July 29, 2004
Anime as Literary Inspiration
The Asahi Shimbun is running a feature on novelist Novala Takemoto, author of the book Shimotsuma Monogatari. (This book has been made into a feature film better known by the title Kamikaze Girls.)
What I found the most interesting is that the anime series "Candy Candy" was apparently responsible for a dramatic change in Takemoto's life when he was young:
One day he saw "Candy Candy," a popular TV cartoon based on a comic book for girls. Takemoto was enchanted by the sentimental tale of an innocent orphan girl adopted by an aristocratic family.
"I wasn't interested in boyish things like making plastic models or sports, so I felt somewhat out of place," Takemoto says. "After seeing 'Candy,' however, I was happy to finally find what I liked."
Although the anime didn't really serve as "literary inspiration" as I assert in the title of this entry, Takemoto seems to have been inspired by it and used it as a way of understanding the world and himself.
In a related article from a week ago, the Mainichi Daily News reports on the ongoing legal battles between Yumiko Igarashi, the artist of the "Candy Candy" manga, and Kyoko Mizuki, the manga's creator.
Posted by brianruh at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2004
Back to Blogging / Japanese Graphic Design
I haven't really been keeping up with my blogging duties. I do have some good excuses -- this last weekend Sarah and I drove up to Chicago so we could get a shower curtain at Ikea and to I could play around at the Mitsuwa marketplace. And yesterday was my birthday, so I just relaxed.
One link I've been meaning to put up is to h-chan's site over at the miss osaka net. She posts some really interesting stuff and deems my own weblog to be "very promising," so I urge you to check out her site.
Today I've been working on my review of the book Japanese Graphics Now!. Going through the various designs, I noticed that there is a two-page spread in the web design section that features the Japanese webpage for the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. (The URL that they give for it in the book no longer seems to be up, though.) There's also a page on the Japanese Cowboy Bebop webpage. (Both were designed by Masanori Sakamoto.)
My review of Japanese Graphics Now! is now up at AnimeResearch.
Posted by brianruh at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)
F 9/11 in Crawford
If I still lived in Austin, you know I'd be driving up to Crawford to catch tonight's screening of Fahrenheit 9/11.
Posted by brianruh at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2004
Japan Pop in BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek is currently running an article called "A Tsunami of Japanese Pop Culture" that discusses the significance of anime and manga as cultural exports. The article is one of those very general pieces that ends up not saying much other than "hey, this is going on." It's kind of disappointing that BusinessWeek couldn't get more facts and figures regarding the status of the industry, although it does day at the end that "Japanese anime and related character exports outstripped the value of steel exports from Japan." One good thing that the article does is mention the importance of fans and fansubbing groups to the growth and survival of the anime/manga industries in the US.
Posted by brianruh at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2004
The Cultural Dislocaton of Anime
I was in my local chain bookstore this afternoon and came across the July 2004 issue of Computer Arts magazine. The image pictured at left is part of a cover story called “Animé Magic” in its July 2004 issue. The cover was an example of what they called an “animé illustration” by French artists 123Klan. The majority of the article was dedicated to instructing the reader how to reproduce the image using Adobe Illustrator.
The text in the article references anime’s simple design and colors and mentions its similarities to graffiti art. The most interesting thing about the article, though, is a complete lack of reference to Japan or Japanese artists. So what does this mean for anime's status in the world market? What makes the illustration particularly "anime"? (To be honest, I wouldn't have thought of it as being being done in an anime or manga style if the cover text hadn't pointed out to me.) Is anime now just an artistic buzzword, or is there something else to it? Yes, these are the things I think about on a regular basis.
Posted by brianruh at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2004
Fandom Documentaries
A post on BoingBoing points to the fact that the sequel to the Star Trek fan documentary Trekkies will be coming out straight-to-video later this summer. I'll definitely have to check it out. It also reminds me that I need to finish up my review for Go Go Anime!.
Posted by brianruh at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2004
Book Proof
I just received my latest purchase from Ebay in the mail, and it was my own book. Yes, I do have plenty of copies sitting on my shelves at home, but this was different. It was a copy of the uncorrected proofs with a different cover. Until I saw a copy of it up on Ebay, I didn't know that such a thing existed. The cover on to the left is the proof cover while an example of the final cover art can be seen on my page for the book.
I really like the way the art turned out in the final version. I've received a number of compliments, but I can unfortunately take none of the credit as I had only minimal input into the design and image used. For more cool art, the homepage of Anna Tsubaki, who did the fantastic illustration of Oshii, is here.
Posted by brianruh at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2004
Nagoya Gets its Props
The Daily Yomiuri is running a story on the recent successes of the city of Nagoya. I've always had a soft spot for the city after studying abroad there for a semester at Nanzan University in Fall 1998. Even though it's the fourth largest city in Japan (the Yomiuri calls it "the nation's third-largest metropolitan area, behind Tokyo and Osaka," so I guess they're including Yokohama in the Tokyo metro area), Nagoya seems to get no respect -- the city seems to be more of a conduit for travelers than a destination unto itself. I'm glad to see the city is getting a bit more attention these days.
I hope to get back to the area for the 2005 World Exposition next year. However, by that time Sarah and I will be new parents so who knows what'll happen.
Posted by brianruh at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2004
NYT on graphic novels, but...
From BoingBoing: The New York Times is running an impressive piece on graphic novels that seems to take the comic medium seriously.
What gives me pause (other than the typo on the second page in which Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud becomes Scott McLoud) is that author Charles McGrath dismisses Japanese comics out of hand at the beginning of the article. He defines manga as "those Japanese comic books that feature slender, wide-eyed teenage girls who seem to have a special fondness for sailor suits," leading me to wonder if he ever read any manga before making such a boldly sweeping and utterly unfounded statement.
Of course, this is the same paper that in 2002 printed an article containing the erroneous statement "Comic books account for 60 percent of printed publications in Japan, a reflection of low literacy rates due to the difficulty of learning Japanese characters." (In fact, Japan has close to a 99% literacy rate. The Times later issued a correction.)
Posted by brianruh at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
Summer Reading
I got to this interesting list of what some webloggers are reading this summer via Warren Ellis's blog and I thought I should go into what I'm reading this summer.
Admittedly a lot of the reading I've been doing is related to my current research project, which is an investigation of artificial and cyborg women in Japanese anime and manga. (This is unrelated to any of my research projects for my Ph.D program, but will hopefully be my second book.) What I've been reading can be loosely lumped under the term "source material." I just finished Koji Suzuki's Ring, which posits an interesting relationship between spirituality and technology in the guise of a horror novel. This relationship is made even clearer in the manga version. I've been catching up on a lot of relevant manga I've missed (relevant to my project, at least) such as Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, Masakazu Katsura's Video Girl Ai, and Kenichi Sonoda's Cannon God Exaxxion. I've been spending most of my summer watching anime ("Hey, it's research" should be my personal mantra) and taking care of things around the house like painting. I think the next prose fiction I'll tackle will be Richard Calder's Dead Girls / Boys / Things trilogy.
Just so nobody thinks that I'm letting all of this popular culture rot my brain, let me throw out that I just started re-reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism without Beliefs.
Posted by brianruh at 08:04 AM | Comments (0)
Hello Robo
Between the Japanese cartoon cat icons Doraemon and Hello Kitty, while it was Doraemon who was a robot in the story it is Hello Kitty who is becoming a robot in real life. According to an article from the Kyodo news service a robotic Hello Kitty with face-recognition capabilities will be on sale later this year for around 400,000 yen (~US$3,700).
Posted by brianruh at 07:43 AM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2004
Pikachu is Peeking at You
In other Game Boy-related news, according to a short article in Japan Today later this month a company in Japan will be selling a device to turn the Game Boy into a videophone.
Posted by brianruh at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
Anime vending machines
It has become one of those oft-repeated pieces of urban lore that anything that can be purchased in Japan can often be purchased from a vending machine. Although I am enchanted by Japanese vending machines, their contents are sometimes exaggerated. (In my three trips to Japan, I have never seen any of the vending machines selling schoolgirls' unmentionables that, if one is to believe the tales, are ubiquitous throughout the country. I'm not saying that such machines don't really exist, just that they're certainly not everywhere.)
However, it does look like there are anime vending machines. An entry on Gizmodo has images of two such machines that vend anime for your Game Boy Advance. (Source: BoingBoing)
Posted by brianruh at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2004
Truck-yaro
If you've seen Millennium Actress or the live-action Great Teacher Onizuka drama, then you've seen images of those cool-looking Japanese trucks tricked out by the truck-yaro, or "truck guys." The Asahi Shimbun is currently running an article on the truck-yaro, but it only features one small picture of the back of a truck. There are some better dekotora (decorated truck) images here
One of the interesting things is that the editor of a Japanese trucking magazine says in the Asahi article is that truck customizers fall into two camps -- the traditionalists, who feature images of geisha and samurai, and the futurists, who are after what the editor calls the "Gundam style." It seems that even in the world of Japanese trucking anime is used as a referent. (On that note, here are a few images of Sailor Moon and Dragonball themed trucks.
Posted by brianruh at 07:49 AM | Comments (1)
July 07, 2004
Don't Have a Cow, er, Horse
I don't think I could have asked a more pertinent question today: "But how can Microsoft counter open source software's ability to make a Japanese woman give birth to a horse in a convenience store?" (Be sure to watch the video.)
In other interesting news, the Japanese government has said that it plans to issue its latest defense white paper in manga form in order to increase readership.
Posted by brianruh at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
The Confluence of Anime and Grammar Nitpickery
For some reasons issues of Newtype USA always seem to end up face-down on the floor of my house. Perhaps it's because the magazine reads from right to left in the Japanese fashion. Whatever the reason, I often tend to notice the advertisements on the back cover of Newtype more than those in other magazines.
This morning I was looking at the July 2004 issue as it lay on my bathroom floor and saw an advertisement for Bandai's new anime series Wolf's Rain. What really caught my eye was the bit at the top that said the series is "From the Creator's of Cowboy Bebop":
Um... creator's? So did they not notice they had screwed up and put the singular posessive rather than the plural of "creator"? (Well, I guess it could be a contraction too.) Someone in Bandai's art department either needs to do a better job of proofreading or needs to go back to English 101.
Posted by brianruh at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
The Akiba of Kansai
According to this article in the Asahi Shimbun, a large district for consumer electronics in Osaka is being transformed by an influx of retailers from the Tokyo area. Additionally, a number of the newer shops are specializing in typically otaku fare such as manga, video games, and collectibles. It sounds like Osaka is getting its own version of Tokyo's Akihabara district.
Posted by brianruh at 08:09 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2004
Cruising the Anime City
Following a link from Patrick Macias's homepage, it looks like Amazon now has a listing for his newest book, complete with a copy of the spiffy cover. Called Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo and co-written with Tomohiro Machiyama (co-founder of the Japanese film mag Eiga Hiho), the book looks like it'll be a travel guide for those looking to tour the city of Tokyo from a pop culture point of view.
I'm excited about this book not only as a fan but as an academic as well. The dissertation project I'm currently formulating involves examining the behaviors and attitudes of US anime/manga fans who go to Japan specifically because they have an interest in the country's popular culture. I really enjoyed Macias's TokyoScope, so I'm looking forward to what he has come up with in this new book.
Posted by brianruh at 07:37 AM | Comments (1)
July 05, 2004
Don't come between a writer and his/her work
Just a reminder that we writers can be a testy bunch.
Posted by brianruh at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2004
My entry into the blogging world
Okay, I figured it was high time that I get around to doing this blogging thing. Not like I really have all that much time for it. Or perhaps I have more time than I realize. But for now, this will have to do until i get around to twiddling with all the knobs and pushing all the buttons. Feel free to entertain yourself in the meantime by reading my new book.
Posted by brianruh at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)