Roland Kelts's Blog, page 65

My taidan/panel with Makoto Shinkai @ 2011 NYCC/NYAF

Video playlist here (courtesy of Lawrence Brenner).




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Report on the taidan I hosted with anime auteur Makoto Shinkai at the 2011 New York Anime Festival/Comic Con, courtesy of Anime News Network:




[photo by Michael Vito]




Makoto Shinkai was in many places at the New York Comic Con. The director's previous films,Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second were screened at the convention, and a showing of his latest, Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, was held on Sunday. In between, Shinkai appeared on a panel to converse with Roland Kelts, author of .

The panel was introduced by Crunchyroll's Japan office President Vincent Shortino, who announced that Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second would all be streaming for free from Crunchyroll over the next week.



Kelts introduced Shinkai, calling him "one of the very few young anime artists who's compared favorably with Miyazaki in Japan." Shinkai introduced himself in English, mentioning that this was his first time in New York, and that he hoped to visit the Apple store for an iPhone 4S.









[photo by Alex Ninamori]




The two discussed Shinkai's unconventional background, which stemmed from computer-graphics and video games as opposed to anime, where hand-drawn art prevails even when aided by computers. Kelts asked if Shinkai's experience in CGI made him a better director.




"When I first started making these videos, I was an amateur working at a gaming company," Shinkai recalled. "But I really wanted to make animation, so I just used Photoshop and the other tools that I had. This was around 1998, cameras were really cheap, so I took photos on a digital camera, and I used images of cityscapes as a foundation for the images I needed. I had to do a lot of drawing." 

[More @ANN here ]

My taidan with Makoto Shinkai @ 2011 NYCC/NYAF

Report on the taidan I hosted with anime auteur Makoto Shinkai at the 2011 New York Anime Festival/Comic Con, courtesy of Anime News Network:



[photo by Michael Vito]




Makoto Shinkai was in many places at the New York Comic Con. The director's previous films,Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second,were screened at the convention, and a showing of his latest, Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, was held on Sunday. In between, Shinkai appeared on a panel to converse with Roland Kelts, author of .

The panel was introduced by Crunchyroll's Japan office President Vincent Shortino, who announced that Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second would all be streaming for free from Crunchyroll over the next week.



Kelts introduced Shinkai, calling him "one of the very few young anime artists who's compared favorably with Miyazaki in Japan." Shinkai introduced himself in English, mentioning that this was his first time in New York, and that he hoped to visit the Apple store for an iPhone 4S.




[photo by Alex Ninamori]

The two discussed Shinkai's unconventional background, which stemmed from computer-graphics and video games as opposed to anime, where hand-drawn art prevails even when aided by computers. Kelts asked if Shinkai's experience in CGI made him a better director.

"When I first started making these videos, I was an amateur working at a gaming company," Shinkai recalled. "But I really wanted to make animation, so I just used Photoshop and the other tools that I had. This was around 1998, cameras were really cheap, so I took photos on a digital camera, and I used images of cityscapes as a foundation for the images I needed. I had to do a lot of drawing." 
[More @ANN here ]

NYAF / NYCC Saturday schedule

Nearly firmed up:




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10:15 - 11:15 a.m., Japanamerica signing, Autograph Area, Table 7



12:00 - 2:00 p.m., Crunchyroll Live Stream, Both #858



2:45 - 3:45 p.m., In Conversation: Makoto Shinkai & Roland Kelts, Rm. 1A24




[image error]


4:00 p.m., Japanamerica signing @ Kinokuniya Books, Booth #158

Manga and jail in N. America

How Japanese manga can land international travelers in jail

A love of Japan and its comic books might get you locked up in North America
By Roland Kelts 14 October, 2011http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/how-japanese-manga-can-land-international-travelers-jail-333153#ixzz1aj0AVzsz

Kinokuniya NYC hosts Japanamerica sales/signings

The fine folks at Kinokuniya NYC are hosting book sales & signings throughout NYAF/NYCC this weekend.  Swing by booth #158 (map) and say hello.

Japanamerica, Shinkai & Crunchyroll @ NYAFF/NYCC

Official Crunchyroll press release for events at NYAF/NYCC this weekend.  More details forthcoming, but it looks like we'll host a  signing and Q&A via their live stream midday Saturday, EST.  (Speaking of--you can check out and comment on their live stream from the Javits Center in NYC  here .)









Press Contact:

Public Relations Department

Tel:(415) 796-3560

Fax: (415) 796-3561

pr@crunchyroll.com




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE




 




CRUNCHYROLL TO HOST A MYRIAD OF TALENTS AT
NEW YORK COMIC CON




Teaming up with legendary anime producer –
Makoto Shinkai – and author Roland Kelts, the leader in Asian content
distribution gears up for a series of events not to be missed




San Francisco, Calif. (October 11, 2011) – In the city
that never sleeps, Crunchyroll is proud to present an exclusive panel and
interview session with Makoto Shinkai – director of the stunning hits 5 CENTIMETERS PER SECOND and Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below at the New
York Comic Con and Anime Fair.  To
heighten the experience, lecturer and author, Roland Kelts – author of
JAPANAMERICA, the incisive look at anime and Japan's cultural influence on the
West – will introduce and lead the discussion with Shinkai. More information
can be found at www.crunchyroll.com.




There will be a press event for Makoto
Shinkai on October 15 starting from 11 am. 
Following that, a special conversation between Makoto Shinkai and Roland
Kelts will be held on October 15 at 2:45 pm EST in room 1A24. On October 16,
there will be a screening of Children
Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below starting at 11 am EST in the
IGN room, followed by a public signing starting at 2 pm and a VIP signing at 3
pm EST.




Throughout the entire convention weekend,
Crunchyroll itself will be hosting a number of events, including its live
stream, which will run through the weekend at booth #858, directly across from
the Marvel booth.  There will be surprise
guests appearing on the live channel, including author Kelts in a real-time Q&A
(details TBA), so it is to not be missed.




Crunchyroll will also host an
industry panel from 12 to 1 pm on Friday October 14 in room 1A23, which will
address recent titles to be seen on its site as well as updates on the
company.  Concurrently, Crunchyroll will
also be having the following screenings in Room 1A18:




Friday, October 14

4:15pm-5:15pm

Blue Exorcist
#1-3



Friday, October 14

5:30pm-6:30pm

STEINS;GATE
#1-3



Saturday, October 15

12:15pm-1:15pm

Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi #1-3




Crunchyroll premium members have access to
the largest anime and drama selection, same-day access for simulcasted titles,
no advertisements and viewing up to 720p quality on selected titles. More
information about the Crunchyroll membership plan can be found at:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/freetrial/




About Crunchyroll, Inc.




Crunchyroll is a leading global
video network and developer of social media applications for Japanese anime and
Asian media. Through applications like Crunchyroll for iPad, Android and Naruto
Shippuden Official, set top boxes, distribution partners and its own streaming site,
Crunchyroll delivers officially-licensed content from leading Asian media
producers directly to consumers.




Crunchyroll has offices in San
Francisco, Calif. and Tokyo, Japan, and is a member of the Association of
Japanese Animations (AJA) and Licensing International Merchandisers'
Association (LIMA). Founded in 2006, Crunchyroll is funded by leading venture
capital firm, Venrock, Japanese entertainment giant TV TOKYO, digital
publishing leader Bitway and a group of angel investors representing some of
the brightest and most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. More
information can be found at http://www.crunchyroll.com.







The
statements made in this press release that are not historical facts are
"forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements are
based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties.
The Company cautions readers of this press release that a number of important
factors could cause crunchyroll.com's actual
future results to differ materially from those expressed in any such
forward-looking statements. Such factors include, without limitation, product
delays, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry
standards, protection of proprietary rights, maintenance of relationships with
key personnel, vendors and third-party developers, international economic and
political conditions. The Company may change its intention, belief or
expectation, at any time and without notice, based upon any changes in such
factors, in the Company's assumptions or otherwise. The Company undertakes no
obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements
to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the
occurrence of unanticipated events.

On Haruki Murakami and 1Q84 @ The Christian Science Monitor

[more on Haruki for The Christian Science Monitor ]

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's prescient fiction

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami uses his novels to peel back the layered chaos of an uncertain world



By Roland Kelts, Contributor



In Haruki Murakami's world, fish fall from the sky near a Tokyo train station, backyard wells lead to personal and political violence, and a giant frog tells a businessman how to save Tokyo from its next major earthquake. The mundane mingles with the absurd, but neither offers solutions in a universe bent toward chaos.



Mr. Murakami cites Franz Kafka as one of his major influences, yet he warms Kafka's chilly detachment with Japanese earnestness, producing novels that anticipate apocalypse without succumbing to easy cynicism. In Murakami's world, chaos is softened by empathy – a quality in sorrowfully short supply, in fiction or in reality, in our 21st century.



"Everything is uncertain," muses Tengo, the male protagonist of Murakami's forthcoming novel, "1Q84," "and ultimately ambiguous." In Murakami's world, uncertainty is the norm. But once you accept it, his stories suggest, you can live and love accordingly. [more @CSM]

Japanamerica & Makoto Shinkai, Oct. 15, NYAF

@ NYAF/NYCC, this Saturday, Oct. 15, 2.45-3.45 p.m.

More info on full schedule TBA.  See you soon in NYC. 

[click for full size]

The US stomps on its own soldiers in Boston

Shame.

http://www.twitvid.com/J8KFK

genius in my dreams

The first time I mentioned the Nobel Prize to Haruki
Murakami, he winced.  "I don't really
care about prizes," he said.  "What
matters to me are my readers.  That's
all.  Once you have your readers, you
don't need to worry about anything else."




That was a decade ago. 
Murakami has been a perennial Nobel candidate for a long time.  He has also treated his readers very well,
delivering novels of varying length, short stories and personal essays at a
steady clip, appearing in person on university campuses, at literary festivals
and in bookstores, and occasionally corresponding directly with lonely souls
via the Internet.




More recently, he has been awarded a clutch of literary
honors seen as harbingers of the Nobel: the Kafka Prize in 2006, the Jerusalem Prize
in 2009, and this past summer, Spain's International Catalunya Prize.  Each time, the Japanese media wondered aloud
whether the allegedly 'reclusive' author would appear to accept his prizes in
person.  (More than a few reporters
contacted me for an answer.  I never
knew.)  And each time, Murakami did,
giving speeches in English and suffering the clucking flashes of paparazzi.

In Israel, he braved political antipathy by speaking on
behalf of the Palestinians.  In Spain, he
criticized his nation's naïve faith in nuclear power. 




Postwar Japan has garnered a reputation for docility,
especially after the largely forgotten student uprisings of the late 60s and
early 70s were effectively stamped out by the Japanese government abetted by
the US CIA. Murakami was a student protester back then ("I battled the police,"
he once proudly conceded), and has remained a proverbial outsider in Japan long
after his generation's dissidence died.  While
his fellow protesters donned suits and joined Japan Inc, Murakami opened a jazz
bar with his wife.  "I felt betrayed," he
says, suggesting roots for his avocation as a novelist.




Since then, Murakami has published 15 books in English (many
more in his native Japanese), the latest of which, 1Q84 (partly a nod to Orwell, with the
'q' being both a homonym for the Japanese word for '9' and also denoting a question) is out in the US on October 25.  In keeping with his more recent novels, it's
a sprawling canvas focused on close-ups: a lonely middle-aged male writer whose
professional fecklessness and dying father forces him to confront his perilous
state, and a lonely female assassin, whose steely professionalism and success
threaten to destroy her soul.  Both
inhabit a world riddled with trap-doors of corruption, violence and everyday uncertainty.




Murakami is a seasoned pro: He has been
publishing novels since 1979.  But part
of his allure is that he rarely feels like one. 
Brilliant narrative exposition and set pieces are wedged between
amateurish snatches of dialog that go nowhere.  Characters digress carelessly, and their
author indulges them. 

This is clearly essential to Murakami's
appeal.  He is a genius who seems just
like the rest of us.  The most common
reaction to his work I have heard from readers on both sides of the world is:
He knows my dreams.




We'll know Thursday if the Nobel
committee feels the same connection.