japanamerica

Gkids brings anime's best to big screens in the U.S. The Japan Times At the start of a new decade, anime’s two top directors are being delivered to Americans by one company. And, no, it’s neither Disney nor Netflix. The relatively unheralded Gkids, which was spun off 11 years ago from the New York International Children’s Film Festival by founder and CEO Eric Beckman, has now become the chief North American distributor of films by Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai. On Dec. 16 and 18, as part of its ongoing Studio Ghibli Fest, an annual April-December screening series, Gkids will present Miyazaki’s late artistic partner Isao Takahata’s final film, “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” in theaters across North America. On Jan. 15, the company will release Shinkai’s “Weathering With You,” Japan’s highest grossing film of 2019, on 900 screens nationwide. Gkids also has a stake in anime’s less family-friendly material, like the edgier Studio Trigger’s first feature, “Promare,...

U.S. anime market matures in 2019 The Japan Times The third annual Animation Is Film Festival kicked off on Oct. 18 in Los Angeles with the United States premiere of Makoto Shinkai’s latest Japan box-office hit, “Weathering With You,” followed by an onstage Q&A with Shinkai, who flew in from Tokyo for the event. Demand for tickets was so fierce that organizers added a second overflow screening at the city’s historic TCL Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. According to festival founder Eric Beckman, CEO of U.S. distributor GKIDS, tickets to the second screening sold out in “less than three minutes.” WEATHERING WITH YOU, image courtesy of GKIDS /  ©2019 “Weathering With You” Film Partners Six years after the global anime industry was jolted by the retirement of its most loved and bankable artist, Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki, developments in the North American market are transforming 2019 into a banner year. Through consolidation, the flowerin...

Honored to participate on the BBC's "World Questions: Tokyo" panel with the politicians Rui Matsukawa (LDP) and Hiroe Makiyama (CDP), and economist/professor Sayuri Shirai (Keio University). We discussed Japan's future — including the nation's low birth rate, women in politics and the labor force, the immigration dilemma, the constitution's 'pacifist' Article 9, and the 2019 Rugby World Cup and 2020 Olympic Games. You can hear the entire program online  here .

Live event info & tix here . Broadcast, Oct. 5 . BBC

In a Renewed Hotel Okura, Japanese Historians Still See a Loss The New York Times TOKYO — The outcry over the demolition of the 53-year-old Hotel Okura in Tokyo surprised no one more than some Japanese historians and architectural specialists. Monocle, the global lifestyle magazine, had circulated a petition, savetheokura.com, to register the “outrage from admirers of its unique design.” Tomas Maier, the creative director of Bottega Veneta, an Italian luxury brand, filmed a video memorial and started a social media campaign, #MyMomentAtOkura. The hotel’s modernist postwar lobby artfully balanced elements of traditional Japan, like lacquered plum-blossom-shaped tables and chairs, with visions of what was then futuristic, like a lighted world map displaying global time zones. It was frequented by United States presidents including President Obama, and other heads of state, celebrities, artists and designers. It played a central role in the 1960s James Bond novel “You O...

‘Seen from Japan, Britain is no longer recognizably British’ The Guardian A nation of islands shaped by limited space and imperial ambitions, garden aesthetics and ceremonial teas -- and stoic, stiff-lipped reserve in the face of adversity: Great Britain, or Japan? For many Japanese, Britain has long been something of a western mirror and model nation, a land whose geographical and cultural character were recognisable and achievements often admirable: a doppelganger off the coast of another continent and equally rich with tradition, history and parochial pride. At least, until Brexit. Only three months after the June 2016 EU referendum, the Japanese government voiced its displeasure over Britain’s choice in unusually un-Japanese language. A 15-page memorandum issued in September 2016 by the otherwise soft-spoken ministry of foreign affairs “strongly requests” that the UK consider the facts: Japan invests a lot of money and employs a lot of workers in the UK, but Japanese b...

'Cannon Busters': Bending anime rules in all the right ways The Japan Times South Bronx, New York native LeSean Thomas is making anime in Tokyo partly owing to a mistake.  In the early ’90s he bought a video cassette of what he thought was “Akira” but turned out to be a behind-the-scenes “production report”  documenting the film’s creation. Instead of returning it, Thomas watched it every day. When he saw director Katsuhiro Otomo and his team working through the night at their cramped desks, he thought: That’s what I want to do. More than 20 years later, Thomas, now 43, has become an anime showrunner with “Cannon Busters,” a 12-episode series based on his 2005 comic book of the same name and rendered by Tokyo animation studio Satelight Inc. The multinational project was created by an American, co-financed by Britain’s Manga Entertainment Ltd. and Taiwan’s Nada Holdings Inc., produced by a Japanese studio and released on major U.S. and Chinese streaming portal...

Big Little Lions: Disney's New 'Lion King' Dodges the 'Kimba' Similarity Issue The Hollywood Reporter Over the years, however, many anime fans have speculated that there were, perhaps, other reasons that Tezuka Productions declined to take legal action against Disney, with some even suggesting that the company might have paid them off in secret.  However, in the 2006 book Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. by Roland Kelts, Tezuka Productions' Yoshihiro Shimizu insists they never received any compensation.   "Of course, we were urged to sue Disney by some in our industry. But we're a small, weak company. It wouldn't be worth it anyway. … Disney's lawyers are among the top 20 in the world." Read >>

Anime's aging but active artists: Mamoru Oshii on his latest project, 'Vladlove' The Japan Times Writer and director Mamoru Oshii is best known for creating sci-fi thrillers that challenge orthodoxy with their philosophical musings and provocative, often nutty, imagery. His most famous film, the 1995 anime epic “Ghost in the Shell,” features a stone-cold cyborg heroine who dives nude off a skyscraper and is memorably dismembered by a tank. But at a Tokyo press conference last week to introduce his latest project, a 12-episode slapstick comedy series titled “Vladlove,” all Oshii wanted to talk about was girls. Real ones. And a vampire named Mai. “This time I wanted to take on a girl-meets-girl story,” he said. “The main characters are five schoolgirls. There won’t be any hot guys.” Oshii is the series’ creator and chief director, working with fellow anime veteran Junji Nishimura (“Ranma ½”). Financed by Ichigo Animation, a newly formed subsidiary of a rea...

Why Hollywood doesn't yet get anime The Japan Times No fewer than three big-budget Hollywood films based on Japanese originals opened this year: “Alita: Battle Angel,” “Pokemon Detective Pikachu” and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” While all three were still being promoted, “Gundam” and “Akira” were green-lit for production by Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros., respectively. An adaptation of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog video game will be out in November, followed by Hollywood takes on Capcom’s Monster Hunter next year and Nintendo’s Super Mario in 2022. The highest grossing anime feature ever, Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 “Your Name.,” is being remade as a live-action film, produced by “Star Wars” reboot king, J.J. Abrams. Hollywood renderings of “Attack on Titan” and the iconic mascot Hello Kitty are also reportedly on the way. But so far, Hollywood’s versions of Japanese content have received mixed reviews at best, with some earning respectable but not remarkable...

PIPPIN in Tokyo Tokyo Weekender True to its 2013 source, the Japanese production of the Tony-winning Broadway musical revival of “Pippin” turns the physicality up to 11. Most of the choreography is acrobatic, with actors contorting themselves into seemingly impossible positions, and some is aggressively sensual. Yet on a stage teeming with athletic young bodies in skintight costumes, the one that draws the most enthusiastic applause belongs to 73-year-old Mie Nakao. The veteran actress’s star turn as Berthe (a role she rotates with Beverly Maeda), grandmother of the eponymous hero (played with idol-boy earnestness by Japanese-Spanish TV star and singer, Yu Shirota), comes during her solo performance of “No Time At All,” a song preaching pleasure at all costs. After the fourth chorus, Nakao suddenly doffs her dowdy gown and shawl to reveal bared shoulders and legs tucked into a colorful corset. She ascends on a trapeze with the aid of a shirtless hunk, gripping the ro...

When Japan strikes the right chord The Japan Times American composer, arranger and violinist Chad Cannon’s first encounter with Japan came via a Nintendo video game called Ninja Gaiden, which he and his fellow childhood gamers in Salt Lake City, Utah, mispronounced as “Ninja Gayden.” Later, an older sister, also a musician, would return from a tour of Japan bearing a gift shop special: a Hokkaido-shaped clock that he hung on his bedroom wall. Now 33, Cannon is an accomplished artist immersed in Japanese culture. He has toured with the renowned violinist Midori Goto, and performed solo concerts in schools and evacuation centers throughout the devastated Tohoku region after the March 11, 2011 disasters. In 2016, he composed the original score for the award-winning Hiroshima documentary, “Paper Lanterns,” whose recording features shakuhachi flute player Kojiro Umezaki and vocalist/lyricist Mai Fujisawa. Fujisawa’s father, veteran composer and conductor Joe Hisaishi, bes...

On Pokemon for NPR

New 'Ultraman' anime is a family affair The Japan Times I first met anime director and mechanical designer Shinji Aramaki in Tokyo 12 years ago. He had just completed “Appleseed: Ex Machina,” the second in a trio of epic CG-animated films based on Masamune Shirow’s four-volume 1985 manga. “Ex Machina” was a global collaboration: co-produced by Hong Kong/Hollywood director John Woo, costumed by Italy’s Miuccia Prada and scored by Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono. Since then, Aramaki has become anime’s go-to guy for Japanese franchise reboots and sequels targeting international markets. As the nation’s domestic audience ages and its youth population shrinks, producers are scrambling to dust off older titles that might resonate both at home and abroad. That has them going to Aramaki a lot. Now 58 and the father of two adult daughters, he is currently working alongside screenwriter/director Kenji Kamiyama on anime adaptations of 1989’s “Ghost in the Sh...

Virgin territory: why the Japanese are turning their backs on sex The Guardian Young people in Japan – particularly men – are shunning physical love, and they’re not the only ones The grounds of Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park have been colonised by beautiful youth: women and men beneath the cherry blossoms surrounded by bottles of wine, sake and shochu, cases of beer and plastic bags stuffed with finger foods – drinking, playing games and sharing smartphone screens as the buds bloom and fall. Hanami (flower-viewing) parties are a centuries-old rite of spring, a national symbol of life’s beauty and brevity. But as I walk by them this month, I can’t help but wonder if any of the pink-faced revellers are hooking up, or even care enough to try. “Sexless Japan” is now a reliable media meme. Bolstered by a plummeting birth rate and an ageing population (leading to dire predictions of a future Japan devoid of Japanese), this portrait of the nation’s celibate society has been further enhanc...

Writers recall their initiation to Japanese literature via Donald Keene   The Japan Times Roland Kelts, author: Bookforum asked me to review Donald Keene’s memoirs , “Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan.” I said yes and winced. Keene was in his 80s at the time and had a lot of life to remember. His book would be massive. But then he, too, was vast: a bridge from my America to my Japanese mother’s land and literature. Also, a graduate of and professor emeritus at my alma mater, Columbia University, whose Center of Japanese Culture bears his name. A slim package arrived: 200 pages. In one chapter, Keene jet-sets around Europe, lobbying for Mishima’s Nobel, when his mother falls ill in New York. He arrives at her bedside too late. She can no longer speak. One cannot live and love in two worlds at once, he observes. The chapter closes so softly I had to put the book down and stare at the wall, shaken. Keene did what Kafka asks of writers: Ax the fr...

#MeToo allegations roil U.S. anime conventions The Japan Times Over the past few months, the #MeToo movement breached the American anime convention industry. Most feel it was inevitable. Many say it’s about time. The first salvo was fired in mid-January in the form of a Twitter thread accusing veteran American voice actor Vic Mignogna (“Dragon Ball Z,” “Fullmetal Alchemist”) of homophobia, anti-Semitic behavior and unwanted sexual contact. Soon the charges from fans, some of whom claim they were underage at the time of the alleged transgressions, were joined by those from con staff members, professional cosplayers, fellow voice actors and an ex-fiancee. Less than a week after the first tweets dropped, Mignogna released a public statement rejecting accusations of bigotry, proclaiming the innocence of his intentions and apologizing to anyone who felt violated by his “show (of) gratitude or support.” He has not been formally charged with anything. Some Twitter use...

Still swinging for the fences: Murakami in conversation The Times Literary Supplement “You see, I’m like a cat”, he tells me, twice. “I know the best position, and I go there straight. And I do it on my own time. Many people don’t like that about me.” Despite Murakami’s discomfort in Japan, and the disdain he receives from Japanese literary critics ten or more years his junior, his legacy is everywhere in contemporary Japanese culture. He’s there in the unvarnished prose and surreal happenstance in the work of younger writers, including Sayaka Murata (whose bestselling Convenience Store Woman is an eerily Murakamiesque blend of the magical mundane punctuated by violence) Mieko Kawakami and Hideo Furukawa (who wrote what he calls “a remix” of an early Murakami story, entitled Slow Boat ), all of whom claim that his model as an independent, uncompromising artist forged their paths from the parochial forests of Japanese letters to the broader plains of world literature. The...

We're honored to be returning to Kansas City,  March 15 - 17 .

The story behind anime localization Les and Mary Claypool For the past 10 years I’ve been guesting at anime conventions across the United States. Each one is unique. On the coasts they tend to be larger and older than cons in middle America, with massive crowds and decades of history. But they’ve each become more diverse. Most today report a near 50-50 gender mix, with attendees spanning racial and ethnic spectra. What’s frustrating, though, is that I hardly ever get to talk with anyone. (I talk to them, of course. That’s my job. But sustained conversations are rare.) Once the crowds show up, cons are dizzying. Your liaison escorts you to the venue, navigating through clumps of cosplayers. The fans pour in, get their book signed, mutter their thanks and maybe share an anecdote about their favorite show, a trip to Tokyo, or a story you wrote that they read. It’s nice, but brief. Unfortunately, the same goes with other guests, many of whom are professionals I’m eag...

Hayao Miyazaki: The never-ending story Last week, an NHK documentary chronicling Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement and un-retirement, “Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki” opened in select theaters across the United States. The same day on the other side of the world, his 1988 classic “My Neighbor Totoro” was released for the first time in theaters across China — 6,000 of them. Next month, Miyazaki will receive the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Career Achievement Award. In 2019, also in LA, the largest-ever exhibition of his work will inaugurate the prestigious Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Meanwhile, in Japan, Tokyo’s Shinbashi Enbujo Theater will stage a kabuki version of “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” Miyazaki’s 1984 sci-fi epic. And 2020 (or soon after) will see the premiere of “How Do You Live?,” his 12th feature film, followed by the opening of a Studio Ghibli theme park near Nagoya. Miyazaki held a press conference to announce his retirement in Septembe...