japanamerica

Author Roland Kelts is signing 'Japanamerica' at Otakon all weekend Roland Kelts, who is appearing on four panels during Otakon, will also be signing copies of his book, "Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.," throughout the weekend. One of Kelts' themes in this smart, zesty guide to the interface of Japanese and American pop is the twin-like connection of the cultures. His favorite metaphor is the Mobius strip, a twisting surface with one continuous side. In a 2007 epilogue Kelts asks readers to envision "the strip in motion -- whirling through the winds of the Pacific and DSL, cable, and satellite TV signals, crisscrossing the fifty states and beyond" to get "a clearer picture" of the phenomenon "tying the two countries ever closer together." Kelts told me earlier this week that when he was growing up in New England in the 1970s and 1980s, “Japan was anything but cool. It was not cool to tell my friends that m...

With Otakon , the East Coast's largest annual anime convention, merely a day away, here's the preliminary schedule for my panels: 7/29/2011 10:00 AM 11:00 AM - Japanamerica Book Intro & Background 7/29/2011 4:00 PM 5:00 PM - Japan's Apocalyptic Imagination 7/30/2011 12:00 PM 1:30 PM - Multi-Polar Pop Culture 7/31/2011 12:00 PM 1:30 PM - Japan's IP Challenge Copies of Japanamerica will be on sale throughout the convention, thanks to the largess of Jim Vowles, Connor Cochran and tireless publicist Siobhan Paganelli, and there will be at least two official book-signing / meet & greet sessions. Oh, and anime auteur Makoto Shinkai ( 5 CM Per Second ) will be on hand--worth admission alone, as they say. See you under the sun at Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

I asked ABC News correspondent Akiko Fujita to join me in the studio in Tokyo for my latest "Pacific Rim Diary" segment on The Madeleine Brand Show for KPCC/NPR . I talk about returning to a transformed Tokyo in May, and Akiko and I discuss how the US media misread parts of the story--and the Japanese themselves. You can hear it here . Website copy : It's been over three months since an earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tidal wave that nearly caused nuclear meltdown. American news teams had heavy coverage of the devastation and threat to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but according to Japanese-American author Roland Kelts, the U.S. media missed the point. Kelts joined us in the U.S. right after the disaster in Japan. Now he and ABC News correspondent Akiko Fujita explain from Tokyo.

My sister's boy, Argus, is blissfully unbeware of the attack frog--who himself appears unaware of attack. 'Kappa wha?' Wise choice. [Upstate NY, Summer 2011.]

Giving a presentation on Monday, July 25, at Meiji Daigaku. INFO here Lecturer: Roland Kelts Roland Kelts is a half-Japanese American writer, editor and lecturer who divides his time between New York and Tokyo. He is the author of < http://japanamericabook.com/ > Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and the forthcoming novel, Access. He has presented on contemporary Japanese culture worldwide and has taught at numerous universities in Japan and the US, including New York University and the University of Tokyo. His fiction and nonfiction appear in such publications as Zoetrope: All Story, Psychology Today, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Japan, Adbusters magazine, The Millions, The Japan Times, Animation Magazine, Bookforum, and The Village Voice. He is the Editor in Chief of the Anime Masterpieces screening and discussion program, the commentator for National Public Radio's series, "Pacific Rim Diary < http://www.scpr.org/programs/madele...

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / Can fansites help industry's digital survival? [From the Daily Yomiuri ] Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri Last summer, manga fans worldwide were jolted by the advent of the Digital Comic Association (DCA) , a hastily formed 39-member coalition of Japanese and U.S. manga publishers bent on squelching so-called scanlation sites--fan-operated Web sites that translate, scan and post manga to stream or download for free. DCA membership comprised the mighty: Shogakukan Inc., Shueisha Inc. and Kodansha Ltd. in Japan teamed up with Viz Media, Hachette Book Group's Yen Press and the now-defunct TokyoPop in the United States. Their announcement was followed by sporadic arrests in Japan. A 14-year-old in Nagoya and two teens in the Kansai region were among domestic fans accused of posting manga for free via file-sharing sites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga and reaping personal profit from ads on their sites. Two of the largest scanlation aggregators,...

Resurrected for the FULL MOON -- 7/15 ALi-MO -- JULY 15th, FRIDAY. @Crawfish Akasaka Date: July 15th, Friday Venue: CRAWFISH Akasaka http://crawfish.jp/ (03-3584-2496) Social Akasaka BF 3-11-7 Akasaka Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN　107-0052 Price: FREE!! ALi-MO Music from 9:00-ish p.m. (or possibly earlier...) untill Midnight-ish -- another awesome acoustic band may be opening before ALi-MO... TBA. Guest musician -- Michiko "Maysico" Kawaguchi on SAXOPHONE! http://silver.ap.teacup.com/ areia/ Ali-Mo Website： http://ali-mo.blogspot.com/ LIKE us on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/ ALi-MO/40416569651?ref=share ************************* (Japanese text below) 7月15日, 金曜日 -- 満月の夜。 ALi-MO ライブ@Crawfish Akasaka 日時：7月15日（金） 会場：CRAWFISH 赤坂 　　　 http://crawfish.jp/ (03-3584-2496) 　　　〒107-0052 　　　東京都港区 赤坂3-11-7 ソシアル赤坂地下 入場料：無料。 ALi-MO演奏： 9:00 p.m.くらい〜真夜中頃まで。 オープニングにはもしかして別のアコースティック・ユニットが 　演奏するかも。 ゲスト：Michiko "Maysico" Kawaguchi on Saxophone。 http://silver.ap.teacup.com/ areia/ A...

Journalist and pal Nahoko Adachi provides an intimate account of our series of Monkey Biz Vol. 1 launch events in NYC this spring for a spread in this month's issue of SWITCH magazine in Japan. Volume 2 and 2012 events in NYC forthcoming shortly. [click pic to enlarge]

Pluralism with peace: