa 2023, for the first time ever, Jumputi Heroes had a booth at the exhibition.
The booth was covered in well known Jump characters from Jumputi Heroes.
Fans who went to the exhibition were also able to play Jumputi on super-sized smartphones. By the time the afternoon rolled around, a long lined had formed and it was so popular that they eventually had to cut the line off.
A special Jumputi Shopping Bag was given to those who visited the booth. It was a Limited line so it was given out on a first-come, first-served basis.
There was also a special gacha people could try after visiting the booth. Special rewards with Jumputi branding could be won from the gacha such as an AirPods Pro case, a mini purse, a smartphone cleaner, stickers, and badges.
A special Photo Spot was created in the image of the My Ship update that was added to Jumputi this year.
The Photo Spot was overflowing with visitors who were seeking commemorative photos as was the “Spot the Mistake” corner which featured a wall full of Jumputi characters.
During this visit, GameBiz were able to conduct an interview with Mr. Sho Fujikawa, the Producer of Jumputi Heroes, and Miss Yurina Hamasaki, the Assistant Producer of Jumputi Heroes.
Interviewees
- LINE “Jumputi Heroes” Producer – Sho Fujikawa [Right]
- LINE “Jumputi Heroes” Assistant Producer– Yurina Hamasaki [Left]
Q: It’s the first time Jumputi Heroes has appeared at Jump Festa, what’s your impression of the event?
Hamasaki: It’s our first offline event of this size and scale, Makuhari Messe is such a large venue and it’s packed full of Jump fans, you can really feel the excitement and enthusiasm of everyone here. There are so many Jump related booths here, it’s not just games but everything you can imagine really and some of the booths are quite elaborate in design. This weekend I’m learning a lot about being a booth host.
Fujikawa: It goes without saying but Jump fans are out in full force this weekend, you can feel the enthusiasm in every corner of the venue.
Hamasaki: There are so many popular booths here so, to be honest, I was expecting there to be times where the Jumputi booth felt a bit lonely. But I was surprised, there have been loads of people coming to visit us. We ended up with lots of people lining up to check it out. I’ve been very happy to see so many fans having fun and taking pictures.
Q: What kind of people have you had visiting the booth?
Fujikawa: Before the event, we were mostly expecting hardcore Jumputi fans to come and visit us but we’ve actually had lots of people coming to visit who have never played the game before.
People were drawn over because they love Jump, so even though it’s their first time playing Jumputi, we’ve had a lot of positive interactions with these first-timers. Probably partially due to the Large monitors we set the game up on, it’s easier for people to jump in and play this way.
Q: As a festival of popular Jump characters gathering together all in one place, Jump Festa and Jumputi feel like they go hand in hand don’t they?
Fujikawa: Absolutely. At the entrance to the venue, there is a collection of illustrations from so many different Jump series and we’ve set up an all-star lineup of our own on the spot-the-mistakes exhibit. A character showcase like this has a lot of appeal, I think that’s a strength which is unique to Jumputi Heroes.
Hamasaki: At Jump Festa, I think it’s common for the focus to be on currently running series and series that we will see more from in the future. I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say “I couldn’t find this character or series anywhere else but I found them at the Jumputi booth!”. I think we’ve made something that long-time Jump fans can enjoy.
Q: What were some of the key points you focused on regarding the content of this year’s exhibition?
Hamasaki: We planned the booth with the aim of giving visitors the same experience as in the game.
In the game, you first play the game to obtain rubies, gacha tickets and other items. Then you start collecting characters by playing events and rolling the gacha. Finally, your progress throughout your gameplay will be converted to My Ship points which will allow you to level up and upgrade your ship over time. At the booth, visitors will be able to play the game first, then try the gacha, and finally take a commemorative photo on the Ship.
Also, in Jumputi, users often record screenshots of the growth of their own ships and their favourite characters on board and publish them on social media, so we wanted visitors to be able to come on board with their heroes!
Fujikawa: Yes, we really wanted visitors of the exhibition to experience the real Jumputi.
Hamasaki: There was also a lot of discussion about the design of the booth, initially opinions were divided on whether to unify everything with the signature color of Jump, which is Red, or to use Red, Yellow, Green & Blue as they are the colors of the 4 types used in Jumputi.
In the end we decided to use red as the base for large portions of the booth and to use all 4 colors on the main signboard to make it feel like something you would see in an issue of Jump.
Initially, we also had more pictures from the manga on the exterior walls of the booth but, as there are many booths with similar designs already, we decided it would be better to feature character art from the game itself with the distinctive designs and flashy special animations that are unique to Jumputi.
Some of the visitors are fans of Jump but are unfamiliar with Jumputi so we wanted the booth design to be Jump-like whilst still showcasing the best parts of Jumputi.
Q: Jumputi is known for having a large number of characters and series from Jump, is there any chance you could tells us about the development of characters and series to be added in the future?
Fujikawa: Well, we recently announced that “Me & Roboco” by Shuhei Miyazaki will be added next month. Mr. Miyazaki is a very enthusiastic fan of Jumputi and he said “You absolutely have to add Roboco!”. We decided to add the series but it’s the first time we’ve added such a recent series to Jumputi.
Fujikawa: We’ve already let the players know to expect Roboco next month, but in addition to Me & Roboco, we have decided to add another series to the game which is currently being run in Weekly Shonen Jump.
Q: So this other series hasn’t been announced yet?
Fujikawa: As you might expect, I can’t tell you about that just yet…(wry smile). What I can tell you however, is that we plan for this series to debut in it’s own Feature Festival. Please look forward to it.
Q: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say to the fans of Jumputi?
Hamasaki: For myself, this is the first offline event I’ve experienced since joining the Jumputi team and I was nervous about how it would go, but it was refreshing to hear firsthand how people are actually playing the game. We also see people taking photos of the characters on the booth displays and the novelties they got from the gacha. If you look on social networking sites, you’ll see the photos and posts saying things like “I found this character!” or “I beat the spot-the-mistake game!”. I’m glad that we did it because people are enjoying it more than I expected.
As someone whose role at the company focuses on the player’s entertainment, I wanted people to feel the ‘fun’ and ‘excitement’ of Jumputi and I feel that we were able to provide that this time.
We are currently working on various things for the 5th anniversary of Jumputi and we will continue to do our best so that users can still enjoy the game even after the 5th anniversary, so please continue to support us in the future.
Fujikawa: What Jumputi has always valued since it’s release, has been close communication with our players. We are aware that this area is lacking a lot at the moment. It is difficult to conduct official live streams frequently in the current climate, which is one way we would communicate with users in the past. We have been looking for more opportunities to communicate with the fans recently. In fact, we have wanted to hold offline events for several years now but despite discussions on the matter being quite far along, we had to abandon the idea due to the current situation.
It’s frustrating that we can’t communicate as closely as we used to, but Shueisha offered us the opportunity to take part in Jump Festa and, even if just a little, we thought it would be a chance for us to provide a place for users to communicate with us, so we decided to hold our first exhibition here.
Although I wasn’t personally able to have a face to face with everyone myself, I was able to see with my own eyes how everyone was doing and hear their passionate voices via the staff in charge.
Despite the current circumstances, we would like to get even closer to our users for the 5th anniversary, so please continue to support Jumputi Heroes.
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