japanamerica in Japan



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On the newly legal 'hentai' erotic, pornographic manga/anime site, FAKKU, for The Japan Times

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Finding opportunities overseas with the ‘art of hentai’ By ROLAND KELTS When Jacob Grady began pirating anime and manga online eight years ago, he was still in college. He took out student loans to pay the server bills, and figured that if he ever made enough money from the site to purchase a round-trip flight to Japan, the effort and expense would be worth it. Like many Americans, he got hooked on Japanese pop culture as a kid through the Cartoon Network’s action-oriented programming block called “Toonami” (“cartoon tsunami”). He would race home from school to catch the latest episodes of “Dragonball Z” and “Gundam Wing.” But Grady was not pirating anime adventure series or kids’ shows like “Pokemon.” The content on his site was what most non-Japanese call “ hentai ” (abnormal, perverted), and in Japan is still largely known as ero-manga, ero-anime, or just porno. “At some point, going through puberty and exploring the Internet for the first time, I came across hentai,...
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Manga & anime in Japan's Heisei era (1989 - 2019)

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Defining the Heisei Era: When anime and manga went global The Heisei Era commenced after two gods fell in rapid succession. The first, Emperor Hirohito, was no longer officially a god, having repudiated his quasi-divine status under the terms of Japan’s surrender in World War II, but he remained god-like in stature. His January death in 1989 at age 87 signaled the end of a Showa past both turbulent and glorious. It drew global attention from the world’s leaders and media, but had been widely anticipated in Japan. The other fell just one month later, in February, and his death shocked the nation. Osamu Tezuka, the beloved “god of manga,” died of stomach cancer at the age of 60. News of his declining health had been kept secret, as was then customary in Japan. Tezuka was a prolific workaholic and omnipresent television personality. He was also a licensed physician. Almost no one expected his sudden passing. The two deaths would augur a new life for Japan’s twin pop cultu...
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