japanamerica

More expansive talk about Haruki's reputation in Japan and 1Q84 with dear friend Madeleine Brand for The Madeleine Brand Show   on KPCC, the NPR affiliate in Los Angeles .   Audio here . Extra: Cover of the now-defunct  Studio Voice magazine featuring Haruki in the auspicious preceding year of 1Q83 (courtesy of Giant Robot ):

[Sudo, McDonald, Kelts] Manga and Anime, Japan's Most Important, but Hidden Industries Time:  2011 Oct 27 12:00 - 14:00 Summary: Professional Luncheon Tadashi Sudo, CEO of AnimeAnime.jp Roland Kelts, Japanese pop-culture Expert & Author of "Japanamerica." Christopher Macdonald, CEO& Publisher, Anime News Network Description: Japanese pop culture is on a tear worldwide. Manga and anime, long popular at home and abroad, are becoming an important export business, with even METI and MOFA throwing their support behind the genres. Universities are setting up study courses and archiving collections, while even the sober British Museum staged a manga exhibition recently. But, once again, an industry that Japan created and developed is increasingly under threat, in particular from the content industries of South Korea and China. In addition, Internet distribution provides a huge audience - but one that is disinclined to pay for content...

My chat this week with the very sporting Anna McNamee about Haruki Murakami, historical amnesia and Alice in Wonderland on the eve of the release of 1Q84, Books 1 & 2, in the UK.  Book 3 in the UK and the single-volume US edition are due out Tuesday, October 25. Audio is   here.

[rough-cut of latest column for Paper Sky] Traveling to New England I have lived in cities as disparate and different as Tokyo, New York, Osaka, London, San Francisco and Anchorage, Alaska.  From each city I traveled regionally, exploring Asia from Japan, Europe from England, the native villages of St. Lawrence Island from Anchorage, and so on.  I have repeated some of those journeys later in life, but most of them I have taken only once.  While I’d love to return to Savoonga, Alaska, for example, a Yupik village of 600 or so in the Bering Sea, I’m not sure if or when I’ll have time to do so before I die. My most frequent destination, however, has been the six-state northeastern region of the United States known as New England.  Aside from my birth and a few early years spent in New York, and one term attending kindergarten in Morioka, my Japanese grandparents’ home, the bulk of my childhood happened in New England.  Like much of the US, New Englan...

Video playlist here  (courtesy of Lawrence Brenner). Report on the taidan I hosted with anime auteur Makoto Shinkai at the 2011 New York Anime Festival/Comic Con, courtesy of Anime News Network : [photo by Michael Vito] Makoto Shinkai  was in many places at the New York Comic Con. The director's previous films, Voices of a Distant Star ,  The Place Promised in Our Early Days , and  5 Centimeters Per Second   were screened at the convention, and a showing of his latest,  Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below , was held on Sunday. In between, Shinkai appeared on a panel to converse with Roland Kelts, author of  Japanamerica . The panel was introduced by  Crunchyroll ' s Japan office President Vincent Shortino, who announced that  Voices of a Distant Star ,  The Place Promised in Our Early Days , and  5 Centimeters Per Second  would all be streaming for free from  Crunchyroll  ove...

Firmed up: 10:15 - 11:15 a.m., Japanamerica signing,  Autograph Area, Table 7 12:00 - 2:00 p.m., Crunchyroll Live Stream, Both #858 2:45 - 3:45 p.m., In Conversation: Makoto Shinkai & Roland Kelts , Rm. 1A24 4:00 p.m., Japanamerica signing @ Kinokuniya Books, Booth #158

How Japanese manga can land international travelers in jail A love of Japan and its comic books might get you locked up in North America By  Roland Kelts   14 October, 2011 http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/how-japanese-manga-can-land-international-travelers-jail-333153#ixzz1aj0AVzsz

The fine folks at Kinokuniya NYC are hosting Japanamerica book sales & signings throughout NYAF/NYCC this weekend.  Swing by booth #158 ( map ) and say hello.

Official Crunchyroll press release for events at NYAF/NYCC this weekend.  More details forthcoming, but it looks like we'll host a Japanamerica   signing and Q&A via their live stream midday Saturday, EST.  (Speaking of--you can check out and comment on their live stream from the Javits Center in NYC  here .) Press Contact: Public Relations Department Tel:(415) 796-3560 Fax: (415) 796-3561 pr@crunchyroll.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRUNCHYROLL TO HOST A MYRIAD OF TALENTS AT NEW YORK COMIC CON Teaming up with legendary anime producer – Makoto Shinkai – and author Roland Kelts, the leader in Asian content distribution gears up for a series of events not to be missed San Francisco , Calif. (October 11, 2011) – In the city that never sleeps, Crunchyroll is proud to present an exclusive panel and interview session with Makoto Shinkai – director of the stunning hits 5 CENTIMETERS PER SECOND and Children Who Chase Lost Voices from...

[more on Haruki for The Christian Science Monitor ] Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's prescient fiction Japanese writer Haruki Murakami uses his novels to peel back the layered chaos of an uncertain world By Roland Kelts, Contributor In Haruki Murakami's world, fish fall from the sky near a Tokyo train station, backyard wells lead to personal and political violence, and a giant frog tells a businessman how to save Tokyo from its next major earthquake. The mundane mingles with the absurd, but neither offers solutions in a universe bent toward chaos. Mr. Murakami cites Franz Kafka as one of his major influences, yet he warms Kafka's chilly detachment with Japanese earnestness, producing novels that anticipate apocalypse without succumbing to easy cynicism. In Murakami's world, chaos is softened by empathy – a quality in sorrowfully short supply, in fiction or in reality, in our 21st century. "Everything is uncertain," muses Tengo, the male protagon...

@ NYAF/NYCC , this Saturday, Oct. 15, 2.45-3.45 p.m. More info on full schedule TBA.  See you soon in NYC.  [click for full size]

Shame . http://www.twitvid.com/J8KFK

[revised edition @ A Public Space ] The first time I mentioned the Nobel Prize to Haruki Murakami, he winced.  “I don’t really care about prizes,” he said.  “What matters to me are my readers.  That’s all.  Once you have your readers, you don’t need to worry about anything else.” That was a decade ago.  Murakami has been a perennial Nobel candidate for a long time.  He has also treated his readers very well, delivering novels of varying length, short stories and personal essays at a steady clip, appearing in person on university campuses, at literary festivals and in bookstores, and occasionally corresponding directly with lonely souls via the Internet. More recently, he has been awarded a clutch of literary honors frequently pitched as harbingers of the Nobel: the Kafka Prize in 2006, the Jerusalem Prize in 2009, and this past summer, Spain’s International Catalunya Prize.  Each time, the Japanese media wondered aloud whether the allegedly ‘...

On board for the 2011  New York Anime Festival / Comic Con , October 13-16.  I am honored to be conducting a taidan , or live onstage conversation/interview, with anime auteur Makoto Shinkai ( 5 Cm Per Second , Children Who Chase Lost Voices ... ) on Saturday.  I will also be participating in assorted book signings/meet & greets.  Details forthcoming. If you're in town and near the Javits Center, please join us and say hello -- or even just 'hi.'