Two lucky writers got some happy news earlier this month when they were chosen as winners of the 143rd Akutagawa and Naoki prizes. Burgeoning author Akiko Akazome was awarded the Akutagawa for her novel Otome no Mikkoku (“The Anonymous Tip of a Virgin”), which takes up the question of the identity of the person who ...
August 4 Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010) Post Grad (Vicky Jenson, 2009) The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Rebecca Miller, 2009) Echelon Conspiracy (Greg Marcks, 2009) AUGUST 6 Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) AUGUST 11 District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009) August 25 Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier, 2010) An Education ...
Manga may be the big thing in Japan, but Kinokuniya wants Tokyo-based fans of Western comics to know they’re not forgotten. On July 13, the mega book retailer unveiled Japan’s largest selection of comics at its Shinjuku flagship store. Thanks to a recent renovation, the already impressive stock of English-translated manga has also been expanded—to ...
Author Manabu Miyazaki, a self-described “freelance yakuza,” has filed a lawsuit against Fukuoka Prefecture in a case involving gangsters, comics and censorship. The prominent writer and social critic—who gained an international following with the 2005 English translation of his memoir, Toppamono: Outlaw, Radical, Suspect, My Life in Japan’s Underworld—claims that the Fukuoka government infringed on ...
Last January, university student Yukie Doi set out with a mission: to hitchhike the length of Japan using Twitter. The enterprising 19-year-old, who tweets as @yukie0339, managed to freeload her way from one destination to the next by putting out calls for people to give her a ride or let her crash for the night. ...
July 2 It’s Complicated (Nancy Meyers, 2009) Valentine’s Day (Garry Marshall, 2010) The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, (Terry Gilliam, 2010) (500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009) The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2009) July 9 The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2009) July 14 Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009) Invictus (Clint Eastwood, ...
Sad news for Center Gai audiophiles: HMV’s flagship store in Shibuya will be closing its doors in mid-August. When it opened in 1990, the shop was HMV’s first Japan location, but in March, its parent company was gobbled up by Culture Convenience Club, which runs the Tsutaya chain. We suspect that the presence of the ...
Fans of ever-expanding hip-hop/dance group Exile (14 members at last count) were warned via a post on the official fan club site to keep an eye out for scams. Recent rip-offs include customers being charged extremely high prices to attend events at which Exile will supposedly be in attendance, and fans being lured into signing ...
It’s not often that a high school in the middle of nowhere becomes a tourist destination, but that’s exactly what’s happened with Nishinomiya Kita Koutou Gakko in Hyogo. The school is the alma mater of author Nagaru Tanigawa—and, more famously, provides the setting for his bestselling light novel series, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (“The Melancholy ...
It was recently announced that the TBS dramedy Tumbling, about the trials of a high-school boys’ rhythmic gymnastics team, will be getting a stage adaptation in September. The play is set five years after the events depicted in the TV series, with actor Shunsuke Daito (Crows Zero II) reprising his role as Ryuichiro Kiyama. The ...
Manga fans in the Shibuya area now have a new place to tachiyomi following the “renewal opening” of the Tsutaya in the Q-Front Building, opposite Hachiko. The seventh floor (formerly Cine Front) was closed in January for renovations, and with the reopening on April 28, the entire space has been given over to manga and ...
As the world’s largest depository of print material, the United States Library of Congress is devoted to preserving works of cultural importance. The institution receives copies of every single book, piece of music, etc., copyrighted in America. And apparently, this now includes Twitter. The company behind the game-changing microblogging service recently announced that it will ...
The video game industry has been largely unaffected by the downturn that’s hit the rest of the media industry. But Japanese news site Getnews.jp reports that a certain game manufacturing company (referred to only as X Co.) is in such financial trouble that it was unable to pay a single yen of its employees’ salaries ...
Technophiles the world over are holding their collective breath for what promises to be a huge month for gadget sales. Apple’s much-ballyhooed touch-screen gadget, the iPad, is slated to go on sale internationally in April. US users can already preorder the wireless model, which comes out on April 3, while the 3G device is set ...
The online community is abuzz with a pair of DRM-related news items. First up was the tweetstorm set off by Niwango’s Tomohito Kinose (@kinoppix), who wrote: “JASRAC director Sugawara says, tweeting song lyrics will incur JASRAC usage fees.” The idea that twitter-length excerpts could infringe on copyright was met with near-universal disdain, including a tweet ...
Many people (including us, we must admit), are drawn to the Street Fighter video games for their sheer simplicity—after all, with the tried and true “button mashing” method, you can win a match without having any clue what the individual buttons do. But go up against a true SF enthusiast, and you’ll find out the ...
Industry insiders and fanboys everywhere are gearing up for next month’s Tokyo International Anime Fair, one of the largest events of its kind (www.tokyoanime.jp). The four-day spectacle at Tokyo Big Sight features industry exhibits, stage performances by foreign and local anime artists, and the Tokyo Anime Awards. There’s also the annual Charity Auction, where fans ...
Oh, the times, they are a-changin’. The online community is abuzz with the news that NHK has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Though the official account (@NHK_PRPR) has just launched, it’s already amassed nearly 20,000 followers. Why the sudden popularity, especially considering that TBS (@tbs_channel) and NTVNTVNTV (@nittele_da_bear) have nowhere near as many followers? It’s ...
Mind-bendingly odd manga Legend of Koizumi is coming to animated life this month (www.mudazumo.jp). The ongoing series by Hideki Owada shows how former PM (and gaming aficionado) Junichiro Koizumi settles international disputes through epic mahjong battles against major world leaders. The OVA goes on sale February 26, while vol. 3 of the manga was released ...
Bookworms were abuzz earlier this month over the announcement of the winners of two of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards. The 142nd Naoki Prize for popular literature was presented to Kazufumi Shiraishi for the short story collection Hokanaranu Hito he (“To No One But You”) and to detective novelist Jo Sasaki for Haikyo ni Kou ...
Feb 3 Land of the Lost (Brad Silberling, 2009) The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009) Feb 5 Horsemen (Jonas Akerlund, 2009) 17 Fast & Furious (Justin Lin, 2009) The Taking of Pelham 123 (Tony Scott, 2009) The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) 19 My Sister’s Keeper (Nick Cassavetes, 2009) Paintball (Daniel Benmayor, 2009)
Jan 6 Knowing (Alex Proyas, 2009) Jan 8 The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008) Jan 13 I Come With the Rain (Anh Hung Tran, 2008) Jan 15 Transporter 3 (Olivier Megaton, 2008) The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008) Jan 20 Coco Chanel (Christian Duguay, 2008) What We Do Is Secret (Rodger Grossman, 2007) Jan 22 X-Men Origins: ...
1. Gake no Ue no Ponyo (“Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea,” Hayao Miyazaki, 2009) 2. Arashi: 5 x 10 All the Best! Clips 1999-2009 (2009) 3. Okuribito (“Departures,” Yojiro Takita, 2008) 4. Michael Jackson: Live in Bucharest (2005) 5. Michael Jackson: Video Greatest Hits (2005) 6. Arashi Around Asia 2008 in Tokyo (2009) ...
The smash-hit keitai serial 40 Onna to 90 Nichi Kan de Kekkon suru Houhou (“How to Marry a 40-Year-Old Woman in 90 Days”) will make the leap to TV next month. The romantic comedy about an “around 40” beautician (Naoko Iijima) and the 23-year-old salaryman (Hayato Ichihara) who falls in love with her originally aired ...
Fans of Yoshihiro Togashi’s popular manga Hunter X Hunter will be glad to know that the characters are back in business. Protagonist Gon Freecss is a young boy whose sheltered childhood comes to an end when he learns that the father he thought was dead is not only alive, but is one of the legendary ...
Tsutaya is reinventing itself yet again in an attempt to stay ahead of the changing—and steadily digitizing—market. With its new location in Ebisu Garden Place, the media-rental giant is testing out an entirely new store concept targeted at the area’s busy office workers. In contrast to the multistory Shibuya outlet, this new shop measures a ...
There have been rumors flying for a few years now that large Japanese publisher Kodansha had plans to launch US operations under its own name. Until now, the company had been content simply to license its manga and anime titles to American publishing houses—and as holder of bestselling properties like Beck, GTO, Kindaichi and the ...
The internet has been all abuzz recently with the double-whammy news of Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed.com and the subsequent leaked previews of something called “Facebook Lite.” Screencaps of the website, which were posted to Hacker News, show what appears to be a stripped-down version of the Facebook interface, which looks surprisingly similar to Twitter. Bloggers ...
Metropolis – Multimedia
The Tokyo leg of this year’s Cut & Paste Digital Design Tournament has been set for December 11 at Womb. This annual competition gives up-and-coming creators in 2D, 3D and motion design fields the chance to show their stuff–and maybe get the chance to show their stuff in the Global Championship round held in New ...