I am excited to announce that I have been tapped to emcee the first-ever American Manga Awards, being held in New York City this August. The awards are collaboration between the Japan Society of NYC and the Anime NYC convention, designed to recognize manga creators’ successes in the English-language marketplace. It’s a big honor to have been asked to host, and it’s also a mark of how powerful the pull of Japanese fantasies has grown in the 21st century. Recall that just last year, a manga hit number one on the Publisher’s Weekly bestseller list – and not in some special category, but number one overall.
According to stats from Weekly Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha, which were posted during a recent seminar at the Asia Society in Japan, the market for comic books of all kinds in the U.S. is just over two billion dollars. Manga in translation is accounting for an increasingly large chunk of this: by some accounts, almost half. Manga is also a powerful incubator of talent for the adjacent industry of anime in translation, which has grown so large that observers are calling it “bigger than the NFL” among Gen Z, even “mega entertainment.” We have come a very long way from the days when distributors did everything they could to cloak the Japanese origins of the content they released to American audiences, as was standard from the Sixties up until the mid-Nineties.
That’s what makes this event so exciting. Due to limited seating at the Japan Society, the ceremony isn’t open to the public, but it should be live streamed. In other exciting news, my wife and longtime collaborator Hiroko Yoda (who launched a newsletter of her own several months back!) will be joining me. She is serving both as a judge of the translation category, and also joining me in a panel discussion about yokai culture at Anime NYC. Other events, including readings/signings of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World and our Yokai Attack! series, are in the works. More details to come.
Second announcement. March marked a year since I posted the very first Pure Invention newsletter (about a $350 pair of Astro Boy-inpired boots, naturally.) I’ve made the decision to put posts older than three months behind a paywall. I am not a fan of paywalling my content, but this seemed a reasonable compromise. For one thing, I want to give paying subscribers (all of whom I deeply, deeply appreciate) something extra for their contribution. But there is another factor as well. In the wake of what might be called the Great Media Apocalypse of early 2024, in which mainstream outlets laid off huge numbers of staffers, the freelance writing gigs I was using to subsidize the writing I do here have grown rare. I’m fine, don’t worry – and I love how I can write about things here that mainstream outlets wouldn’t touch with a ten-meter beam-saber – but every little bit helps. I hope you understand, and thanks as always for reading!
Wow, this is so amazing! Both that there is a new award event in America just for manga, and that you get to host it. As you mention, I hope we can view a livestream!
Congratulations on being appointed as part of the award committee! I'll be looking forward to the awards ceremony.