ABLUR is stepping onto the international stage of manga and anime. Carpenstreet’s 3D background tool ABLUR and 3D asset platform ACON have officially supported the 6th International Manga Anime Festival Reiwa Toshima, better known as IMART 2025, held on November 12 in Tokyo. As Japan’s leading business conference focused on manga IP, cross-media adaptation, and global expansion, IMART 2025 provided the perfect backdrop for ABLUR’s mission: giving creators faster, smarter tools for building the worlds behind their stories.
What Is IMART 2025? Japan’s Premier Manga and Anime Industry Conference
IMART 2025, officially the 6th International Manga Anime Festival Reiwa Toshima, is a business-focused conference where creators, publishers, production companies, and overseas partners gather around manga and anime IP. Rather than being a fan convention, it functions as a professional hub: a place to talk strategy, production workflows, and international licensing.
The 2025 edition, held on November 12 in Toshima, Japan, featured sessions on topics such as Webtoon strategies, cross-border IP development, and how manga properties can expand into anime, live-action, and global markets. It offered a rare opportunity for people across the value chain—artists, editors, producers, and licensees—to discuss both the “now” and “next” of the industry in the same room.
The event is organized by the MANGA General Research Institute, which also plans to host “IMART 2026 Spring Global Business Matching” from March 24 to 27, 2026. That upcoming initiative will focus even more strongly on concrete business opportunities such as co-productions, platform partnerships, and international licensing deals.
Why ABLUR Chose to Support IMART 2025
Carpenstreet, the company behind ABLUR and ACON, positions itself as a provider of next-generation 3D solutions for creators. By sponsoring IMART 2025, ABLUR is aligning directly with an event whose core mission is to improve how manga, anime, and Webtoon are created and distributed on a global scale.
In Japan, ABLUR collaborates with pixiv to promote manga-making workflows that use 3D backgrounds, helping artists integrate 3D assets into their pages more easily. In Korea, ACON’s 3D asset platform is already deeply rooted in the Webtoon industry, supporting both production studios and educational programs. Based on these experiences, Carpenstreet’s decision to support IMART 2025 reflects a simple principle: if creators are going to discuss the future of manga and anime production, ABLUR wants to be part of the solution on the table.
By being present in this ecosystem—alongside publishers, studios, and platforms—ABLUR reinforces its commitment to improving the working environment of creators, not just selling them a product.
Inside ABLUR: 3D Backgrounds Without the 3D Headache
ABLUR is a 3D software tool developed specifically for background creation in manga and comics. Its goal is straightforward: let artists enjoy the benefits of 3D without needing deep 3D modeling expertise.
With ABLUR, creators can load existing 3D assets into an intuitive interface, adjust composition, camera angles, and lighting, then export the result as a 2D background optimized for manga panels. According to the company, using ABLUR can cut background production time by up to 90%, especially for complex environments like cityscapes, interiors, or recurring locations that would otherwise require hours of drafting and inking.
At present, ABLUR is offered in Japanese, with full-scale support and education programs rolling out in the domestic market. Training initiatives and collaborations with platforms like pixiv help lower the barrier for traditional 2D artists who are curious about 3D but don’t know where to begin.
Official site: https://ablur.jp/
ACON: A 3D Asset Platform Powering Webtoon Studios Worldwide
ACON is Carpenstreet’s 3D asset platform, providing thousands of high-quality 3D models tailored for manga, illustration, and Webtoon production. Where ABLUR focuses on how creators build and export backgrounds, ACON focuses on what they can build with: buildings, props, interiors, vehicles, and more.
ACON is already used by creators in over 150 countries. In Korea, where full-color, weekly Webtoon releases are the norm, ACON has become part of the production infrastructure. Major Webtoon studios and academies rely on its assets to keep up with demanding schedules, reduce repetitive layout work, and maintain consistent quality across long-running series. Today, ACON is described as a standard service used by around 90% of the industry there.
For Japanese creators—and for international artists watching the Webtoon space—ACON serves as a practical answer to a common problem: how to build rich, detailed worlds quickly enough to meet modern deadlines.
Official site: https://www.acon3d.com/ja/intro
From Japan to Korea and Beyond: A Shared Production Ecosystem
One of the interesting threads connecting IMART 2025, ABLUR, and ACON is the idea of a shared production ecosystem across Japan and Korea.
In Japan, ABLUR supports manga creators by giving them an easier on-ramp to 3D backgrounds, in partnership with platforms like pixiv and through local education initiatives. In Korea, ACON underpins a Webtoon environment where full-color weekly updates demand efficient 3D workflows, and has grown into a de facto standard among studios and training programs.
By sponsoring IMART 2025, Carpenstreet is effectively tying these threads together at a venue where manga publishers, anime studios, and global licensees meet. The message is clear: whether it’s Japanese black-and-white manga pages or Korean vertical-scroll Webtoon, creators everywhere are facing similar challenges—tight schedules, complex backgrounds, and high expectations for visual quality. And ABLUR and ACON aim to be the tools that help, regardless of the format.
Looking Ahead to IMART 2026 Spring and the Future of Creator Tools
The story doesn’t end with this year’s conference. The organizers of IMART are already preparing IMART 2026 Spring Global Business Matching, scheduled for March 24–27, 2026. While IMART 2025 focused on discussion and presentations, the 2026 spring event will dive deeper into concrete business opportunities: partnership talks, licensing negotiations, and collaboration matching between international publishers, platforms, production companies, and overseas licensees.
For companies like Carpenstreet, this opens the door to present 3D tools like ABLUR as part of production pipelines for international co-productions, connect ACON’s asset ecosystem with more studios, schools, and platforms worldwide, and help standardize efficient, sustainable workflows across the manga, anime, and Webtoon industries.
For creators and industry watchers, the key takeaway is that the tools used to build manga and Webtoon are becoming more global and more connected. ABLUR’s sponsorship of IMART 2025 is one sign that infrastructure players are stepping into the spotlight alongside IP owners and streaming platforms.
In short: if you’re interested in where manga and Webtoon production is heading next, keep an eye on IMART’s upcoming Global Business Matching event and on tools like ABLUR and ACON. They’re not just add-ons to the workflow anymore — they’re becoming part of the shared infrastructure that lets creators work faster, smarter, and on a more international scale.
IMART 2025: https://imart.tokyo/
IMART 2026 Spring Global Business Matching: https://imart.tokyo/global-business-matching/
ABLUR official site: https://ablur.jp/
ACON official site: https://www.acon3d.com/ja/intro
Carpenstreet official X: @ablur_jp
Carpenstreet official blog: https://note.com/ablur_japan
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