japanamerica

Roland Kelts is speaking on behalf of the Japan Society of Northern California thanks to a generous grant from The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. His lecture will be held at 2:00PM on Sunday, August 25th at the Hall Stage. ANIME vs. HOLLYWOOD in JAPANAMERICA, with Roland Kelts Roland Kelts, author of “ Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. ,” talks about modern Anime, its influences on Hollywood, and vice-versa. An in-depth examination of how Japanese and American entertainment businesses are influencing each other in an infinite loop. Just as Japanese artists like Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo were fascinated by classic and sci-fi American movies, George Lucas, The Wachowskis, Guillermo del Toro and other directors were influenced by Japanese anime classics like Gatchaman, Speed Racer, Spirited Away, Akira and Ghost in the Shell.

Otakon celebrates 20 years of anime fandom in the U.S . BY ROLAND KELTS The American anime convention, Otakon (“Otaku Convention”), begins with a costume parade before it officially opens. Last week I had a bird’s-eye view of the spectacle from my 14th-floor hotel room in Baltimore, Maryland. An endless army of imaginary characters trudged across the elevated concourse and down adjacent sidewalks to the Baltimore Convention Center to register and obtain entry badges. Most were instantly recognizable from anime series old and new, brandishing swords or other weaponry fashioned out of homemade materials, or wearing massive multicolored wigs, capes or sewn-on tails — or very little at all. For three days the colorful mob overtook Baltimore’s downtown and Inner Harbor neighborhoods, and until they returned to their hometowns in 42 different states, you couldn’t walk 20 meters without bumping into, overhearing and/or following them. Roughly 35,000 fans of Japanese pop culture atte...

Tokyo Doesn’t Care Who the U.S. Ambassador Is (but Caroline Kennedy Will Do Fine) By Roland Kelts for Time Caroline Kennedy  BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS Caroline Kennedy speaks at the 2013 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the Kennedy Library in Boston on May 5, 2013 The Kennedys are the last big dynastic name in American politics. With no more Nixons to kick around and the Reagan offspring reduced to infighting, the Kennedys still have clout — which also makes them reliable targets for pundits. Not surprisingly, President Obama’s nomination last month of Caroline, the only surviving child of assassinated former President John F. Kennedy, as the next U.S. ambassador to Japan has raised both eyebrows and hackles. I was in Boston when the news broke. Home of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the city, and its state Massachusetts, are liberal and intellectual bastions of Kennedy boosterism. The family long made Massachusetts its home bas...

Fragments of Hiroshima By  Roland Kelts for The New Yorker The first time I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I carried a notebook and a sense of dread. The mood was as solemn as I expected, but the place was crowded and not very peaceful. Visitors were silently urged to go with the flow, move in step with others and not linger too long.   The displays were impressively well kept—maybe too well kept. There were life-size dioramas of bloodied victims trudging barefoot through ashen sludge; massive models of the city as it was, pinpointing the exact location of ground zero; bent and crushed watches and clocks frozen to the moment—8:15  A.M. , August 6, 1945.  That all the carefully curated and eye-catching exhibits felt like part of a Hiroshima theme park was probably unavoidable. “A lot of people died instantly,” I wrote. Trying to soothe burning skin, some died in the river when fireballs swept up the oil-slicked water. Others died ...

Date Start End Name Location 9-Aug-13 11:15 AM 12:15 PM Anime vs Hollywood [G] Panel 4 (BCC 341-342) 9-Aug-13 12:30 PM  1:30 PM Opening Ceremonies Panel 2 (Ballroom II-III) 10-Aug-13  2:30 PM  3:30 PM Anime's Online Expansion [G] Panel 1 (BCC 314-315) 11-Aug-13 11:15 AM 12:15 PM Anime After The Quake [G] Panel 5 (Hilton Holiday Ballroom 4-6)

English version to follow shortly.