Roland Kelts's Blog, page 2

My latest interview for The Financial Times on Anime's lost profits

I was interviewed by the Financial Times about the global Anime Boom and domestic Anime Bust, and how the Trump tariffs could kill the golden goose:
https://archive.ph/NA572

<The global market for anime is now expected to almost double from $31.2bn in 2023 to $60.1bn by 2030, the investment bank Jefferies wrote in a 2024 report.

 But as the popularity of anime and manga — the comic books from which many anime characters and stories are derived — grow, Japanese studios and the country’s government are increasingly concerned that financial value is disappearing overseas.

“What we are starting to see from the anime companies is an awareness that the production and distribution side of the industry is inefficient,” says Roland Kelts, the author of JAPANAMERICA: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US. “The middle men are making a lot of money, but that isn’t trickling down.”>
*My thanks to ace reporter Leo Lewis. Again.

My 60 seconds on "60 Minutes"

What an honor to be on a show I've watched since my teens.

Live Gig for World Expo Osaka, April 24!

Speaking Live at World Expo 2025 Japan in Osaka this Thursday April 24, 6pm. 

Space limited so please preregister here and join us! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...

See you in my old hometown!

Live Gig for "Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025" for Lucas Films w/Taiki Sakurai (Netflix/IG), Mitsuyasu Sakai (Star Wars vision writer) and Shuzo Shiota, president/CEO of Polygon Pictures (Star Wars Visions)

I wrote about the Kurosawa/Star Wars/Gatchaman/Gundam continuum in the first few pages of JAPANAMERICA. Hosting this panel with some of the most brilliant minds in anime and dear friends of mine feels like full circle. 

This Friday, April 18th, 2:30pm at Makuhari Messe for the Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025.

Live Gig at The Harvard Club of Japan, Wed. March 26th!

I've given a number of talks and interviews on Japanese pop culture over the years but this one will be different: a look at the industry from the inside, via the artists and producers I now know well. Things have changed and are changing fast, my friends.

Register for great convo and catering here:

https://hcjapan.clubs.harvard.edu/art...

 photo: Timothy Scott Ralston

I'm honored to be joining Harvard Club of Japan on behalf of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for this special evening Wednesday March 26th with some of those industry professionals on hand. From my book, JAPANAMERICA.

"The value of Japan's pop culture exports anime and manga now rivals that of Japan's steel and semiconductor industries, making it the centerpiece of recent government meetings. Overseas sales of anime have grown exponentially, its market size more than doubling over the past decade. Major funds like Blackstone and Mizuho are now investing in Japanese pop culture, and the Japanese government aims to expand its global market fourfold to $130 billion in less than a decade.

But how did a low-budget, 75 year-old entertainment medium from Japan become the biggest content driver for Netflix worldwide in 2025? Why do more Gen Z Americans now prefer anime to the NFL--and why is the fan base growing so quickly in every corner of the earth, from Chile to India to Saudi Arabia?

Join renowned author and media expert Roland Kelts as he tells us the whole story, from start to finish, including its biggest future challenge: AI piracy."

SPEAKER'S BIOGRAPHY:

Roland Nozomu Kelts is an award-winning Japanese American journalist, author, editor and scholar. He is best known for his highly acclaimed bestseller, Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US, and the more recent, Blade Runner: Black Lotus. He contributes to numerous media in Japan, the US and Europe, including the BBC, CNN, NHK, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Guardian and The New York Times, and has been a contributing editor to the literary journal "Monkey: New Writing from Japan" since its inception in 2011. He has worked as an author, editor and consultant for publishers in Japan, the UK and the US for over twenty years, and was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard in 2017. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo.

NPR interview on "Hikikomori," Japan's socially withdrawn youth

I was interviewed by National Public Radio for their excellent segment on extreme social withdrawal in Japan (called "Hikikomori") now airing across the US and online here. 

Extreme social withdrawal was first diagnosed in Japan in the late 1990s and I wrote about it most recently in this Op-Ed essay for The New York Times.

The pathology is now spreading worldwide, with Hikikomori cases spiking in other regions of Asia, the Americas and Europe. 

 

Digital dependency is identified as both a symptom and cause of self-isolation. I shudder to imagine the coming impact of AI distractions like ChatGPT as they become increasingly advanced and accessible--especially to those whose IRL interactions have already been diminished by the pandemic years. 

In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a groundbreaking book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death." And all he was talking about was television.

Publishing in Japan: Live Panel at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan Dec. 18th / *Live Stream on Zoom

Can foreign authors succeed in Japan? Of course. But how? I'm joining bestselling award-winning author Robert Whiting ("Tokyo Underworld," "You Gotta Have Wa"), veteran KADOKAWA editors Satoshi Gunji (P.E.N. Japan) and Tetsuya Sugahara, and Japan UNI Agency president Miko Yamanouchi to explain. 

 

If you're in Tokyo, please join us live at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Wednesday December 18th at 6pm JST. *Owing to demand, the event will now be live streamed via Zoom if you register here.

Issues of the latest English and Japanese-language editions of "MONKEY: New Writing from Japan," the finest magazine of Japanese stories, poetry, essays and visual art will be on sale at the venue, thanks to our partners and pals at SWITCH.

Japan's Literary Boom! Join me for our MONKEY: New Writing from Japan event, Dec. 3/4

 Japanese lit is lit!

Happy December, friends! I hope you'll join me live THIS Tues Dec 3 6pm EST / Wed Dec 4 8am JST for a totally FREE online event to launch "Monkey New Writing from Japan" Vol: 5, the Creatures Issue! Register online in a New York minute here. 

MONKEY is the only annual English-language magazine of excellent Japanese contemporary and classical writing, from short stories to poetry, haiku, tanka, manga and Noh--all brilliantly illustrated!

I'll be joined by Akutagawa prize-winning author Tomoka Shibasaki (A Hundred Years and a Day), poet/translator Leo Elizabeth Takada (Perfect Days), and MONKEY co-founding editor and multiple award-winning translator Motoyuki Shibata. We're gratefully hosted by Japan Society of Boston and generously sponsored by The Yanai Foundation.  We'll have a bilingual reading with Shibasaki, a chat about literary translation and a poetry reading with Takada, and the sheer brilliance and wisdom of Shibata.

Our show this year is called "Japan's Literary Boom!" because it's all over the headlines and is what's happening right now. From Haruki Murakami to Mieko Kawakami, join us to learn how and why Japanese lit is, well, lit!

Guest speaking for "The Nation Travels: Japan 2024"

I kept a stack of well-thumbed issues of The Nation Magazine in my New York apartment so it was an honor to host their first-ever Japan Tour these pasts two weeks along with Pico Iyer and other accomplished Japan-based authors, journalists and scholars.

 

We addressed a wide range of topics, from the aging society and shrinking population to the state of Japan's economy, politics (in the middle of LDP elections, no less), environmental policy, LGBTQ legislation, burakumin culture, spirituality and folklore (yokai and yurei included) and, of course, manga and anime. The tour hit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Koyasan, Nara and Hiroshima. It was a proverbial tour de force for a great American magazine.

 

 

New series of JAPANAMERICA-themed talks for US universities via WorldStrides

I’ve been doing a series of JAPANAMERICA-themed talks in Tokyo via the generous and uber-competent WorldStrides agency for US universities including The University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University and DePaul University. The discussions have been wide-ranging and fascinating (I'm learning a lot myself!) and I am grateful for the enthusiastic student-professor audiences and the sterling support from the team at WorldStrides. Highly recommended.