japanamerica

The cosplayers, fans, artists and academics gleefully thronging the halls of the Hynes Convention Center earlier this month at “Anime Boston,” a three-day convention, seemed to know they were breaking attendance records even before the final tally of 17,236 was announced to prove it. Their enthusiasm and spirited camaraderie were palpable. Boston’s annual celebration of Japanese popular culture is listed among the top ten North American anime conventions by size; it is the largest of its kind in New England, where I spent most of my childhood. But just before my Saturday presentation and book-signing, another crowd, albeit more casually dressed, had amassed along the same street less than a block away for a celebration far less culturally rooted, but arguably just as entertaining and potentially transformative. The masses gathering outside of Boston’s Apple Store were awaiting the release of the company’s latest device, the much-hyped iPad. The coincidence was rich. While thousands

On Exhibit Plan Your Visit Calendar Science Education Kids & Families News Shop Membership Tickets Author of Japanamerica Discusses Anime and American Pop Culture Friday, April 09 On April 18, Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. , will discuss the influence of anime on American pop culture at the Museum’s Global Weekends: Bollywood and Anime in America . Kelts recently offered a few thoughts on the subject. In your book, you write that “Battle of the Planets” was many Americans’ “first taste of Japanese pop.” How did this American version of a Japanese series even come about? I open Japanamerica with that story because it embodies so much of what my book is about—an unlikely convergence of cultures across thousands of miles and vast cultural differences. In 1977, NBC uber-producer Sandy Frank (“Name That Tune , ” “ Lassie”) brought an obscure Japanese animated series, originally called Gatchaman , to American TV because he loved it,

@ T-MODE in the Hilton Alexandria Old Town , Alexandria, VA (near DC), April 16 & 17. Roland Nozomu Kelts is a half-Japanese American writer, editor and lecturer who divides his time between New York and Tokyo and publishes in both English and Japanese. He is the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US . He is also a lecturer at the University of Tokyo, a contributing editor and writer for Adbusters magazine and A Public Space literary journal, and a columnist for The Daily Yomiuri , Japan’s largest daily newspaper. He is published regularly in Psychology Today , Vogue Japan , The New York Daily News , and other publications, and his essays and stories can be found in the books A Wild Haruki Chase , Gamers , Kuhaku , Playboy’s College Fiction , Art Space Tokyo , Zoetrope and others. He is the Editor in Chief of the Anime Masterpieces screening and discussion series, and his forthcoming novel is called Access .

what race are they? Director M. Night Shyamalan's apparent decision to cast Caucasian actors to play the parts of non-white characters for his adaptation of the anime, Avatar: The Last Airbender , has stirred a proverbial hornet's nest of protest and frustration online . At heart is a question often asked of me while I'm on tour for Japanamerica : Why do so many characters in Japanese art forms--anime and manga--appear to be ethnically Western? The short answer is thanks to Frederik L. Schodt, author of Dreamland Japan , who notes that Western notions of beauty began to influence Japanese artists as early as the Meiji restoration (late 19th C). It's also true, as Schodt notes, that the big saucer eyes of Western-looking characters made it easier for artists to express the nuances of deep emotion. And Osamu Tezuka, the father of modern Japanese comics and animation, was particularly keen to create characters that were 'stateless'--appealing to a global audience.