japanamerica

I'll be chatting with the Head of Content Strategy & Global Partnerships at anime streaming site Crunchyroll , Alden Mitchell Budill , this Thursday, July 8th from 2pm PST (with online access thru July 13th) at A-JAPAN — an exclusive content showcase of the hottest IP from Japan, incl. manga, TV and film. The event is hosted by Amuse Group USA, Inc. and actor-streamer Erika Ishii. Online registration is free here . A-JAPAN 2021 Teaser from Amuse Group USA on Vimeo .

LETTER FROM TOKYO, JUNE 2021: CHOOSING ONSEN OVER OLYMPICS  My favorite kind of getaway is a stay at an onsen-yado (Japanese hot springs hotel). It used to rotate among my top three, but the pandemic has edged it into first place. An onsen-yado relieves you of the burden of choice as soon as you step inside. Your shoes and luggage are whisked away. You are quietly ushered to your room. Padding through the halls, you are told when your dinner will be served and shown what you will wear: a robe, a sash, slippers—with two-toed tabi socks optional. No matching of ties to dinner jackets or puzzles over pumps or flats.  Then you soak in hot, mineral-rich water that transforms your joints into gentle friends of your body. Early June is a good time for hitting onsen. Spring holidays are over but the kids are still in school, and tsuyu ’s rainy season grays take the edges off. In Tokyo, May’s bracing sun can make everyone look hurried and feel hyperactive. June reminds you—what’s the...

I was just interviewed for the DEEP IN JAPAN podcast about growing up half-Japanese, writing  JAPANAMERICA , editing the literary magazine Monkey: New Writing from Japan , writing  "The Fifth Flavor ," reading Nabokov and Canetti ... and catching clout chasers who crib your ideas. Also chatted about my new book, the novel, my kindergarten years in Morioka, living with my grandparents and falling in love with Ultraman. Good fun all around thanks to Jeff Krueger and his team. (pic: Ultraman Taro & Mini Roland in Tokyo Tower.) Deep in Japan · Roland Kelts - On Contemporary Japanese Fiction & Japanamerica

Japan's obsession with perfection is an Olympic-sized problem  W hen clockwork does not work Japan is world-famous for its punctual and efficient customer service, and for most of the pandemic—with the country under varying states of emergency—this has been a godsend. Food deliveries arrive at your door, hot and hermetically sealed, up to 10 minutes earlier than promised. Packages sent from every corner of the country are handed to you the following morning by gloved couriers. Convenience stores really are convenient—located everywhere, well-stocked, impeccably sanitized and open 24/7, even in the smallest towns. In Tokyo, public clocks are ubiquitous. While it is true that you can set your watch to the departures and arrivals of Japan's trains, from the high-speed shinkansen to more humble commuter rails and subways, you do not really need a watch here. Yet now, when Japan does need to keep pace with global vaccinations just two months before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympi...

Photo: Nancy Keystone Letter from Tokyo, May 2021: Tokyo’s pandemic time warp This March, Kyoto’s cherry blossoms hit peak bloom on the earliest date recorded in 1200 years. Not 120. 1200. Here in Tokyo, the sakura trees below my office began blooming on the earliest date recorded in 60 years—after a winter so mild I never wore a scarf or donned footwear heavier than sneakers. Spring this year feels like early summer. Midday temps reach the upper 70s F / 20s C. If you brave the sun without a hat, you sweat. Tokyo’s weather is accelerated and overheated. But everything else feels frozen. After another week of less-than-golden holidays hunkered at home, we Tokyoites are watching a ‘fourth wave’ of Covid infections sweep the country. It feels redundant and endless. Vaccination appointments that seem plentiful elsewhere haven’t even started here. And we’re now preparing for two weeks of Olympic Games set to begin in just over a couple months, on July 23rd of 2021—an international extrav...

I was recently interviewed by the CBC about Japanamerica and the rise of Black representation in Japanese popular culture. Investments from Netflix and other big global media companies are bringing multiculturalism to Japan's thriving creative industries. But are we ready for a multicultural Japan? (You can access the interview here .) [Excerpts] What is it about anime that makes streaming giants like Netflix so eager to invest in not only the content, but in studios and in talent? On the one hand, it crosses borders really well. Streaming services are global. They're not just located in one country or devoted to one culture. I also like to think of anime characters as anime tribes. Take a movie star in the U.S. or China and they may not be that well-known outside of their own nation, but anime characters have this unique ability — partly because they're just illustrations — to travel very, very well. So streaming services are looking for content that will appeal not only...

African samurai earns hero status in new anime ‘Yasuke’ Of the record-high 40 original anime programs Netflix is launching this year, none may be better pedigreed or more timely than “Yasuke,” a six-episode series about Japan’s only known Black samurai. Voiced and executive produced by Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield (“Atlanta”), scored and co-produced by Grammy nominee Flying Lotus, with Grammy winner Thundercat collaborating on the opening song, animated by studio MAPPA Co., Ltd (“Jujutsu Kaisen”), designed by Takeshi Koike (“Redline”) and created and directed by LeSean Thomas (“Cannon Busters”), “Yasuke” is more than just a nod toward diversification and representation in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s an open embrace of both — arguably a first for Japan’s anime industry. The historical record on Yasuke is scant, leaving large gaps that the artists fill with a smorgasbord of supernatural and sci-fi anime tropes. The result is a headlong rush through a tangle of pl...