japanamerica

There is a model 17th century Japanese house squatting in the middle of a park in Philadelphia . It has been there for 63 years, but not many knew why until the city's Japan America Society staged an exhibition called "Shofuso and Modernism: Mid-Century Collaboration Between Japan and Philadelphia." Meant to highlight the JapanPhilly2020 campaign -- an Olympics-related celebration of nearly 150 years of transcultural exchange between Japan and the city -- the exhibition ran from September through November 2020, and will reopen later this year. The story of the Shofuso (Pine Breeze Villa) house and grounds brings together four artists from Europe, the U.S. and Japan: Antonin Raymond, an architect from Prague; his French wife Noemi, an interior decorator; famed prizewinning Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura, designer of International House of Japan in Tokyo and the Japan Society building in New York; and George Nakashima, a Japanese-American wood craftsman and furniture de...

It would be hyperbolic to call 2020 a great year for anime. But it ended better than it began . Last April, the Japanese government’s first declaration of a state of emergency raised the specter of 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown stopped anime studios cold, forcing many to consolidate for survival and some to close for good. The triple disasters of nine years ago disrupted the industry for at least a month and took three or more to overcome. “We almost went under in 2011,” said Joseph Chou, the CEO of computer animation studio Sola Digital Arts, when I spoke to him in early May. Work had just been abruptly suspended on major shows such as “Pokemon,” “Doraemon” and “One Piece,” and his own staff were struggling to make progress on their forthcoming series, “Blade Runner: Black Lotus,” due out in spring 2021. Chou compared interrupting the production process to halting a speeding train: “You can’t go from 100 miles per hour to zero and then ex...