japanamerica

Sleeper hit anime 'Blue Giant' gets an encore In 2023, releasing a big-budget anime feature about three Gen Z boys in a post-bop jazz band sounds like commercial suicide. Jazz is boomer music; anime is for kids weaned on Pokemon. But the sleeper hit of the year was by far director Yuzuru Tachikawa’s “Blue Giant,” an adaptation of Shinichi Ishizuka’s jazz-centric manga series. The film was so popular with audiences in Japan and overseas after its first run this spring that it warranted an even bigger budget for a re-edited second release, which premiered last month at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) before opening in cinemas across Japan. Jazz has been featured in popular anime soundtracks since the 1970s, when Yuji Ohno’s funky fusion scores for the “Lupin III” series were broadcast on network TV and incorporated into Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film, “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.” Jazz and sci-fi anime cemented their synergy with Yoko Kanno’...

Letters from Tokyo by Roland Kelts, February - May : What a Long Strange Spring It’s Been  We swallowed an entire season in the latest of my "Letters from Tokyo" series for The Japan Society of Boston, partly because I was away from Tokyo for huge chunks of it. This spring Japan opened its borders and the tourists rushed into Tokyo and Kyoto, PM Kishida survived an attempted assault via pipe (smoke?) bomb--and while Covid eased its grip, roller-coaster climate changes have swung many of us (i.e, me) in and out of summer colds. Let's look back before we fast-forward too far.  The February night I returned to Tokyo from New York felt like spring had landed ahead of me. I shed my jacket in the unusually long taxi line outside Haneda, watched two teenage boys order an Uber and promptly copied them, stepped over the ropes, skipped the line, and settled after five minutes into the backseat of my driver’s minivan, rolling down the windows on both sides.  The weather during my ...

Letters from Tokyo by Roland Kelts, December - January: When the Colonel is a Claus The latest in my "Letters from Tokyo" series for the Japan Society of Boston  looks back at my holiday seasons in Osaka, New York and Tokyo, and forward to the state of Japan today. Asian tourists are back and residents are out and about, still masked but less anxious. The pandemic has taken a toll on rural onsen-mura villages, where darkened streets and shuttered storefronts are sad reminders of what's been lost. What's been found? Inflated prices and deflated birth rates mark mid-winter in Tokyo, 2023. I rode out my first Christmas in Japan alone, far from the US mania of gifting and parties and family. I thought it would be ideal. Sequestered in my narrow danchi apartment with time to write, read, reflect and phone home through the operators at KDDI—which sometimes felt like risking collect calls from prison: Would my family accept the charges? Through my front door I had an unobst...

Okay, here goes the new book , out now worldwide from Penguin Random House and Titan Books. I'm no good at this launch stuff but I can assure you the book is beautiful. Just got big boxes of it here in Tokyo: So what's it about? I wrote a preview of it in one of my monthly columns for The Japan Times . "British director Ridley Scott’s 1982 original 'Blade Runner,' a Hollywood live-action movie set in a futuristic Los Angeles, features several neo-noirish nods to a dystopian urban Japan. Signs in Japanese flash above neon-lit alleyways lined with cramped standing food stalls. Snatches of Japanese dialogue are heard on the streets and from the radio in Los Angeles police officer Gaff’s hovercraft (the brilliantly designed “spinner”), and in the voiceover accompanying an indelible image of a geisha, popping a pill on a gigantic skyscraper video projection. Even today, seeing Japanese culture embedded so deeply in the mise-en-scene of a mainstream Hollywood film is st...

This August, we've resumed my monthly series, "Letters from Tokyo," with the Japan Society of Boston after a 6-month personal hiatus. Tokyo August 2022 saw record-breaking heat and Covid numbers and almost zero tourists. The city feels muted and a bit fatigued. But it's also calming and a lot less expensive than the US cities I've recently been in, and Tokyo's food, design and infrastructure remain unparalleled. Also, as you can hear for yourself in my closing video shot at the lovely Kumano Shrine in Jiyugaoka, the semi/cicadas are sizzling at full tilt. Roland Kelts' Letters from Tokyo, August 2022: Hot and Tired Town In recent years I’ve spent late-July and August elsewhere, usually at US retreats in New York and New England, abandoning Japan to escape the heat. But this year everything is different. I broke my shoulder in the spring and got sidelined for a while, albeit in a friend’s beautiful house in storybook Carmel, a town in north central Califor...

My first "Letter from Tokyo" of 2022 is an ode to osechi ryori, the traditional Japanese New Year's foods that I love and long for every January. Last spring, I was commissioned by The Japan Society of Boston to write a series of short monthly musings called "Letters from Tokyo." These have enabled me to dip briefly into impressions and memories of my life in Japan without belaboring them or boring the daylights out of anyone who might bother reading about them. Wishing you a Happy Lunar New Year and a Healthy Year of the Tiger! Letters from Tokyo, January 2022: The Colors of Osechi Earlier this month it snowed in Tokyo the way it does in Tokyo—just enough to cover trees and buildings with a white fringe and make the sidewalks slippery and the parks sparkle in the sun. Because it will melt away in a day or so, snow in Tokyo is an event, spawning a million pictures and videos on social media. It’s like a mini-sakura/cherry blossom season in the middle of winter, ...

‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus’ reinvents neo-noir nods to Japan When the first anime series in the “Blade Runner” franchise premieres on cable TV’s Cartoon Network and online streamer Crunchyroll Nov. 13, it will close the circle on nearly 40 years of cultural cross-pollination. British director Ridley Scott’s 1982 original, a Hollywood live-action movie set in a futuristic Los Angeles, features several neo-noirish nods to a dystopian urban Japan. Signs in Japanese flash above neon-lit alleyways lined with cramped standing food stalls. Snatches of Japanese dialogue are heard on the streets and from the radio in Los Angeles police officer Gaff’s hovercraft (the brilliantly designed “spinner”), and in the voiceover accompanying an indelible image of a geisha, popping a pill on a gigantic skyscraper video projection. Even today, seeing Japanese culture embedded so deeply in the mise-en-scene of a mainstream Hollywood film is startling. In 1982, it must’ve been revolutionary. It didn’t go unn...

  LETTER FROM TOKYO, OCTOBER 2021: GINGKO GOLD September still feels like late summer in Tokyo, with stretches of sunbaked days and lingering cicadas and humid stillness. But by October the air crispens and the leaves go vibrant. October coaxes forth the city’s magnificent foliage, blanketing its far-flung hillsides and spreading colorful canopies across its parks and university campuses.  This year, the humidity got siphoned away overnight and evenings grew chilly fast. But for someone like me, raised in the northeastern US and north-central Japan, the shift to windbreakers and warmer bedclothes is welcome. Wherever I am, that transition in temperature feels like home. Speaking of overnight: Have any other Olympic Games dissipated so quickly? No disrespect to the athletes, medalists and their retinue, but the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, held less than three months ago in 2021, almost feel more ancient today than the first Tokyo Olympics in 1964.  Things here have changed, ...

 

I was recently interviewed in Tokyo by Darren Paltrowitz of Hype Magazine . He was in New York City, my former hometown.  We talked about my gig hosting the Japan Cats doc, but also a lot of stuff I hadn't planned to discuss, like pandemic work, my forthcoming Blade Runner book, the novel, the other books, my Who T-shirt and interviews with Pete Townshend, the shows "Better Call Saul," "Westworld" and "Barry"—and my cat.  Darren's opening gambit disarmed me.  Vid's up at YouTube:

I was hired to host this short documentary film about the central role cats play in Japanese culture. "Japan Cats,"  directed by Academy Award nominee Geoffrey O'Connor and shot in Wakayama and Tokyo, was a lot of fun to make, and I remain honored to be a small part of it. No 'weird Japan' clickbait memes, but a rich look at the deeper connections, spiritual and personal, between the Japanese and their cats. Yes, there's Natsume Soseki's "I am a Cat," Hello Kitty, Doraemon, nearly everything written by Haruki Murakami, Maneki Neko ("Lucky Cat"), Bakeneko ("shapeshifting cat") and plenty more. But there's also Tama, the stationmaster cat , and her successor, Nitama (Tama 2), whom you'll meet here, along with cat cafes and memorials. Thanks to AMV BBDO for producing, and SHEBA for supporting. Hope you enjoy the show.

I'll be participating in two public events next month, one of which may have a live audience in addition to Zooming heads. Hope you'll join us, online or off.  •    Saturday 10/10, 10am - 12 pm Japan Standard Time (Friday 10/9, 9pm - 11 pm EST, 6pm - 8pm PST): Voices from Japan: Launching the New Literary Journal MONKEY , with Motoyuki Shibata, Tomoka Shibasaki, Hideo Furukawa, Satoshi Kitamura, Ted Goossen, Meg Taylor, Polly Barton and Jordan Smith. Hosted by Hitomi Yoshio at Waseda University. Click here to register. •      Sunday 10/18, 10am - 11:30 am Japan Standard Time (Saturday 10/17, 9pm - 10:30 pm EST, 6pm - 7:30pm PST):  Mieko Kawakami (BREASTS AND EGGS) in conversation with Roland Kelts (JAPANAMERICA) , with Motoyuki Shibata (introduction) and Hitomi Yoshio (interpretation). Hosted by International House Japan and The Asia Society. Click here to register.

I was honored to represent Japanese Pop Culture for the Asia Society's series, "Around Asia in 80 Days," a work-from-home pandemic production. This is a look back, and a look forward. Wish we could have done this on a stage in Hong Kong, as planned. Next time.  (click to play)

(click to play)   I gave an interview in Tokyo to the BBC for a documentary about Japan's birth rate. I talked about Japan's expanding menu of options for virtual romance and sex — from dating sims to erotic manga, anime and video games. It's not just Japan, of course. The annual birth rate here remains higher than it is in South Korea, Singapore or Hong Kong, and birth rates have also been steadily declining in the United States and across Europe. Options for virtual romance and sex are increasingly popular in developed nations worldwide. Dating app , internet hookup and pornography addiction are hackneyed phrases by now. But what I didn't know during the shoot was that virtual romance and sex would be among the safest, sanest and most responsible options for intimacy in the middle of a global pandemic.

Back when you still could, I gave a talk for TEDxTokyo in a hangar at Haneda Airport. The topic was "Cool Japan." But this time I didn't talk about anime, manga, video games or fashion. Instead I focused on core cultural values expressed in Japanese words such as jishuku (restraint, discipline), gaman (endurance and perseverance amid adversity), ganbaru (to fight on, keep at it, stand firm) and wa (seeking and maintaining communal harmony). I didn't know then that such values would serve Japan well during a global pandemic. It was a remarkable event. At the reception there were canapes and wine and we watched a guitarist bring the sun down near the nose of a plane. Now it all seems surreal and, sadly, would be impossible. (Video of my presentation has been posted here .)

New book goes inside Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki Steve Alpert worked there for 15 years and knew major players Nikkei Asian Review TOKYO — Steve Alpert's book comes advertised as a business memoir, though you may find yourself grinning more often than annotating. For 15 years, starting in 1996, the American headed the international division at Studio Ghibli, Japan's most commercially and artistically successful anime company. As their first non-Japanese hire, he negotiated with clients from Asia, Europe and the U.S., supervised the English-language translations of "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away," voice-acted a character in Japanese for 2013's "The Wind Rises," and accepted awards on his employer's behalf at prestigious global film festivals. He also clinched the indie studio's nascent distribution deal with Disney, a coup to bring the films of Hayao Miyazaki into living rooms worldwide on VHS and DVD — and an Os...

GeeXPlus brings anime YouTubers to Japan The Japan Times Social-media influencers who review products on platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram are now pillars of marketing agencies worldwide, especially when their consumer base skews young. Whether the product is hand soap or ham sandwiches, in a world where “expert” has become a dirty word, getting a push from a social-media star with over a million followers can make or break a sales campaign. One major Japanese publisher and producer is seeking to capitalize on the phenomenon in pop culture with a concrete if highly unusual approach. Last July, Kadokawa Corp. soft-launched a subsidiary of its Book Walker Co. Ltd. digital e-book division called GeeXPlus (“Geeks plus”) Inc., whose main goal is “connecting Japanese brands to global influencers” by providing “promotion planning, production and distribution” for English-speaking YouTubers. In October of last year, GeeXPlus invited three anime YouTubers to live and cr...