japanamerica

MONKEY BUSINESS US MIDWEST AND NEW YORK 2015 SPRING TOUR   MIDWEST With: Aoko Matsuda Satoshi Kitamura Susan Harris (4/28) April 27 (Mon.) – Chicago, IL: Columbia College-Chicago, 1:00 – 5:00 pm April 28 (Tue.) – Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 4:30 – 8:00 pm April 29 (Wed.) – Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo), 4:30pm~ April 30 (Thur.) – Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin (Madison), 5:00 – 7:00pm NEW YORK With: Aoko Matsuda Satoshi Kitamura Ben Katchor (5/3 – 5/6) Kelly Link (5/4 & 5/6) Jay Rubin (5/7) May 3 (Sun.) – Brooklyn, NY: BookCourt, 4:00pm~ May 4 (Mon.) – New York, NY: Asia Society, 6:30pm~ May 6 (Wed.) – New York, NY: McNally Jackson, 8:00pm~ May 7 (Thur.) – New York, NY: Japan Society, 6:30pm~

From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo -- Monkey Business at Western Michigan University, April 29th.

At last, Japan gets it by Roland Kelts The Japanese entertainment industry is finally growing up, says Shin Unozawa, and he should know. Unozawa joined Bandai Entertainment back in 1981, and serves as chair of the Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association (CESA), co-hosts of the Tokyo Game Show. Now he is CEO of the recently formed Anime Consortium Japan (ACJ) — a multipartner corporation launched last November, with the goal of localizing and consolidating the digital streaming of official Japanese content. The ACJ’s lineup is top shelf: Production and advertising giants Toei, Sunrise, TMS, Aniplex, Asatsu-DK, Nihon Ad Systems and Dentsu have teamed up with major shareholders Bandai Namco Holdings and the government-sponsored Cool Japan Fund. Their primary aim is to tackle piracy and develop the first Japan-centered streaming entertainment and e-commerce platform called Daisuki. It’s as impressive as it is long overdue.

What the west can learn from Japan’s “lost decades” Roland Kelts wonders whether Japan-style stagnation would really be so bad in the west. by Roland Kelts I travel back and forth between Japan and the United States, mostly Tokyo and New York and a few other American cities, several times a year. The contrast is jarring. Arriving in the US can feel like rolling back a decade or more, returning to a time when information was scarce, infrastructure was creaky and basic services such as ground transportation were chaotic and unreliable. I steel myself before landing, my mind tallying variables and unknowns: will my luggage land with me and emerge on the dingy carousel? Will the taxi that I booked online arrive on time, at the right terminal, or at all? Will traffic impede me on my journey? And then there’s the view. Whether it’s the outskirts of Queens on the way from New York’s JFK International Airport or the fringes of the Los Angeles highway off-ramps by LAX, everything...

The Magical Art of Translation: From Haruki Murakami to Japan's Latest Storytellers Thursday, May 7, 6:30 PM Buy Tickets Jay Rubin, Ted Goossen, Aoko Matsuda, Satoshi Kitamura, Motoyuki Shibata, Roland Kelts. Since 1989, Jay Rubin has translated many of Haruki Murakami's most successful and prize-winning novels, including The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood and 1Q84. In this program, he is joined by Ted Goossen, translator of Murakami's most recent U.S. publications, The Strange Library (Knopf, December 2014) and Wind/Pinball: Two Early Novels (Knopf, August 2015), and co-editor of Monkey Business literary magazine, which showcases the best of contemporary Japanese literature for an international audience. They will discuss the unique challenges of translating modern Japanese literary works into American English, and vice versa. Rubin will also talk about his transition from translator to novelist vis-à-vis his debut novel The Sun Gods. Joining the discu...

With Satoshi Kitamura, Aoko Matsuda, Motoyuki Shibata, Adam L. Kern and Glynne Walley. Hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

With Satoshi Kitamura, Aoko Matsuda, Motoyuki Shibata, Susan Harris and Michael Bourdaghs. Hosted by the University of Chicago. Specs here .