japanamerica

In US Here : [Yoshi Domoto - Executive Director, Japan-America Society of Georgia ] " Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. " by Roland Kelts Roland Kelts visited Kennesaw State University in March 2010 for a lecture event, which was organized by KSU's Dr. Edward Chan and Atsuo Nishikata , the chair of the Japan-America Society of Georgia's Young Professionals group. The JASG was a promotional partner of the event and many of our members enjoyed the lecture very much. Roland Kelts has both Japanese and American ancestry like myself, and I was particularly interested in his views of the relationship between Japanese and American pop culture. The book gave me a better understanding of how Japanese popular culture developed to what it is today and how it has spread across the world. Although Japan is still a huge contributor to the world economy, its cultural influence, especially its pop culture, may now be more influential. Japanese pop culture ...

More @ Yomiuri Peace out.

Ishihara's big bill Last Friday, after ramming through Bill 156 —the so-called “non-existent youth bill” targeting manga and anime imagery while exempting live action photography and video, not to mention live human beings who actually possess child pornography—Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, the former taboo-busting novelist turned moralist politico, claimed in his monthly press conference that Japan had become “too uninhibited” compared with “Western societies,” and added that readers of offending manga had “warped DNA.” The subsequent decision by ten top manga publishers to boycott next year’s Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) , slated for March 24-27, amounts to an unusual act of corporate protest in normally conflict-shy Japan, prompting Japan’s otherwise reticent Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, to post his first message under his own name, pleading for both sides to find a resolution. TAF 2011: ripe for China? No wonder: reports out of this year’s TAF were dominated by the ...

Aunt Reiko, Uncle Iwane and me in Tokyo, 2010

They are not your average train ticket inspectors. Picture a bevy of young ladies dressed in flouncy blue and white dresses, accessorised with over-the-knee socks, pretty hair bows and undimmable million-watt smiles. Welcome to Japan’s latest eyebrow-raising innovation – a “maid café” train where passengers are “served” by a clutch of pretty all-singing, all-dancing and all-adoring female train staff. The popularity of Japanese maid cafés has been well documented over the past decade: primarily located in Tokyo’s subculture hubs such as Akihabara and Ikebukuro, they involve young women in maid outfits (often dubbed modern day geisha) innocently serving tea and cakes to manga and anime loving customers. Last weekend, the Seibu Railway Group installed a “maid café” on board its limited express Red Arrow train operating between Ikebukuro and Chichibu, a stretch of track renowned as home to a number of high-profile animation companies. Nine maids recruited from Akihabara’s maid café distri...

Earlier today in Tokyo, the Metropolitan Assembly passed the government's revised bill to amend the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance--otherwise known as the "non-existent youth" bill, a story I wrote about late last month , and also last spring , when the revised bill was first submitted for approval and was flatly rejected. While restrictions on sexually stimulating and/or harmful depictions have long been in place, the new revisions specifically target "manga and anime," while exempting real-life photography (explain that one), and focus on materials that may be "disrupting of social order"--much like Ishihara's own taboo-breaking novels and plays, and his more recent nationalist, racist and homophobic blather . In objection, ten major manga publishers--Kadokawa Shoten, Shueisha, Kodansha, Akita Shoten, Hakusensha, Shogakukan, Shonen Gahousha, Shinchosa, Futubasha and LEED--have vowed to pull their wares from the 2011 Tokyo International Anim...

My radio chat on the movie and Haruki with Lisa Mullins is here .

Felipe Smith’s is an exceptional story, to be sure, as is the story of Peepo Choo itself—a US-Japan culture clash comedy that both mocks and celebrates fans of comics and manga, illustrated in riveting and sometimes surrealistically violent detail. His achievement would seem many a foreign manga fan’s dream. But the artist remains frustrated by the us-vs-them mentality pervading the manga industry in Japan and overseas . “We have to get beyond these silly classifications of manga vs. comics and whatever,” he says. Smith even objects to English speakers using the term ‘manga.’ “There’s a word for them in English—‘comics.’ Just call them comics." Stu Levy of TokyoPop cites a personal favorite of his, the manga Zombie Hunter , authored by a Japanese, Kazumasa Hirai, and illustrated by a Korean, Kyung-Il Yang. “Does that qualify as manga?” he asks. “These distinctions are like splitting hairs. In Japan, ‘manga’ as a word is simply the term for ‘comics,’ but overseas, manga has com...

Japan may be the first nation to opt for a no growth, steady state economy. Roland Kelts “what’s wrong with being the world’s no. 2?” So said Renhō, the single-monikered and, for a Japanese politician, unusually single-minded 42-year-old female member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, tapped by Prime Minister Naoto Kan this summer to serve as minister of administrative reform (aka, chief budget-slasher). Renhō uttered the question during a debate late last year on financing a next-generation supercomputer project powerful enough to compete with the US, but her plaintive question resonated far beyond the walls of Japan’s Upper House chamber. By the middle of this year, as the stack of urgent reports concerning Japan’s stagnant economy, political paralyses, fading competitiveness, so-called Galápagos syndrome isolationism, emerging social strains amid widening income gaps, diminished labor pools and a rapidly aging population piled high, Renhō’s rhetorical query seemed to cut to t...

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN: READINGS AND TALKS MOTOYUKI SHIBATA Shibata, one of Japan’s leading translators of contemporary American literature, works at the University of Tokyo, but he’s making two appearances in New York City this week. On Dec. 7 at 6:30, he talks about the art of translation with Paul Auster at the Asia Society. (725 Park Ave., at 70th St. 212-288-6400.) On Dec. 9 at 6, he joins the New York writer Barry Yourgrau for a bilingual reading from Yourgrau’s new book of stories, “Gangster Fables,” which was just published in Japan. (Kinokuniya Bookstore, 1073 Sixth Ave., between 40th and 41st Sts. 212-869-1700.) Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/readings/motoyuki-shibata-various-locations-generic-no-phone#ixzz17QkcGPA1

Vast thanks to Vince Shortino of Crunchyroll Japan for the props in selecting Japanamerica as a "favorite book of 2010" for this month's Buaiso magazine (story online here ). Japanamerica, the Japanese edition is translated by Iyasu Nagata and was first published by Random House Kodansha, now Takeda Random House :

My latest for Adbusters is out:

Two of my conversations with Haruki are out now in a comprehensive collection just published in Japan, a week before the release of Anh Hung Tran's film version of Noruwei no Mori / Norwegian Wood . Here are some legal teasers:

Issue #34 of Paper Sky is out today, featuring a striking range of photos and photographers from New York City, plus my latest column on travel, virtual vs. physical. More here .

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / Tokyo govt's Barely-Offensive Content Act, Version 2.0 Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri The Tokyo metropolitan government's bungled proposal earlier in the year to broaden its powers of censorship over manga and anime it deemed "harmful to minors" has been occasionally addressed in this column. The fuss started back in March, when a formal protest by manga artist luminaries was followed by similar objections from IT giants Google, Rakuten and others. By June, the legislation was flatly rejected, but not without a vow from Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara to revamp and try to push it through again this autumn. The controversial Ishihara has his supporters and detractors. But like him or not, in this instance, there is no denying he is a man of his word. Now we have Version 2 of the "nonexistent youth bill," so-called because of its opaque language promising to monitor depictions of fictional characters go...

'SHELLY,' Jonathan Sherr and I discuss Katsuhiro Otomo's manga and anime epic, Akira , on NHK's "Japan Unlocked" broadcast today (Thursday) and tomorrow. The show will be streamed online six times here , once every four hours starting at 6:30 p.m. EST/ 3:30 p.m. PST / 11:30 p.m. GMT on Thursday, November 25--beginning at 8:30 a.m. Friday, November 26, JST. I can't vouch for the contents because I can't recall what I said and haven't seen the edited version. But like most recordings, it will be aired and readily available online anyway. Apologies in advance.

The sight of Pikachu, Pokemon's electrifying yellow mouse mascot, soaring above Manhattan five years ago in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was one of the catalysts for writing Japanamerica . Aside from Independence Day on July 4, Thanksgiving is among the most American of holidays celebrated in the United States--allegedly originating in a feast shared by Native Americans and Pilgrims to mark a rich harvest--and the Macy's Parade is somewhat akin to processions of floats in Japanese matsuri (festivals), albeit a decidedly secular version, branded by a major department store for over eight decades. Seeing Pikachu's balloon likeness alongside American stalwarts from my childhood like Snoopy, Mickey, Bullwinkle and others seemed a striking statement of just how deeply Japanese animation and its iconic character designs had penetrated so-called 'mainstream' American sensibilities. A few months ago in New York, I read in the New Yo rk Times's Art Bea...

Japan scholar, author, and critic of American Imperialism, Chalmers Johnson, died on Saturday, November 20, 2010. To those of us who read and write about Japan--and America--his work remains essential. Here's a solid account of his life and writing by John Nichols of The Nation , posted here at AlterNet.org. : Chalmers Johnson, Visionary Scholar on Empire and Decline of America Passes Away By John Nichols, The Nation Posted on November 22, 2010, Printed on November 23, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/148952/ With one word, "blowback," Chalmers Johnson explained the folly of empire in the modern age. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September11, 2001, true American patriots—as opposed to the jingoists and profiteers whose madness and greed would steer a republic to ruin—needed a new language for a new age. They got it from Johnson. His 2000 book, Blowback,: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Macmillan) , he took an old espionage term—which refer...

Opinion Obama in Japan: what a difference a bad year makes Since the US president met with his Japanese counterpart last year, Obama has been belittled by voters, and Japan has been humiliated by its neighbors. Today, Japan and America need each other badly, and maybe more than ever. By Roland Kelts / November 12, 2010 Tokyo President Obama arrived in Tokyo today, exactly one year to the day of his first official trip to Japan as commander-in-chief. He is here to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Yokohama, but his itinerary includes a brief “personal” excursion to the Great Buddha, ...