Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Anime… : Talk with Hirokatsu Kihara and Michihiko Suwa

18 January 2013 from 6.30pm

The Japan Foundation, London

Japanese animation has enthralled audiences worldwide and through its stories, concepts and visual splendour, the enchantment of the likes of Studio Ghibli and abundance of television series continue to captivate the imaginations of many. But how did such ideas come about, what is it that makes anime so distinct and original, and how has animation developed over the decades to become such a worldwide success?

The Japan Foundation has invited two of the most renowned figures in the industry behind this phenomenon, Hirokatsu Kihara and Michihiko Suwa, to introduce the real world of creating Japanese animation. Through Kihara’s involvement with early Studio Ghibli productions and the current subculture scene and manga, and Suwa’s role as Chief Producer at the Animation department of Yomiuri TV for anime franchises including Detective Conan(aka Case Closed), City Hunter and Inuyasha, they have helped realise a number of world-famous anime television series and movies during their illustrious careers. Despite their differing experiences, productions and working styles, Kihara and Suwa both hold a huge passion, understanding and vision for the medium, expressed through their work and activities.

Having witnessed the Japanese animation industry’s rise to the worldwide phenomenon, Kihara and Suwa will be joined by Helen McCarthy, journalist, author and anime expert, to explore the different sources of anime – both manga adaptations and originally crafted stories – and discuss their position in the Japanese animation industry, suggesting what the future holds for the medium. With Kihara’s experience of the celluloid-era of animation, and Suwa’s experience of its transition to digital, this event will also provide a fascinating insight into the ‘behind the scenes’ of anime production, telling the real story and history around the animated images.

JAPAN: Kingdom of Characters – A Talk by Hiroyuki Aihara

2 December 2011 from 6.30pm

The Japan Foundation, London
Russell Square House
10-12 Russell Square
London, WC1B 5EH

From Pokémon to Hello Kitty, a remarkable quality and range of Japanese subcultures has been sweeping the world, most notably in manga, anime, and more recently computer games. Indeed, the Japanese have long lived with this culture, nurturing a passion for the variety of characters around them.

Prior to the opening of the Japan Foundation’s exhibition, JAPAN: Kingdom of Charactersin February 2012, which will pay homage to the creation of many diverse figures since the 1950s, the Japan Foundation has invited Hiroyuki Aihara, President of the Character Research Institute and main curator of the exhibition, to explore in an illustrated talk the loving relationship between Japanese society and characters, mapping it in an historical context. The impact that such characters have had, both upon Japanese society and on global society, shall also be discussed.

This talk will provide an insight into the world of Japanese characters. Audience members are encouraged to wear or carry their favourite character as a tribute!

This talk event is organised in association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
The Japan Foundation exhibition JAPAN: Kingdom of Characters will open at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, on 4th February 2012.

This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk

Manga: Professor Munakata’s British Museum adventure

Friday 25 November 18.30

Hoshino Yukinobu is one of Japan’s leading manga artists – a Japanese form of graphic novel.

In a unique collaboration with the British Museum Hoshino has created a compelling adventure that revolves around Professor Munakata’s attempts to unravel the mystery of the missing Stonehenge megaliths and the threats to the British Museum’s treasured holdings.

Hoshino’s original work was featured in a Room 3 display in 2009. Nicole Rousmaniere, British Museum, discusses the creation of this manga and places it in the larger context of the medium. Introduced by Paul Gravett, Director of Comica Festival and editor of 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die. This event marks the publication of Professor Manakata’s British Museum Adventure in English.

Followed by a pay bar.

£5, Members and concessions £3

Manga at the British Museum

29 September 2011 – 8 April 2012

Free
Room 91 (lobby)

An exclusive opportunity to see the original drawings from the manga series Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure.

Hoshino Yukinobu (b.1954) is the creator of Professor Munakata, one of Japan’s most famous manga characters. Millions of readers eagerly following his adventures in the fortnightly magazine, Big Comic.

Hoshino first visited the British Museum in 2009 and was inspired to work on a Professor Munakata mystery in the unique setting of the Museum. Japanese readers followed the series for five months, first published in Big Comic, before the thrilling mystery was bought to a close with a dramatic final scene that sees the Rosetta Stone in grave danger.

All ten episodes will now be published as a book in English by the British Museum Press, and to celebrate, Hoshino has lent the Museum his finished drawings (genga) and sketches and even two of his fude brush pens which he used to draw this adventure.

In this display you can see the development ofProfessor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure from conception to finished work. This is an exceptionally rare opportunity to uncover the process of how the first British Museum manga was created.

Midwife and Manga Heroine: Oine Siebold, Nagasaki and the Birth of Modern Japan

Midwife and Manga Heroine: Oine Siebold, Nagasaki and the Birth of Modern Japan
Ulrich Heinze, Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Visual Media

Sainsbury Institute and Centre for Japanese Studies, University of East Anglia

20 June 2011, London

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Khalili Lecture Theatre, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

This lecture unravels the historical meaning of the city of Nagasaki for the cultural exchange between Japan and the West in the first half of the nineteenth century. To pursue this inquiry, Heinze will refer to three key source materials: David Mitchell’s new novel The 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, depicting the Phaeton-incident of 1808; Hendrik Doeff’s (1764-1837) Recollections of Japan, which is now available in English; and Masaki Maki’s manga Oine Siebold, on the career of the first female physician and obstetrician in Japan.
Dr Ulrich Heinze is Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Visual Media. His position is jointly shared with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and the Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. A sociologist, he received his Ph.D. at Free University Berlin and was an EU-Postdoctorate Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo where he also later held the position of Associate Professor. In 2004, he was awarded the venia legendi (habilitatio) in Sociology from the University of Freiburg. Specialising in Japanese media studies, intercultural communication and visual arts, Heinze’s research interests include Japanese popular culture, manga, television and film. His third book entitled Media Theory Update: Technical Acceleration and Communicative Action is forthcoming in 2012. Heinze has also worked as a journalist and broadcasting editor for North German Radio (NDR) in Hamburg.

Admission Free but Booking recommended. To book your place, please contact the Japan Society office on tel: 020 7828 6330 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Culture Japan Episode 0

A long but fascinating video from Danny Choo

Pop Culture from a Multipolar Japan

Another interesting event organised by DAIWA.

Is there something more to the West’s fascination with Japanese anime and manga? How are anime films and manga comics cultural channeling zones, opened by the horrors of war and disaster and animated by the desire to assemble a world of new looks, feelings and identities?  Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, Sophia University and the University of the Sacred Heart Tokyo, Roland Kelts addresses the movement of Japanese culture into the West as sign and symptom of broader reanimations.  With uncertainty now the norm, style, he argues, is trumping identity, explaining, in part, the success of Japanese pop and fashion, design and cuisine in the West.

Roland Kelts is a half-Japanese American writer, editor and lecturer who divides his time between New York and Tokyo. He is the author of Japanamerica : How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and the forthcoming novel, Access. He has presented on contemporary Japanese culture worldwide and has taught courses in Japanese popular culture at numerous universities in Japan and the US, including New York University and the University of Tokyo. His fiction and nonfiction appear in such publications as Zoetrope: All Story, Psychology Today, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Japan, Adbusters magazine, The Millions, The Japan Times, Animation Magazine, Bookforum, and The Village Voice. He is the Editor in Chief of the Anime Masterpieces screening and discussion program, the commentator for National Public Radio’s series, Pacific Rim Diary, and the author of a weekly column for The Daily Yomiuri newspaper. Click here for his blog.

Lecture details:

14 April 2011

4:00 – 5:00pm, followed by a drinks reception to 6:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

BOOKING FORM

 

 

Matureness and Unmatureness in Contemporary Japanese Art and Culture: Aging and Kawaii

A really interesting event held at Birckbek College.

Matureness and Unmatureness in Contemporary Japanese Art and Culture: Aging and Kawaii
A talk by Prof. Inuhiko Yomota
Respondent: Dr. Sharon Kinsella

6pm Friday 25th March
Room 251
Birkbeck College Main Building
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX
FREE AND OPEN TO ALL
but booking is essential, please email lapcsf@gmail.com

In this special event for LAPCSF, celebrated critic Inuhiko Yomota will contrast the culture of kawaii—so prevalent in manga, anime, and East Asian pop culture in general—with the aesthetics of aging within Butoh dance and other performing arts. Traversing from the figure of the girl warrior in the anime Sailor Moon and Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls, to the “immortality” of legendary Butoh performer Kazuo Ohno, this talk promises to be a tour de force from a unique voice in cultural criticism.

Prof. Inuhiko Yomota’s publications range over film history, literature, manga, and even food culture. His One Hundred Years of Japanese Cinema has been translated into German, Italian, Korean, and Chinese, while his books on kawaii and manga have been published in Chinese and Korean translations. Among the prizes he has been awarded for his writing are the Kodansha Essay Prize, the Kuwabara Prize, and the Saito Ryoku’u prize. He has also translated works by Paul Bowles, Edward Said, Pier Paulo Pasolini, and Mahmoud Darwish into Japanese. He is Professor of Motion Picture History and Comparative Literature at Meiji Gakuin University, and he has been a visiting professor at Konguk University, Columbia University, the University of Bologna, and Tel Aviv University, among others.

Dr. Sharon Kinsella is author of Adult Manga: Culture and power in postwar Japanese society and Girls as Energy: Fantasies of rejuvenation in contemporary Japan. She is lecturer in Japanese Visual Culture at the University of Manchester, and has previously held positions at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, and Yale.

Gundam in Shizuoka

Io non sono appassionato di Anime o Manga anche se devo dire che alcuni cartoni animati mi ricordano i momenti spensierati della mia infanzia. Ho trovato su YouTube questo video che trovo interessante in quanto celebra il robot Gundam ad altezza naturale e che fino fino a poco tempo fa’ era in esposizione ad Odaiba. La cosa piu’ interessante sembra essere il commento scritto da un certo darwinfish105 che dice ‘Questa e’ l’ottava meraviglia del mondo’. A voi le conclusioni.

I’m not a fan of Anime or Manga, even if, some cartoons have the power of recalling some happy memories of my childhood. I found on YouTube this interesting video that celebrates the robot Gundam which until few months ago was erected in Odaiba. The most interesting thing, however, is the comment written by darwinfish105 who states ‘This is the 8th wonder of the word’. Feel free to write your own comments.