japanamerica

Three years ago, I asked Kun Gao, a co-founder and former CEO of anime site Crunchyroll, whether he thought the medium on which his company relied would ever go mainstream. We were sitting in what were then Crunchyroll’s headquarters on the seventh floor of the sprawling Westfield Mall building in San Francisco — a space once occupied by Microsoft. He smiled. “It’s still niche,” he said. “But it’s a pretty big niche.” Last week, Sony took a big bite into that niche by purchasing Crunchyroll from American telecoms giant AT&T’s WarnerMedia for a cool $1.2 billion. The deal puts the company Gao co-founded 14 years ago with five other computer engineering grads (and self-professed “nerds”) from the University of California, Berkeley, at the very center of Sony’s push to become a direct-to-consumer player, joining the fray with behemoths Netflix, Amazon, and Disney. Entertainment, and anime in particular, will be its cornerstone. To industry observers, Sony’s purchase, while likely over...

The state of the world in 2020 is one that Lastlings, a half-Japanese, half-Australian musical sibling duo, seem oddly prepared for, right down to their name. “Lastlings” was the title of a short story that guitarist and producer Josh Dowdle, 27, wrote in high school about the survivors of an apocalyptic event. Nature has reclaimed the cities, nothing is open and the “lastlings” are the only remaining people on Earth. “We have a dystopian aesthetic,” Josh says on a video call from a studio in Australia. “I guess it’s a coincidence.” Josh and his sister, Amy, 21, have just released their debut album, “First Contact,” with an anime-inspired three-minute video trailer shot entirely in Tokyo. Their studied poses, artful silhouettes and symmetric good looks set against metamorphosing cityscapes recall scenes from a psychedelic Satoshi Kon anime. Were it not for the pandemic, you could’ve seen them perform live here this month. “We were supposed to play (in Tokyo) right about now,” says Josh...

Free registration is now open here . Featuring award-winning poet and novelist Hiromi Ito, author/illustrator Satoshi Kitamura, translator, editor and scholar Motoyuki Shibata, and Maesy Ang of the wonderful Post Bookshop, Jakarta .  Wish we were there (Indonesia) again, but hope to see you here on Zoom. 

To celebrate this month's global release of the new issue of  MONKEY   in print & digital formats: Novelist Hiroko Oyamada is compared to Kobo Abe, Kenzaburo Oe and Haruki Murakami in this recent  New York Time s review of her latest novel, "The Hole."  We are excited to introduce Hiroko to you on Friday, Dec. 11th (US) / Saturday Dec. 12th (Japan) in MONKEY IS BACK! - a celebration of the global print release this month of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan literary magazine. • The Zoom event is free, and registration is here .  • You can now purchase your copy of the new English-language MONKEY here . Hiroko will read with her English-language translator, the scholar David Boyd. Artist Satoshi Kitamura will present kamishibai , a classic form of paper theater visual storytelling that was a precursor to manga. Founding editor Motoyuki Shibata will host, I will moderate. See you soon!

Earlier this year I signed off on another foreign-language license for a new Spanish-language translation of my book JAPANAMERICA: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US , which has been updated with a new subtitle (in Spanish, of course): How Japanese Pop Culture has Conquered the West . I'm pleased to announce that the new Spanish edition will be released just in time for Christmas 2020.  My thanks to Jennifer in Barcelona and Marta in New York for managing the deal via my US publisher St. Martin's Press, and to Samuel and Iñaki for publishing the new edition at Odaiba Ediciones. They had planned some launch events and signings with me in Madrid but all have been postponed until our post-Covid era commences. More info forthcoming.

I write about my 10 years helping to make MONKEY , the only annual English-language Japanese literary magazine, in my latest column for the Nikkei . This project has taught me a ton about language, translation, art, culture and friendship, and has taken me around the world on book tours. I am humbled and grateful. The new issue is available for preorder in print and digital editions here . 

I will be appearing on a panel for the annual US-Asia Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles this Saturday, November 21st, at 10 am Japan Standard Time (Friday the 20th, 5 pm PST/8 pm EST) to discuss "Hollywood's New Anime Gold Rush." I will be joined by the presidents of Sentai Filmworks and Production I.G USA , and the senior vice president and creative director for Toonami's Adult Swim/Cartoon Network : John Ledford, Maki Terashima-Furuta and Jason DeMarco. These are some of the finest and best-qualified professionals you could assemble for a discussion of this topic.  The event is hosted and sponsored by Asia Society of Southern California, Japan House Los Angeles, JETRO and The Cool Japan Fund.  More info and registration for the livestream is here . I hope you'll join us this Saturday/Friday the 21st/20th.