japanamerica

I used to run like hell from Godzilla movies, not out of fear but embarrassment. As a Japanese-American teenager in diversity-poor rural New England, I winced at the sight of a dude in a rubber suit stomping on cardboard cities. It looked silly and cheap, two Asian stereotypes I was trying hard to live down, so I ran even faster from the Americans I knew who actually liked Godzilla to avoid being cast as yet another Asian American nerd.   Evidently, Godzilla outran me. Japan’s nuclear lizard is now the face of the world’s longest-running film franchise, according to Guinness World Records, turning 70 this year on the heels of its most successful iteration yet. Released into U.S. theaters with scant publicity, “Godzilla Minus One” is North America’s highest-grossing Japanese-language movie ever and has surpassed the $100 million mark globall y on a production budget of under $15 million. A box office blockbuster with a price tag minus one of Hollywood’s lavish digits. It’s also ...

  2023 My latest interview for History Channel airing this month pursues my work on a story I started researching and writing about 20 years ago: the fate of billions of dollars (at least) worth of treasure plundered from Asia by the Japanese military in World War II, much of it buried in an underground network of tunnels and caves in the Philippines.  It's now watchable online here . The loot was discovered forcibly by the Americans (i.e., GHQ), kept off the books, and deposited in bank accounts across the world--known primarily as the "M-Fund" ( M-Shikin in Japanese). How was that money used? You can probably count the ways, but don't overlook the Marcos regime.   Last time the producers cast me as a cafe-haunting journo. This time I'm playing an author/prof in a gulag.     Here's the first story I ever wrote on the conspiracy, published in The Japan Times and based on my work with the late authors Sterling and Peggy Seagraves and their book GOLD WARRIORS...

 JAPANAMERICA & TEZUKA, 2022

Terribly well-timed to the rise of anti-Asian hate in the US, I will be talking about this brave and important new book, Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in WWII , with author Daniel James Brown in Boston. The event is hosted and sponsored by Boston Public Library , GBH , Japan Society of Boston and New England Historic Genealogical Society . This is a critical time to reexamine the Japanese American experience of WWII—incarcerated in the camps at home, and fighting for the US overseas. We hope you'll join us. Daniel James Brown with Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II Virtual Event: Wednesday, May 12 at 6 p.m. ET / 11 p.m. UK / Thursday, May 13th at 7 p.m. JST • Register here Moderator: Roland Nozomu Kelts , author, journalist, editor, and lecturer Presented in partnership with Boston Public Library, the Japan Society of Boston, and GBH Forum Network From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Boys...

Talking about Japan's WWII war loot, hidden in the Philippines, recovered by the Americans in project Golden Lily, and transformed into the M-Fund, the Black Eagle Trust and others. (click to play) Wrote about it here . And here . Also here .

Godzilla shows Japan’s real fear is sclerotic bureaucracy not giant reptiles By ROLAND KELTS Five years before the release of Godzilla Resurgence (Shin Godzilla), the first Japanese-made Godzilla movie in more than a decade, Japan’s north-east coastline was slammed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, causing a meltdown at the region’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Citizens were either misinformed or kept in the dark about the damage: the government would not even use the term “meltdown” until three months later. In an interview with a national newspaper in 2014, novelist Haruki Murakami diagnosed a national character flaw: irresponsible self-victimisation. “No one has taken real responsibility for the 1945 war end or the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident,” he said. “I’m afraid that it can be understood that the earthquake and tsunami were the biggest assailants and the rest of us were all victims. That’s my biggest concern.” Resurgence director Hideaki Anno, a revered...

On Fukushima's anniversary: A Japan of 'great gifts' With the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and on the fourth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a Japanese-American writer talks about Japan, the West, responsibility, history, and fun.  By ROLAND KELTS Employees of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, take part in a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. local time at TEPCO's headquarters in Tokyo March 11, 2015, to mark the fourth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands. (Yuya Shino/Reuters) Marie Mutsuki Mockett is a Japanese-American writer who was born and raised in California but spent considerable time with her mother in Japan. She feels that her upbringing gives her a “dual vision” into West and East. When Ms. Mockett first heard of the March 11, 2011 tsunami that flooded the Fukushima nuclear reactor four years ago today, she panicke...

My thanks to the Embassy of Japan, Canada; the Ottawa International Animation Festival; Prof. Tom Keirstead, and a sell-out audience in Canada's capital city. [Photos courtesy Ryo Tokunaga, Embassy of Japan, Canada]