japanamerica

Audio HERE

Brief clip of a video interview that was aired earlier this month on the big screens @ Japan Day in Central Park, NYC , the same day I was giving a talk in a Tokyo monolith , else I'd have been in the park in my house of flesh. The pretty one in pink flouncing about Manhattan's late winter glums is Misako Aoki, one of Japan's three official kawaii taishi (ambassadors of cute), referenced in columns and ruminations below, and not always positively. The full interview was shot blocks from my home in Soho at Hiroko's Place , a becalming little Japanese cafe--and a bit of a refuge in my life this past spring. Appropriately, the topic at hand is the concept of 'kawaii.' Tote bag courtesy of Horibuchi-san and VIZ ; flesh courtesy of me.

Part II of Temple University Japan's "Politics of Pop Culture" conference takes place tomorrow, with a focus on gender. Anne Allison, Sharon Kinsella , David Slater and many other scholars will be speaking throughout the day. The full schedule is here . If you're in town, join us. I'm told the venue will be fully air-conditioned. Here are a couple of pics from Part I earlier this month: Frederik L. Schodt's capacious and authoritative keynote address (above). Me and Fred exchanging thoughts on our favorite topic--the impending apocalypse--while Otaku king Patrick Galbraith greets fans (below).

Via ANN & Asahi --("Are they talking about ghosts or something?"): The General Affairs Committee of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has voted down the bill to regulate sexualized depictions of "nonexistent youths." The bill would prohibit sexualized depictions of "nonexistent youths" — such as in manga, anime, games, and other materials — from being sold to minors. Committee members from the Democratic Party of Japan (the largest faction in the assembly), the Japanese Communist Party, and the Tokyo Seikatsusha Network party voted against the bill. According to the Asahi Shimbun paper, the bill also faces defeat before the entire assembly on Wednesday. The bill is supported by the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the second largest faction in the assembly and the party of Tokyo's current governor, Shintarō Ishihara. The LDP and its New Komeito Party ally introduced a second version of the bill that attempted to clarify its vague, convoluted la...

Tokyo sees rise in 'divorce ceremonies' As Japan's divorce rate soars, couples in Tokyo are ending their marriages with as much care as they began them. By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo Divorce ceremony planner Hiroki Terai with Daigo Teshima and his wife Saori Photo: SHIHO FUKADA The couple hold a hammer together to smash the ring to symbolise the end of their five-year marriage Photo: SHIHO FUKADA Saori Teshima had long dreamt of the moment. Standing nervously next to her smartly-suited partner in front of friends and loved ones, a sparkling ring appeared before her. But contrary to conventional wedding rules, the man at Saori's side did not slip the ring lovingly onto her left hand before sealing their union with a kiss. Instead, the pair were handed a hammer - which they held together as they proceeded to...

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / Soft power useful, but Japan needs to find smarter approach Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri "The Politics of Pop Culture" was the title and theme of an academic conference hosted by Temple University's Tokyo campus last weekend and featuring an international roster of scholars and authors. Topics included video games, otaku culture, anime and manga--and especially, the still nebulous concept of "soft power." Most participants were dubious about the idea at best, poking at the phrase all day until it practically deflated. (One Japanese professor went so far as to call it "rubbish.") Joseph S. Nye's original coinage in the late 1980s referred to the power of political persuasion derived from a culture's attractiveness to others. Nye has addressed this notion several times since then, notably in 2005, when he argued that American soft power was on the decline during the George W. Bush adminis...