japanamerica

  By TitleMax.com

(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.

Soundtrack to Ghost of Tsushima stands out for its seamless blend of musical influences The Japan Times Here in the middle of 2020, a terrible year by nearly every measure, cultural authenticity is the name of the game. Pretending to be what you are not will get you canceled in a TikTok minute. Fortunately for Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and developer Sucker Punch Productions, they have just released the year’s most celebrated transcultural video game, Ghost of Tsushima. The last major title created exclusively for Sony’s PS4 console platform and already a money-spinning international hit, Ghost of Tsushima earned its online street credentials through painstaking research and collaboration. The game’s stunning visual depiction of feudal Japan under Mongol invasion in the year 1274 is rendered so convincingly that it has won praise from industry critics both here (Weekly Famitsu gave it a coveted perfect score) and abroad, as well as near-unanimous thumbs-ups from gamers on soc...

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...

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...

Motherhood in modern anime © PROJECT MAQUIA Screenwriter, author and newly minted anime director Mari Okada shrugs and smiles as she and her entourage burst through a door behind me 15 minutes late for our meeting. We’re in a conference room on the ground floor of The Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites in downtown Los Angeles, a building famous for its cameos in hit films and TV series (“True Lies,” “CSI”) and for its bewildering interior layout. “We didn’t know there was another entrance to this room,” explains one of her handlers. Okada, sporting a floral print dress, puts a hand to her lips and emits a giggle. It’s not what I’d expected. In her autobiography, “From Truant to Anime Screenwriter: My Path to ‘Anohana’ and ‘The Anthem of the Heart,'” recently published in English by J-Novel Club, the 42-year-old Okada tells her coming-of-age story as a rural hikikomori (shut-in) in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture. She was awkward and unhygienic, endured sporadic bullying...

Localization: Has Japan lost the plot? By ROLAND KELTS Japan once ruled and defined the global gaming industry. In the arcade age, Japanese developers gave us “Pac-Man,” “Space Invaders” and “Donkey Kong.” In the era of physical consoles: “Metal Gear Solid,” “Snatcher,” “Final Fantasy” and “Silent Hill.” Japan’s creative use of technology, physical design and narrative whimsy once made it the only country in the world that consistently delivered interactive pleasures via buttons and joysticks. But as veteran American translator, localizer and voice director Jeremy Blaustein reminds me, that was a very long time ago. Since then, the Japanese gaming industry has grown increasingly marginal in the global market. Costs have soared, technologies advanced exponentially and the Americans overtook the business. Speaking at the Tokyo Game Show in 2009, game creator Keiji Inafune was unequivocal: “Japan is over,” he said. “We’re done. Our game industry is finished.”