Posts

Live Gig at The Harvard Club of Japan, Wed. March 26th!

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I've given a number of talks and interviews on Japanese pop culture over the years but this one will be different: a look at the industry from the inside, via the artists and producers I now know well. Things have changed and are changing fast, my friends. Register for great convo and catering here: https://hcjapan.clubs.harvard.edu/article.html?aid=599   photo: Timothy Scott Ralston I'm honored to be joining Harvard Club of Japan on behalf of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for this special evening Wednesday March 26th with some of those industry professionals on hand. From my book, JAPANAMERICA. "The value of Japan's pop culture exports anime and manga now rivals that of Japan's steel and semiconductor industries, making it the centerpiece of recent government meetings. Overseas sales of anime have grown exponentially, its market size more than doubling over the past decade. Major funds like Blackstone and Mizuho are now investing in ...
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NPR interview on "Hikikomori," Japan's socially withdrawn youth

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I was interviewed by National Public Radio for their excellent segment on extreme social withdrawal in Japan (called "Hikikomori") now airing across the US and online here .  Extreme social withdrawal was first diagnosed in Japan in the late 1990s and I wrote about it most recently in this Op-Ed essay for The New York Times . The pathology is now spreading worldwide, with Hikikomori cases spiking in other regions of Asia, the Americas and Europe.    Digital dependency is identified as both a symptom and cause of self-isolation. I shudder to imagine the coming impact of AI distractions like ChatGPT as they become increasingly advanced and accessible--especially to those whose IRL interactions have already been diminished by the pandemic years.  In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a groundbreaking book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death." And all he was talking about was television.
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Publishing in Japan: Live Panel at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan Dec. 18th / *Live Stream on Zoom

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Can foreign authors succeed in Japan? Of course. But how? I'm joining bestselling award-winning author Robert Whiting ("Tokyo Underworld," "You Gotta Have Wa"), veteran KADOKAWA editors Satoshi Gunji (P.E.N. Japan) and Tetsuya Sugahara, and Japan UNI Agency president Miko Yamanouchi to explain.    If you're in Tokyo, please join us live at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Wednesday December 18th at 6pm JST. *Owing to demand, the event will now be live streamed via Zoom if you register here . Issues of the latest English and Japanese-language editions of "MONKEY: New Writing from Japan," the finest magazine of Japanese stories, poetry, essays and visual art will be on sale at the venue, thanks to our partners and pals at SWITCH .
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Japan's Literary Boom! Join me for our MONKEY: New Writing from Japan event, Dec. 3/4

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 Japanese lit is lit! Happy December, friends! I hope you'll join me live THIS Tues Dec 3 6pm EST / Wed Dec 4 8am JST for a totally FREE online event to launch "Monkey New Writing from Japan" Vol: 5, the Creatures Issue! Register online in a New York minute here .  MONKEY is the only annual English-language magazine of excellent Japanese contemporary and classical writing, from short stories to poetry, haiku, tanka, manga and Noh--all brilliantly illustrated! I'll be joined by Akutagawa prize-winning author Tomoka Shibasaki (A Hundred Years and a Day), poet/translator Leo Elizabeth Takada (Perfect Days), and MONKEY co-founding editor and multiple award-winning translator Motoyuki Shibata. We're gratefully hosted by Japan Society of Boston and generously sponsored by The Yanai Foundation .  We'll have a bilingual reading with Shibasaki, a chat about literary translation and a poetry reading with Takada, and the sheer brilliance and wisdom of Shibata. Our show t...
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Guest speaking for "The Nation Travels: Japan 2024"

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I kept a stack of well-thumbed issues of The Nation Magazine in my New York apartment so it was an honor to host their first-ever Japan Tour these pasts two weeks along with Pico Iyer and other accomplished Japan-based authors, journalists and scholars.   We addressed a wide range of topics, from the aging society and shrinking population to the state of Japan's economy, politics (in the middle of LDP elections, no less), environmental policy, LGBTQ legislation, burakumin culture, spirituality and folklore (yokai and yurei included) and, of course, manga and anime. The tour hit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Koyasan, Nara and Hiroshima. It was a proverbial tour de force for a great American magazine.    
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New series of JAPANAMERICA-themed talks for US universities via WorldStrides

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I’ve been doing a series of JAPANAMERICA-themed talks in Tokyo via the generous and uber-competent WorldStrides agency for US universities including The University of Wisconsin , Vanderbilt University and DePaul University . The discussions have been wide-ranging and fascinating (I'm learning a lot myself!) and I am grateful for the enthusiastic student-professor audiences and the sterling support from the team at WorldStrides. Highly recommended.      
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Latest NHK interview: How Japanese arcades are invading the US

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I returned to NHK for an interview on the explosive growth of Japanese arcade games in the US--specifically the "UFO Catcher/Crane Games" as they're known in Japan, and more aggressively in the US: "Claw Machines." Round One and Genda are investing heavily in the US market, opening bricks-and-mortar venues in targeted US regions (like Vegas). The driver? Character goods based on manga and anime characters, of course.  Got a little vociferous on this one. More of my interview at NHK .     
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