japanamerica

JAPANESE POP CULTURE IN 2022 February 15, 2022 7:00 pm Live Webinar: Free Registration HERE Part of the "Living Traditions" series Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 7-8 pm EST (4-5 pm PST)   Japanese pop culture, symbolized by manga and anime, has become an increasingly significant part of the cultural conversation across the globe. Julia Mechler , manga creator and Content Production Group Manager at mixi, inc., and Roland Kelts , author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S ., provide their insights into the current state of the industry, from pen to paper to screen, unpacking some of the latest trends and emerging technologies in Japanese pop culture. This webinar covers the historical development of manga and anime, the global influence of otaku culture, and what the future may bring inside and outside of Japan. Moderated by Bill Tsutsui , author of Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization , the fifth and final event in our five-part "Living Tr...

I just wrote my last 2021 "Letter from Tokyo" for The Japan Society of Boston about the differences between Japan's Bonenkai "forget-the-year" year-end parties and Christmas parties in Western countries, and the placid Japanese New Year's week (Oshogatsu) versus the Western NYE one-night blowout. Openly cribbed Joan Didion, with respect, and not a little reverence.  LETTER FROM TOKYO, DECEMBER 2021: BONENKAI BLUES “It is easier to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” That’s the first line of “Goodbye to All That,” one of the most widely read personal essays by American author Joan Didion, who died this month, two days before Christmas. The sentence is deceptively simple and seductive, like a Zen koan, but it takes on added weight when you actually come to the ends of things—like another year. In Tokyo, the year usually starts ending in November, with elaborate light displays cropping up in the city’s shopping and strolling centers, pre-...

"The Inland Sea" by Donald Richie is among the finest books ever written about Japan (some would say it's the finest) and we're celebrating its 50th Anniversary on DEC. 8th with a live Zoom event. I'll be discussing the book with renowned Japan scholar John Nathan, translator of Mishima, Oe, Soseki and others, and a great filmmaker to boot. Our talk will be moderated by Peter Grilli, president emeritus of The Japan Society of Boston. Registration is free here . The book is still in print, beautifully so, and will be sold at discount during the event by Stone Bridge Press . Please join us for this landmark evening hosted by The Japan Society of Boston . I'm really looking forward to this one.

‘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...

This was a whole lot of serious fun: My roundtable chat with author, historian, and dear friend Charles Solomon to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the "Lupin the 3rd" anime franchise, one of the world's longest-running animated series. Of course we talked a lot about "The Castle of Cagliostro," Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film as director, a charmed and stunning work that is often a gateway for non-Japanese to the Lupin universe.  Our roundtable is for Sentai Filmworks  and TMS Entertainment . 

  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, ...