Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man

Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man
Author: Steve Alpert
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2020-06-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1611729416

A unique behind-the-scenes look at Japanese business and how the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki were introduced to the world. This highly entertaining business memoir describes what it was like to work for Japan’s premiere animation studio, Studio Ghibli, and its reigning genius Hayao Miyazaki. Steve Alpert, a Japanese-speaking American, was the “resident foreigner” in the offices of Ghibli and its parent Tokuma Shoten and played a central role when Miyazaki’s films were starting to take off in international markets. Alpert describes hauling heavy film canisters of Princess Mononoke to Russia and California, experiencing a screaming Harvey Weinstein, dealing with Disney marketers, and then triumphantly attending glittering galas celebrating the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. His one-of-a-kind portraits of Miyazaki and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki, and of sly, gruff, and brilliant businessman Yasuyoshi Tokuma, capture the hard work and artistry that have made Ghibli films synonymous with cinematic excellence. And as the lone gaijin in a demanding company run by some of the most famous and influential people in modern Japan, Steve Alpert tackles his own challenges of language and culture. No one else could have written this book.


Anime

Anime
Author: Jonathan Clements
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2023-08-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1839025131

Japanese animation is at the nexus of an international multimedia industry worth over $23.6 billion a year, linked to everything from manga to computer games, Pokémon and plushies. In this comprehensive guide, Jonathan Clements chronicles the production and reception history of the entire medium, from a handful of hobbyists in the 1910s to the Oscar-winning Spirited Away and beyond. Exploring the cultural and technological developments of the past century, Clements addresses how anime's history has been written by Japanese scholars, and covers previously neglected topics such as wartime instructional animation and work-for-hire for American clients. Founded on the testimonies of industry professionals, and drawing on a myriad of Japanese-language documents, memoirs and books, Anime: A History illuminates the anime business from the inside – investigating its innovators, its unsung heroes and its controversies. This new edition has been updated and revised throughout, with full colour illustrations and three new chapters on anime's fortunes among Chinese audiences and subcontractors, 21st century trends in 'otaku economics', and the huge transformations brought about by the rise of global streaming technology.


Ghibliotheque

Ghibliotheque
Author: Jake Cunningham
Publisher: Welbeck
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2024-06-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1802797475

Revised and updated - includes Miyazaki's new masterpiece, The Boy and the Heron. Explore the films of magical Japanese animation masters Studio Ghibli in this film-by-film celebration for newcomers and long-time fans alike. Ghibliotheque reviews each Studio Ghibli movie in turn, in the voice of expert and newcomer. The lively text delves into production details, themes, key scenes and general reviews, as well as Ghibli-specific information. It's beautifully illustrated with stills and posters from each movie. Written by the hosts of the acclaimed Ghibliotheque podcast, this is the first and last word on the films of Studio Ghibli.


Emanon Volume 4: Emanon Wanderer Part Three

Emanon Volume 4: Emanon Wanderer Part Three
Author: Shinji Kajio
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2023-09-19
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1506733832

Emanon is strange even for an immortal—a person with a mind over three billion years old, her consciousness endlessly migrating from new body to new body over the entire history of life’s evolution on Earth. Emanon Volume 4 tells the story of her existence in that odd decade called the 1980s, as Emanon’s latest incarnation grows from a grade schooler who seeks to conceal her intelligence, to a teen trying to avoid a relationship with the superhuman classmate pursuing her, to a young adult facing the death from old age of her best friend Hikari—a mortal time-jumper whose own life has crossed that of Emanon many times in the past, and will do so again many times in the future…but who dies at last in the here and now.


Introducing Japanese Popular Culture

Introducing Japanese Popular Culture
Author: Alisa Freedman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2023-04-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000864170

Specifically designed for use in a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, while reaching specialists and general readers, this second edition of Introducing Japanese Popular Culture is a comprehensive textbook offering an up-to-date overview of a wide variety of media forms. It uses particular case studies as a way into examining the broader themes in Japanese culture and provides a thorough analysis of the historical and contemporary trends that have shaped artistic production, as well as politics, society, and economics. As a result, more than being a time capsule of influential trends, this book teaches enduring lessons about how popular culture reflects the societies that produce and consume it. With contributions from an international team of scholars, representing a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to art history and media studies, the book covers: Characters Television Videogames Fan media and technology Music Popular cinema Anime Manga Spectacles and competitions Sites of popular culture Fashion Contemporary art. Written in an accessible style with ample description and analysis, this textbook is essential reading for students of Japanese culture and society, Asian media and popular culture, globalization, and Asian Studies in general. It is a go-to handbook for interested readers and a compendium for scholars.


Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli
Author: Rayna Denison
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2023-02-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3031168445

Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History takes us deep into the production world of the animation studio co-founded by Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki. It investigates the production culture at Studio Ghibli and considers how the studio has become one of the world’s most famous animation houses. The book breaks with the usual methods for studying Miyazaki and Ghibli’s films, going beyond textual analysis to unpack the myths that have grown up around the studio during its long history. It looks back at over 35 years of filmmaking by Miyazaki and other Ghibli directors, reconsidering the studio’s reputation for egalitarianism and feminism, re-examining its relationship to the art of cel and CG animation, investigating Studio Ghibli’s work outside of feature filmmaking from advertising to videogames and tackling the studio’s difficulties in finding new generations of directors to follow in the footsteps of Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. By reconstructing the history of Studio Ghibli through its own records, promotional documents and staff interviews, Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History offers a new perspective not just on Ghibli, but on the industrial history of Japanese animation.


Miyazaki and the Hero's Journey

Miyazaki and the Hero's Journey
Author: Deborah Scally
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2022-04-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 147664604X

This book explores anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki's films through the lens of the monomyth of the Heroic Quest Cycle. According to Joseph Campbell and other mythology researchers, the Quest is for boys and men, with women acting as either the Hero's mother or the Prize at the end of the journey. Miyazaki nearly exclusively portrays girls and young women as heroes, arguing that we must reassess Campbell's archetype. The text begins with a brief history of animation and anime, followed by Miyazaki's background and rise to prominence. The following chapters look at each of Miyazaki's films from the perspective of the Heroic Quest Cycle, with the last section outlining where Miyazaki and other animators can lead the archetype of the Hero in the future.


Kyoto Stories

Kyoto Stories
Author: Steve Alpert
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2022-07-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1611729556

An American student in 1970s Kyoto rambles among the city's beauties and traditions, learning as he goes. Don Ascher is a young American living in Kyoto in the 1970s. He is a student of Japanese. He also teaches English, works at a shabu-shabu restaurant, and hangs out in the company of gangsters, hostesses, housewives, tea teachers, and fellow foreigners. Set amidst the timeless beauty of the ancient capital and its garish modern entertainments, this collection of fanciful episodes from Don’s life is a window into Japanese culture and a chronicle of romance and human connections.


Japanese Cinema

Japanese Cinema
Author: Peter Cowie
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1611729564

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors. This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas, beginning with the classic directors who came to the fore in the postwar period and became legendary names on the art house circuit: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kobayashi, Naruse, and Oshima, among others. Japanese Cinema traces the common themes explored by these directors as well as the impact of important historical and cultural issues, including World War 2, the representation of women, and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. Finally, Peter Cowie surveys the state of contemporary Japanese film and its greatest living practitioners, Hirokazu Kore-eda among them, as well as the international face of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki. Cowie brings a lifetime’s commitment to film to bear on the human relationships so well explored by these Japanese auteurs.