Wasabi POP delivers fresh anime news, direct from Japan — in four languages.
We translate and re-frame anime, manga, music, events, and otaku-culture announcements from leading Japanese sources for an international audience: English, Spanish, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese.
Mission
Most Japanese anime news reaches international fans late, second-hand, or not at all. Anglophone outlets cover the same headline announcements; everything else stays trapped behind the language barrier.
Wasabi POP exists to close that gap. We surface what Japanese-language outlets are reporting — the staff additions, the studio shake-ups, the regional events, the music announcements — and rewrite each story for readers outside Japan. Not a translation. Not a press-release relay. A re-framed editorial article with the context an international fan actually wants.
What we cover
- News — industry moves, awards, business deals, controversies
- Anime — TV / film announcements, staff & cast, season news
- Manga — new serializations, sequels, volume releases
- Music — anime OP/ED reveals, soundtrack and artist news
- Events — AnimeJapan, conventions, theatrical events, exhibitions
- Merch — figures, blu-rays, collaborations, brand tie-ins
Editorial standards
Wasabi POP articles are not machine translations or wire-service copies. Every published article is editorially restructured around the original Japanese source, with verification.
- Source fidelity — We assert only what's in the source article we cite. No invented details, no speculation presented as fact.
- Verified attribution — Voice actor names, studio credits, and prior-work references are verified against authoritative sources (ANN encyclopedia, official site, Animate Times) before publishing.
- International context — Where relevant, we note streaming availability (Crunchyroll / Netflix / Disney+), English-language manga publishers, and prior Western-distributed work by the same staff.
- Honest hedging — When a name reading or detail is uncertain, we say so. We'd rather flag a guess than publish it with false confidence.
- AI in the loop — Compose, translation, and verification use large language models with explicit guardrails. Every published article has been validated against editorial rules before going live.
Editorial
Articles carry the Wasabi POP Editorial byline: they are researched and drafted by our news desk from primary Japanese sources, then validated against the standards above before publication.
Mirai Konishi is editor-in-chief and is accountable for what this site publishes — editorial policy, sourcing and verification rules, and corrections. A Japanese-born journalist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, he has worked in the entertainment industry for over 25 years. He has been the Los Angeles correspondent for CUT magazine since 1999 and writes a long-running Hollywood column for EIGA.COM, Japan's largest movie news site, and the column "Hollywood Now, Japan's Future" for Video Research's VR Digest plus. In Japanese he is credited as 小西未来. He has interviewed filmmakers including Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan. He joined the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2011 and votes for the Golden Globe Awards. He holds an MFA in filmmaking from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and a BA in English and American literature from Rikkyo University in Tokyo.
Wasabi POP is an independent publication of Origami Lab, Konishi's studio in Los Angeles. It is funded by advertising and takes no payment for coverage. Our full editorial policy sets out how we source and verify reporting, how we use AI, how we handle corrections, and who funds the site.
Follow us on X (formerly Twitter): @wasabipop.
Get in touch
For corrections, story tips, partnership inquiries, or press materials, use the contact page. We aim to respond within a few business days.