Roland Kelts's Blog, page 83

On Tokyo's 'Japaneseness' for Paper Sky (JP only)

TinierMe getting bigger than you: 500,000 US-based users

TinierMe CEO Masaru Ohnogi @ Tokyo headquarters
"This summer, TinierMe announced that it has surpassed the one-million user milestone, and today boasts over 1,175,000 distinct users. But this week, an even more significant number hits the streets and screens: over half a million of TinierMe's current users worldwide are based in the United States, suggesting that the American audience for Japanese-made and -styled characters and environments continues to expand, even in a decidedly...

Satoshi Kon, 1963-2010

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / World of anime director Satoshi Kon still alive

Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

I was soaking my bones in a riverside rotenburo when news of anime director Satoshi Kon's death flashed across my cell phone via text message from Tokyo. Must be a macabre joke, I thought at first glance, though the friend who sent it isn't given to jabs of dark humor.

Maybe a promotional gambit for Kon's next work? His films are characterized in part by multiple...

On virtual girlfriends (Love Plus+)

On The Alyona Show -- and straight off the plane from Tokyo (hence all the blinking against sleep, pills and jet lag).

Profile of Tokyo's manga busker, Rikimaru Toho

Back from the cleansing rivers and hills of northern Honshu for another Tokyo story.
I encountered and interviewed Rikimaru Toho beneath the railway bridge at Shimokitazawa station while he was preparing for a night of performances. Toho-san is a street performer who theatrically, and sometimes with frightening urgency, performs scenes of manga titles selected by passersby. During his performances, crowds accrue, their faces going slack in absorption, wide with surprise, and sometimes...

Profile of Tokyo's manga busker, Rikamaru Toho

Back from the cleansing rivers and hills of northern Honshu for another Tokyo story.
I encountered and interviewed Rikimaru Toho beneath the railway bridge at Shimokitazawa station while he was preparing for a night of performances. Toho-san is a street performer who theatrically, and sometimes with frightening urgency, performs scenes of manga titles selected by passersby. During his performances, crowds accrue, their faces going slack in absorption, wide with surprise, and sometimes...

Porn, Piracy, Manga update/upgrade @ TCJ

Had and took a chance to update, expand upon and upgrade (I hope) my porn, piracy and manga summer review essay for The Comics Journal. Special thanks to Shiina-san--and to my editors for issuing and incorporating clarifications of her comments.

Clarification

For my latest column in The Daily Yomiuri and , I interviewed Yukari Shiina of World Manga, an agency specializing in connecting international artists with the domestic manga publishing industry. The following insights and comments by Shiina-san, an agent and industry consultant, survived the final edit:

Shiina believes the depressed economy and exaggerated expectations (i.e., oversaturation of the market) are key factors behind collapsing sales. But she doesn't ignore the...

Fuji and Me

Porn, Piracy and the Summer of Manga

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / Porn, piracy, summer of manga

Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

In the annals of manga, a medium roughly 60 years old and a primary driver of Japan's pop culture juggernaut, the summer of 2010 has been revolutionary--though the season launched long before last month's brutal humidity simultaneously smothered my two hometowns, Tokyo and New York.

As reported earlier in this column, the sentencing in February of American manga collector Christopher Handley to...