japanamerica

for those among us who are blissfully bilingual ...

With DVD sales in the US tanking--and gloomy predictions of anime's future in America tied to recessionary prognostications--can the art form survive Hollywood's assault and actually become viable? This is a meditation on all that, tied to the extraordinary TEKKON KINKREET: THE MALAYSIA STAR

Japanamerica's Manga Diplomocy on NPR's ON THE MEDIA: NPR "On the Media"

Think about your Camry and "Ashita no Jo"--from NPR: NPR's "The World"

"[JAPANAMERICA is] by far the most interesting overview I've read on Japanese pop culture and I'd highly recommend it. The book offers so many fascinating tidbits that I finished it in a single sitting. Both newbies and hardcore otaku will get something out of it." -- read more at ANIMETIQUE

Upon returning to Tokyo this past autumn I was invited to an advance press screening of Shinji Aramaki's dazzling Appleseed: Ex Machina -- produced by John Woo, costumed selectively by Miuccia Prada, and scored by the re-grouped Yellow Magic Orchestra. I emerged from the cave of Toei's screening room into a bright Ginza afternoon and scratched some notes about the film's trio of female leads: Athena, Yoshino and the sleek, feather-banged warrior babe, Deunan. My notes were frenetically typed up that evening into the second column I submitted to my editors at the Yomiuri . Now I'm in a relatively quiet and peaceful Manhattan at the close of the US holiday season and on the cusp of the new year. Events in Pakistan at the end of the old one have rendered this column terribly dated--in every sense of the phrase. Ex Machina will be released in the US on DVD March 11.