Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

Disaster and distance

Posted by on April 10th, 2011 at 8:07 PM
Hokusai, 1833
Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa,” 1833

I was in Oregon when the quake and wave first struck Japan last month. More specifically, I was in a little comfort food eatery called Belly in downtown Eugene, sipping a martini.

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Anime/Manga Porn Battle Heats Up in Japan

Posted by on January 20th, 2011 at 6:02 PM

The battle in Japan over pornography censorship Bill 156 is intensifying. Last month, media companies Kadokawa Group Publishing and Animate jointly announced they would take their wares away from Gov. Ishihara’s Tokyo Anime Fair and host their own simultaneous event, “The Anime Contents Expo.” Several other major publishers and producers are joining them.

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Manga vs Comics: Does it matter? Felipe Smith in Japan

Posted by on December 10th, 2010 at 11:45 AM

Can an American artist and his Japanese agent break down the walls of prejudice in both East and West?

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Satoshi Kon, 1963-2010

Posted by on September 11th, 2010 at 8:23 PM

Satoshi Kon, one of the most gifted, innovative and searchingly intelligent artists working in the anime medium and the film world at large, died on the morning of August 24 from pancreatic cancer–at the age of 46.

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Tokyo Anima

Posted by on March 30th, 2010 at 8:01 AM

I’m going to use this opportunity to segue into a mildly controversial but fully mutinous statement:

Why do good people design abusively ugly websites? I’m talking about web design that makes me want to papercut my eyeballs. Publishers can complain all day about the iPad, Kindle or kids-these-days but until our own digital content platforms look like something other than my grandma’s diaper, readership will not grow. If content is king, let’s do it the courtesy of dressing it up a little, shall we? A product planner for say, an accessory line or a marketing manager of a newspaper would get fired for some of the stuff I’ve seen. I won’t name names because I don’t have to. Every. Single. One. Of. Our. Publishing. Blogs. Is. Fugly.

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No One’s Watching The Shigeru Mizuki Biopic

Posted by on March 30th, 2010 at 7:08 AM

According to Video Research (which I guess is like a Japanese Nielsen’s Ratings), an aforementioned Shigeru Mizuki bio-teleplay, Ge Ge Ge no Nyobo, is tanking. Its first episode, which aired this week, was watched by only 14% of TV …

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Biopic Miniseries on Shigeru Mizuki

Posted by on March 2nd, 2010 at 6:44 PM

Ge Ge Ge no Nyobo (The Wife of Ge Ge Ge) is a biography based on a memoir written by Mizuki’s wife, Fumie Iida. She’s Ge Ge Ge’s wife because “Ge Ge Ge Kitaro” is Mizuki’s most famous manga/anime creation. …

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Gavin Lees reviews Red Snow

Posted by on December 30th, 2009 at 9:00 AM

After three volumes of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work, Drawn & Quarterly continue their gekiga renaissance with the publication of Susuma Katsumata’s Red Snow. Like the previous releases, this is a collection of short stories from various points in the author’s career with various back-matter to put the work in context.

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Japan Pop: DOA?

Posted by on December 9th, 2009 at 12:25 AM

The creativity isn’t lacking. Japanese artists are working harder than ever to produce ever more expansive versions of their craft. What’s wrong is the delivery system.

Which reminds me: Everyone’s writing about “putting the genie back into the bottle.” Last …

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Manga and Anime: DOA?

Posted by on December 7th, 2009 at 2:45 PM

“Americans have a history of getting excited about dying Japanese art forms, without realizing they are dying.” So said my good friend and anime authority Frederik L. Schodt three years ago, when I first spoke to him for my book, …

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