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Niigata 2024 Redux: Is anime from beyond Japan still 'anime?'

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Niigata film festival showcases cutting-edge overseas talent Less than a week after octogenarian Hayao Miyazaki scored his second Academy Award, another 80-something anime legend, “Gundam” creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, greeted a packed auditorium at the second annual Niigata International Animation Film Festival (NIAFF) . Striding onstage in a funky black-and-white jacket, billowing slacks and a baseball cap, Tomino urged the artists in the audience to surpass his longtime rival, who he said had raised the artistic bar for the medium — “Let’s beat Miyazaki!”     Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino and designer Yutaka Izubuchi open NIAFF 2024     Tomino’s rousing ebullience kicked off this year’s six-day NIAFF in Niigata, a mid-sized city two hours north of Tokyo by train. Despite brisk winds and spurts of snow, the city’s welcome felt even warmer this year, with local restaurants offering specials highlighted in the program guide and a cosplay parade snaking through the central shopping d
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Japanamerica interviews on Hayao Miyazaki's second Oscar

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I first interviewed Hayao Miyazaki for Japanamerica in the early aughts. I was very fortunate. It was the usual story--a friend of a friend of a friend, and so on. He was a bit tight-lipped at first but relaxed and opened up when he realized that I was no otaku .  Later I was invited to interview him live onstage at UC Berkeley in California ( video here ), and we've had a few informal chats since.  When he was awarded a second Oscar this year (third if you count his 2014 honorary statuette), I gave interviews to the BBC, CNN and The Guardian , in addition to a couple of online Japanese media. The business has undergone a revolution since our first meeting for Japanamerica . File-sharing and streaming media have made Japanese pop culture in general and anime in particular a content goldmine. The reputation of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli has grown in prominence over the past 20 years, partly owing to its rich and unparalleled catalog of quality content, but also because of li
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New Interview on BR/BL, Shoujo manga and the legacy of Japanamerica

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      "What Kelts did for manga and anime can be compared to what the late Donald Richie did to bridge Western audiences and Japanese films, creating an accessible entry point that both facilitated and commented on cross cultural communication."   Er, here .
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On "Godzilla Minus One" for The Atlantic

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I used to run like hell from Godzilla movies, not out of fear but embarrassment. As a Japanese-American teenager in diversity-poor rural New England, I winced at the sight of a dude in a rubber suit stomping on cardboard cities. It looked silly and cheap, two Asian stereotypes I was trying hard to live down, so I ran even faster from the Americans I knew who actually liked Godzilla to avoid being cast as yet another Asian American nerd.   Evidently, Godzilla outran me. Japan’s nuclear lizard is now the face of the world’s longest-running film franchise, according to Guinness World Records, turning 70 this year on the heels of its most successful iteration yet. Released into U.S. theaters with scant publicity, “Godzilla Minus One” is North America’s highest-grossing Japanese-language movie ever and has surpassed the $100 million mark globall y on a production budget of under $15 million. A box office blockbuster with a price tag minus one of Hollywood’s lavish digits. It’s also an a
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My thoughts on Ghibli's "The Boy and the Heron" and Toho's "Godzilla Minus One" for CNN and The Straits Times

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Two Japanese-made films premiered within a week of each other in US cinemas last December, "Godzilla Minus One" and "The Boy and the Heron," with very little publicity. Both are now huge commercial successes: "Heron" is the highest grossing non-franchise anime feature ever in the US; "G-1" the highest grossing Japanese live action film. Both are also critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated.  For Miyazaki, a win would be his second after 2003's "Spirited Away." For the "G-1" VFX team, led by writer-director Takashi Yamazaki, a win would be a first for any film in the 70 year-old Godzilla series and would make Yamazaki the first director to win for VFX since Stanley Kubrick, who was so awarded in 1968 for "2001: A Space Odyssey." • I spoke to CNN about Miyazaki's first Golden Globe earlier this year and the chances that he will receive his second Academy Award (not that he cares all that much) at next month&
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2023 Anime of the Year? "Blue Giant," of course.

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Sleeper hit anime 'Blue Giant' gets an encore In 2023, releasing a big-budget anime feature about three Gen Z boys in a post-bop jazz band sounds like commercial suicide. Jazz is boomer music; anime is for kids weaned on Pokemon. But the sleeper hit of the year was by far director Yuzuru Tachikawa’s “Blue Giant,” an adaptation of Shinichi Ishizuka’s jazz-centric manga series. The film was so popular with audiences in Japan and overseas after its first run this spring that it warranted an even bigger budget for a re-edited second release, which premiered last month at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) before opening in cinemas across Japan. Jazz has been featured in popular anime soundtracks since the 1970s, when Yuji Ohno’s funky fusion scores for the “Lupin III” series were broadcast on network TV and incorporated into Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film, “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.” Jazz and sci-fi anime cemented their synergy with Yoko Kanno’
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12/13 FCCJ Book Break: W. David Marx, author of “AMETORA: How Japan Saved American Style” - A presentation in conversation with Roland Kelts

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One of my favorite recent English-language books on Japan is AMETORA ("American Traditional"), the enthralling, novelistic story of postwar Japan told through its brilliant refashioners of Western fashions (Take Ivy! Selvedge Denim! BAPE!). I will host a talk w/author W. David Marx at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Wednesday, Dec 13th , 6pm JST, both live and via Zoom. If you're in Tokyo (or not), please join us by registering here :  https://www.fccj.or.jp/event/book-break-w-david-marx-author-ametora-how-japan-saved-american-style-presentation  "Tokyo-based author W. David Marx will speak about his 2015 cultural history of American fashion in Japan — AMETORA: How Japan Saved American Style — which has recently been re-released by Basic Books with a new afterword after surprising global success. Marx will give a presentation in conversation with JAPANAMERICA author and moderator Roland Kelts on this fascinating micro-history of how Amer
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