Behind The Nihon Review

I recently had the pleasure of meeting translator and writer Naoki Matsuyama (Twitter) from Contectures, a Japanese publishing company started by literary critic Azuma Hiroki. We sat down at a large café in Shinjuku, the heart of Tokyo, along with freelance translator Ko Ransom (Twitter), who had graciously set up the meeting for me by [...]

Following a brief discussion of C81 in our Three Way Action podcast from New Years, I wanted to do little bit of looking into a relatively interesting phenomenon: consignment sales of doujinshi. Sales of doujinshi via consignment involve circles producing doujinshi for comic markets in Japan contracting the sales of their goods to a store [...]

Attention has previously been directed at Mawaru Penguindrum’s plethora of symbolisms and visual allusions to famous works of art. Articles by other writers, containing rich analysis of the deeply philosophical elements of the story, the directing, and the real life cultural references have been some of my favorite posts in recent weeks on anime. Without [...]

I’ve personally noticed that in the past three years or so there’s been an increase in how visible otaku culture has become. In fact, Akihabara, the so-called “Otaku Holy Land” has seen a significant shift in its visitor population; the Japanese government has invested in the area as a major tourist attraction for both Japanese [...]

Part 1 of covering this panel took so long that I decided to make this into a two part post. Please forgive for the massive Youtube video dumping! I’ve added the producers’ Twitter and Website links, so don’t hesitate to show them your support, even if you don’t know any Japanese.