japanamerica

CULTURE | CULTURE SMASH Preserving a classic Japanese art form: tokusatsu magic BY ROLAND KELTS JUN 12, 2013 Our monster is scaly, spiky, reptilian — a cross between a dinosaur and an irradiated insect that shrieks like an angry bird. Our hero is lean, faintly muscular in a rubbery skintight suit with inscrutable praying-mantis eyes. They face one another, stomping left to right like sumo wrestlers, posing karate-style. The humans below clasp their hands in hope, their city fragile as cardboard. When the battle begins, the urban landscape — a meticulously detailed scaled-down model — is in flames, its buildings easily smashed and tossed through the air. A few lasers and fireballs fly, but in short order monster and hero grapple, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, tumbling into one another, grabbing body parts and twisting, turning, punching. It’s mano-a-mano — and it’s thrilling. Before anime and manga became Japan’s calling cards overseas, Japanese monster movies and TV sho...

CULTURE | CULTURE SMASH Social clubbing takes off with iFlyer service BY ROLAND KELTS Clubbing in Japan is a kick. The country’s zeal for global pop trends and its prominent club scene draws big-name DJs and performers from the international circuit. Japan’s hodgepodge approach to urban planning means that clubs seem to blossom nearly anywhere — in the back alleys of unsung neighborhoods such as Tokyo’s Yoyogi, with its funky music haven, Zher the Zoo, or behind nondescript docks in the Hyogo Prefecture capital of Kobe. Despite recent crackdowns on after-hours dancing, Japan’s club scene continues to thrive past the midnight hour, buoyed by itinerant hipsters with wads of cash. But knowing which clubs to go to, and how to get there, can be mystifying. If you’re like me, you stumble home in the wee hours clutching handfuls of flyers — brightly colored glossy paper rectangles luring you to the next night’s gig, sans context or reason. By breakfast, you won’t remember wha...

For PRI's THE WORLD, via NPR.  Hear it here .

The Identity Crisis That Lurks Behind Japan’s Right-Wing Rhetoric   from Time magazine By Roland Kelts May 31, 2013 Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images South Korean hold placards carrying the images of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto during a rally on May 23, 2013 in Seoul, South Korea. Recent remarks by the mayor of Osaka on the historic perception of 'comfort women', conscripted by Japanese military brothels during World War II, have recieved intense criticism from neigbouring countries and the U.S. When anti-Japan protests , the fiercest in years, erupted in China over territorial disputes last September, I was attending a conference in Tianjin, roughly 80 miles south of Beijing. Footage from the capital was chilling: smashed Japanese department stores and automobiles, flags on fire, protesters hurling eggs and debris at the Japanese embassy with chants of “F*** Japan .” Someone tried to crash into a...

I wrote the lead story for Newsweek Japan 's new feature on Haruki Murakami, and it's available in digital format here .

Lost in Translation? Posted by  Roland Kelts Last month, Haruki Murakami published a new novel in Japan. Before anyone could read it, the novel broke the country’s Internet pre-order sales record, its publisher announced an advance print run of half a million copies, and Tokyo bookstores opened at midnight to welcome lines of customers, some of whom read the book slumped in corners of nearby cafés straight after purchase. But this time, the mania was déjà vu in Japan—a near-replica of the reception that greeted Murakami’s last novel, “1Q84,” three years ago. The response was news to nearly no one. Except, maybe, Haruki Murakami. “The fact that I have been able to become a professional working novelist is, even now, a great surprise to me,” Murakami wrote in an e-mail three days before the release of “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.” He added: “In fact, each and every thing that has happened over the past 34 years has been a sequence of utter surpr...

Pop tourism gains traction BY ROLAND KELTS Pre-flight shopping at Narita airport a couple of weeks ago, I passed a mannequin sporting a light-blue necktie and a turquoise wig with pig tails dangling down to its mini skirt. The vision spoke volumes: It was Hatsune Miku, of course, Japan’s holographic, animated virtual pop star, beloved fashion icon and model for pop culture fans and cosplayers worldwide. But why was she suddenly manning the plaza concourse of Japan’s busiest tourist portal, standing tall beside Uniqlo and Shu Uemura? It turns out Miku is part of an expansive display in the new airport outlet of Cospa Akihabara , a shop devoted to Japanese pop culture products for global otaku (geeks)and cosplayers. The Narita venue opened in February and had a lively crowd of consumers at its counters when I stalled next to Miku last month, gingerly fingering my wallet. Tourism has long been a fiscal conundrum for Japan, the country’s potential cash cow stifled by its resis...