japanamerica

AKB48 turns to an American studio Director Keishi Otomo and AKB48 By Roland Kelts AKB48’s commercial success in Japan is often derided as a sign of the culture’s patriarchal infantilization of women, and the girl group’s inability to appeal to Western audiences a sign of Japan’s increasingly isolated ideas about femininity, sexuality and pop music. Put simply: outside of Japan, AKB48 will never be Psy. But inside Japan, it’s a reliable moneymaker. Its most recent single, “We Won’t Fight” ( Bokutachi wa Tatakawanai ), topped the Oricon charts in June. The idol group is the no. 2 bestselling music act in the entire history of Japanese pop music in terms of singles sold. And Japan is the second-largest pop music market in the world – just behind the United States. Cuteness sells in Japan, especially if it’s well-marketed. Which is why AKB48’s latest music video is puzzling. The ironically titled 12-minute epic, “We Won’t Fight” [ short v. ], was released this summer. In it, th...

Anime oasis of the Midwest flourishes By Roland Kelts The 18th annual Anime Central (ACen) , North America’s third largest anime convention, was held May 15 - 17 in Rosemont, near Chicago. Last year’s event drew a record 29,000 unique attendees, tallying 81,000 in total over its three full days. Organizers breached those figures again in 2015, hosting over 31,000. ACen is something of an oasis for anime fans in Middle America. While official celebrations of Japanese popular culture take place across the United States nearly every weekend of the year, many of them are modest affairs, geared toward less populated regions and local fans, sometimes hosted by municipal libraries and schools. The larger conventions and expos, with their bus-loads of cosplayers and A-list Japanese guests, tend to be coastal events, hosted in urban centers such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston and New York. ACen is held in the heart of the American Midwest. Chicago hugs the shores of Lake Michigan ...

After a stellar tour of the Midwest and New York City with Monkey Business magazine, I am back in Chicago, honored to be appearing with Japanamerica from May 15 - 17 at Anime Central , the region's largest celebration of Japanese art and culture. 

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~

COOL JAPAN | MEDIA ( ACCJ Journal ) Cutters Tokyo CEO, Ryan McGuire The New Mad Men The evolution and transformation of advertising in Tokyo By Roland Kelts Among the fastest ways to check the barometer of a nation’s popular culture—to see who’s cool and what’s in style or comical—is to watch domestic TV commercials. Advertising cuts to the heart of a culture’s DNA. TV ads from Japan, for example, have long been coveted abroad for their apparent outrageousness or sheer oddity. Entire YouTube channels and websites (see the seminal japander.com) upload Japanese commercials featuring American A-list celebrities. On Japanese TV, Leonardo DiCaprio promotes the Orico credit card and hawks Jim Beam; Tommy Lee Jones guzzles Boss canned coffee; and Madonna sports geta (wooden sandals) to tout Takara shochu. Then there's Sofia Coppola’s 2004 film set in Japan, Lost in Translation. It makes cross-cultural advertising a comical plot point, with Bill Murray playing a washed-up...