Welcome back to my rabbit hole diving as I research more about KoiChoco. Last time, I began looking for the origin point of where the Anime was announced and found a mysterious Twitter account. You can read Part I here (and I would recommend it since this builds off of that). In this post, I'll be further following where that Twitter account lead me.
About That Twitter Account
I was in luck. ANX Oota!!! Who’s that, you may ask?
Kyouko Oota, an Aniplex employee with the current official title of "Publicity Producer." On MAL, she was classified as part of the main staff for a variety of different series (including KoiChoco), but on AniDB, she came across as more of an external hire - Anime Production (Minor) gave that impression. I wasn't able to find a massive amount of a personal social media presence from her, so I'll just drop her translated NicoVideo Feed here instead. She has a few interviews and some posts about clients there, but those interviews seem to not be translated into English, so anyone that can create a transcript, have at it.
It looks like it wasn't until 2016's Sangatsu no Lion (March Comes Like a Lion) before she was officially brought on as an Assistant Producer on a production, but she's been active in the industry since at least 2012. KoiChoco was one of the first projects she was associated with. The other 3 were from that same year but this was the only one that I've personally seen, so I don't know the quality of the other works. That would explain why the Twitter account was setup as late as it was and could be why it lasted for as long as it did. One's first major career role is often their most important.
About the Publicity Producer Role
I wasn't able to find a definitive answer of their full duties (and every studio and production house has different names for similar or same positions), so I'll make a rough assumption: this role currently is most likely the equivalent of a Marketing Manager here in the states. Marketing Managers typically handle the budgets for promotional materials (such as flyers, giveaways, television ads and other ways to get the public interested), set up guidelines for making their clients and products look the best they can, and handle public opinion when mistakes are made that could harm the brand. I've never done professional marketing in any form; you can find out further information here instead.
Oota-San’s Teammates
Whenever Oota-san was brought on to the Anime, she was just labeled as Publicity but not the Publicity Producer / Manager. That meant that there were other people above her; having a single person promote a property sounds like a recipe for failure, especially when the games and Anime of such were slated to be promoted at a large convention. She was a part of the staff at ACE 2012 (according to the official Twitter) but using this guide and going through the ending credits, I was able to find 宣伝 - Senden (translates to Propaganda) - (see the center section in the image below), the section where all of the main Marketing credits were.
Snapshot of the Episode 4 ending credits scene
Taken from the AniDB link from at the beginning of this search, I found 太田今日子 (Oota-san's full name in Kanji) towards the bottom of this list, further solidifying my assumption that she was a "last minute" hire, or at the very least one of the lower rungs of that marketing team. I could be completely off, but I believe that credits in Japanese media are listed based on hierarchy of roles.
Now comes the fun part: figuring out who all was on that team. Luckily, for me, KoiChoco's AniDB had those full credits translated. I'll just do a quick run through of the staff members listed (in order of appearance, from top to bottom):
- Jinguuji Manabu - Kanji: 神宮司学 (Company: Aniplex; Publicity Producer / Manager)
- Yaguchi Yasuyuki - Kanji: 矢口泰之 (Company: Kadokawa; Publicity) Side Note: This guy's credits are pretty fun; Oreimo, Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, and The Devil is a Part Timer all stood out to me
- Kitashima Mikio - Kanji: 北島幹雄 (Company: TBS; Publicity) Side Note: Shares many credits with the previous entry as the same position, just from a different company on the production committee
- Asada Seihiro - Kanji: 浅田成寛 (Company: Kadokawa; Publicity)
- Tanaka Mizuho - Kanji: 田中瑞穂 (Company: TBS; Publicity) Side Note: This person has been active for the longest of all of them, starting in at least 1996 with the most credits related to Anime I've seen
- Uemura Kaya - Kanji: 上村佳也 (Company: Lantis; Audio and Recording Producer) Side Note: This person seems to be no longer directly active in the Anime industry. KoiChoco was one of her final credits
What Happened to Kaya-san
When I saw that this person had mostly just vanished after 2012, I dug a bit further. I was curious about what happened to her, especially since her name and role stood out on this screen. She was at the very bottom, meaning that she was most likely the least important member on this list; my thought was more or less she may have been shamed into retiring through some kind of event. The rest of this is very speculative and only loosely backed up by online sources.
According to this, she was primarily involved with a variety of music projects in the gaming scene (and a small number of credits in Anime outside of the OSTs that were sold alongside blurays and other merchandise) with only a brief return in 2021 on the Destiny Child OST. According to the latter's credits, it can be assumed that she now works for SHIFT UP, the South Korean game developer behind Stellar Blade (and the mobile titles Destiny Child and Nikke); her position was labeled as Business Affairs and A&R, meaning that she was not just a regular employee but maybe some kind of higher management (Executive level is my guess; source). According to this (it's a fandom link, so take it with a heavy grain of salt), that studio was formed in 2013 by one of the artists for the Magna Carta game series (in which Kaya-san was the A&R Director for at least the sequel of, meaning that sometime between KoiChoco's release and 2021, she probably met and worked with him in some capacity, leading to why there's such a large gap between credits). I could see leaving Japan to move to South Korea to work for a small startup being looked down upon in the early to mid-2010s. Now that the company is owned by Sony and has a much larger global footprint, I'd love to see further information about the staff and would not be surprised if my assumptions were correct (but also have a nasty beer set aside just for the moment that this all comes crashing down and I'm left depressed). 🍻
Bonus: The Destiny Child OST is Very 🔥
If you enjoyed this style of content, feel free to reply down below, reblog and vote on it. I'm not fully sure how far I'll go with this or what the next part will be like, but welcome to my brain. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night.