The Foreign Ministry will launch a new effort in cultural diplomacy, making use of the growing global popularity of Japan’s pop culture, including manga, animation, and music, it was learned Saturday.

Measures to be undertaken include the establishment of an international manga prize for which young manga artists abroad may apply, and a system to have foreign students work as “cultural exchange interns” for a couple of months at Japanese diplomatic establishments with certificates given upon completion, ministry sources said.

The initiative is the brainchild of Foreign Minister Taro Aso, an admitted manga buff.

It is designed to enhance Japan’s image abroad by making use of popular animated TV series, such as “Doraemon” and “Pokemon,” which have become popular with children around the world, the sources said.

The ministry is studying the possibility of establishing an award for up-and-coming foreign manga artists, which, according to a ministry source, could be considered the equivalent of the Akutagawa Prize in Japanese literature, the launching pad for many young authors.

The ministry hopes to establish the prize as early as this fiscal year. It also is eyeing a plan to invite prizewinners to Japan to study with Japanese manga artists.

Also being studied is the notion of certifying Japanese animators as “ambassadors of animation culture,” and showing their work at Japanese diplomatic missions, such as embassies and consulates general, around the world. The ministry hopes to certify the first such artist within a year and have their work translated into foreign languages in fiscal 2007.

The ministry also plans to boost the transmission of Japanese culture and TV programs via international broadcasting, through an advisory panel to the foreign minister on exchanges.

Source:

KYOTO–As a teenager growing up in South Korea, Chung In Kyung read a Japanese manga comic that would decide the future course of her life.

The comic was Riyoko Ikeda’s 1970s melodrama, “The Rose of Versailles,” set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

The comic, now regarded as a classic manga for girls, enthralled Chung, and after graduating from university in 1996, she left her home to study at the Faculty of Manga at Kyoto Seika University.

This spring she became the first person in Japan to get a doctorate in manga.

Instead of the manga geared at girls that first attracted her to the comics, Chung chose to focus her research on satirical political cartoons.

She wrote her thesis on Kim Song Hwan’s four-panel comic strip “Old Kobau,” which ran in South Korean newspapers for 50 years after World War II, a period of political turbulence that made it ripe for satire.

“I was attracted by the method that can describe the contradictions of society with only one panel,” Chung, 32, said recently.

In her thesis, Chung analyzed Korea’s modern history through the eyes of the comic’s central character, the old man, Kobau.

Her work won plaudits from the cartoonist, Kim, and will be published in Japan in July.

Although Japan has led the world in comics, Chung says Japanese artists fail to cast a critical eye over their own society, and so their comics are seldom politically provocative.

In her own work, Chung, who now teaches part time at Kyoto Seika University, doesn’t mind putting a few noses out of joint.

In one of her cartoons, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is depicted in a maid’s uniform, cleaning the office of U.S. President George W. Bush. The servant Koizumi dumps Japan’s Constitution into a trash can.

Chung meant the cartoon to show the cynical way she believes Japan is moving toward constitutional amendment.

“I want to become a cartoonist who is hated by Japanese politicians,” she said.

In another cartoon, an elderly woman hangs out her washing on the barbed-wire entanglements that separate North and South Korea.

“I wanted to show that there is no national border in the hearts of the people,” she said.

Source:
Asahi Shimbun

Together with Japan China New Century Association, the Beijing Films Academy has founded the China Japan Anime Manga Research Center in its school. The center will realize the school staff’s wish – to increase the school’s quality of the technical aspects of its anime and manga field with the help of Japan. According to the JCNCA’s wish, the center will also help promote Japanese images in China through its anime and manga. The China Japan Anime Manga Research Center will not only promote the joint research of Japan and China, but will also be holding anime and manga exhibitions.

On July 3, TOEI and TOEI Animation opened an iMode-compatible joint phone ring tone download service entitled “Tokusatsu Anime Full”.

For use with NTT Docomo cellular phones, this service provides full theme songs and background music tracks for a variety of TOEI-produced anime and tokusatsu series. So far 400 songs for classics like Dragonball, Fist of the North Star, and Masked Rider, etc., have been made available as for-pay downloads, with more on the way. Songs come in two main varieties: UtaBOX vocal tracks and instrumental InstBOX tracks.

The monthly fee for the service is 525 yen (including tax), granting 500 points with which to purchase songs. UtaBOX songs cost 300 points per track, while InstBOX downloads are 200 points per song.

Source:
Animaxis

Ran Ayanaga, mangaka of ROD -Read or Dream-, and Ken Akamatsu’s assistant MAGI announced their marriage on December 28th 2005. Both Ran Ayanaga and MAGI posted the news on their personal website. Ken Akamatsu, who played a big part in bringing the two together, also wrote about the marriage in his own diary.

According to the early sales information for Weekly Shounen Jump No. 8 (1/23), Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter will resume serialization. Togashi TOC comment: “Sorry for making you worry. I’ll do my best, even though it’ll be on my pace.”

Source: Manganews

The first ever manga review TV program, Manga no Genba, will start airing on April 4 on NHK. The program will talk about the hottest manga titles and/or authors, and discuss the reasons behind their popularity. Below is the schedule for the first few episodes:

1st Episode: Inoue Takehiko – Bagabond, Kusaka Satoki – Helpman.
2nd Episode: Suzuki Misono – Zeni, Akimoto Osamu – Kochi Kame.
3rd Episode: Kawasumi Hiroshi -Taishi Kakka no Ryouri-nin, Itagaki Keisuke – Baki.

While I do agree about the anime nobel-prize thing, i do not thinkl that having an anime ambasaddor is helpful at all…

Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Aso, has proposed the creation of a prize akin to the Nobel Prize to be awarded to the best up-and-coming foreign manga artists. Speaking at the University of Digital Content in Akihabara, Aso said that by giving non-Japanese artists such an award would increase their affinity with Japan.

Speaking about the tense political situation between China and Japan, Aso also called for the creation of an “anime ambassador” award for up-and-coming Japanese artists. Aso said that, while relations between the Chinese and Japanese governments are very poor, anime and manga are extremely popular in Japan. Speaking to a group of about 100 students, Aso said that manga and anime creators have engrossed young people in many nations. “It is something that the Foreign Ministry could never achieve,” he stated.