Emirati Mo Abedin Announces First Middle Eastern Anime and Manga Title Raiiken

Our friend and cohort in the Middle East, Mo Abedin, is incredibly industrious and ambitious. I've been following him, and chatting with him, through the development of his Foo Dog brand, his MEGA DIY figures and the Mercury sculpture pictured below.

Mo Abedin's Mercury sculpture, available on our Super Series Sundays page

But Mo cannot be easily compartmentalized into just the "toy maker" category... he recently made the rounds at the impressively large and well-attended Middle East Film and Comic Con (which I hope to attend one day) promoting his upcoming project Raiiken, which will be a manga and anime export which he intends to release in Japan. Below is a great video interview detailing the Raiiken concept and Mo's long history with imported Japanese anime properties:






I have a great respect for Mo, who seems to be gracefully defying the American perception of Middle Eastern youth culture... if you listen to Mo speak about his childhood, you realize that our perception of the Middle East might be, shall we say, skewed.

I blame the American media, and I feel it's only fitting that Mo is pursuing the development of a new media property which will turn our ill-conceived perceptions upside-down.

He's held huge toy show in malls, produced his own lines of toys and is obviously well-connected. I've seen pictures of him talking art with sheikhs! And here I struggle to get third-tier journalists at our free daily papers to mention my shop...


If you want to follow Mo, his Facebook page is here and his Twitter is here. Big things coming from this guy. Watch him.

 - Benny Kline