Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. - Softcover

Kelts, Roland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140398476X ISBN 13: 9781403984760

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007

Synopsis

Japanamerica is the first book that directly addresses the American experience with the Japanese pop culture craze--including anime from Hayao Miyazaki's epics to the burgeoning world of hentai, or violent pornographic anime to Haruki Murakami's fiction. Including interviews with the inventor of Pac-man and executives from TokyoPop, GDH, and other major Japanese and American production companies, this book highlights the shared conflicts both countries face as anime and manga become a global form of entertainment and change both the United States and Japan in the process.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Japanamerica is the book I have been waiting for. It tells the incredible story of the way the colorful and eccentric world of Japanese entertainment and popular art has enriched our lives in the West. But it also deals with why it has a poetry that has taken Americans many years to understand and feel able to echo. Japan's holocaust was equally traumatic to the ones experienced by many Americans, and perhaps more sudden, more extreme and more focused. This story shows how today we all use movies, comics, music, art and advertising to face our past and its traumas, rather than to escape. The Japanese methods of facing the past are restrained and unusual, but ultimately glorious, and mean more to us in our post-9/11 era than ever they could before. Roland Kelts, part American, part Japanese, brings real insight to the way this union of hearts and souls through entertainment will continue to grow and draw two very different worlds together." --Pete Townshend, The Who

"Roland Kelts sees deeply and writes elegantly; he gives us a unique and powerful vision of Japanese and Western culture." --Daniel Bergner, author of In the Land of Magic Soldiers and God of the Rodeo

"Roland Kelts is a keen observer of both American and Japanese pop culture, placing him in a unique position to discuss the rise of anime in America and the West." --Martha McPhee, author of Bright Angel Time

"The brain of Roland Kelts is not only a brilliant interpreter of places where Japanese and American culture meet, it is also one such important place." --Matthew Sharpe, author of the NBC book club selection, The Sleeping Father, and Nothing is Terrible, Stories from the Tube, and the forthcoming Jamestown: A Novel

"As the step-mother of an anime-crazed teen, I read Japanamerica curious to understand the obsession. What I didn't expect was that Roland Kelts's intelligent and precise observations would shed so much light on my own cultural experience." --Adrienne Brodeur, author of Man Camp, Founding Editor of Zoetrope: All-Story

"Japanamerica provides insight into the collision of Eastern and Western pop culture, and the aftermath that is this cutting edge phenomenom known as Anime." --Joe Hahn, Linkin Park

About the Author:

Roland Kelts is a Lecturer at the University of Tokyo and a co-editor of the New York-based literary journal, A Public Space. His articles, essays, and stories have been published in Zoetrope, Playboy, Salon, The Village Voice, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue, among others. He currently splits his time between New York and Tokyo.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 140398476X
• ISBN 13: 9781403984760
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256