Group items tagged

Hikaru Sasahara, president of Digital Manga Publishing (Berserk), revealed, this week, to Anime News Network, a new venture his company is planning, by which fans will be able to provide their scanlations online, and these would then be distributed legally with the permission of the original copyright holders.

It is in French only, but an interesting article about the evolution of the manga market in France. It also highlights the progressive gaining of a foothold in Europe by Japanese publishers, especially through Viz Media Europe.

This is the blog of the Workers' Educational Association anime evening class. The first class is currently running in Central London from Tuesday 27 October to Tuesday 15 December 2009. Helen McCarthy is leading the class and will moderate the blog. The weekly handouts with notes, reading lists, viewing lists and links will be posted here on their own pages - see the right hand sidebar. There is also an expanded reading list - class members are welcome to add their own suggestions for further reading about anime, either on the reading list page or in their own posts.

ASIAN JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY is an international peer-reviewed academic periodical which provides a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of issues related to East, South and Southeast Asian arts, cultures and societies, inviting contributions from the disciplines of literature, literary/art criticism, language, philosophy, anthropology, social studies, cultural studies, semiotics, gender studies, film, media and communication arts, architecture and design, and contemporary critical theory. The journal publishes original research articles concerned with Asian texts and contexts, as well as a variety of creative forms of writing, while its interview/event/review section offers an analysis of related recent literature and a commentary on relevant cultural events.

AccessAsia is a specialized search engine that focuses on experts in the field of contemporary Asian affairs, including economics, health, politics, security, and trade. Enter any search term. Search results will list websites of experts from around the world who focus on Asian affairs.

This is not directly related to manga or even Japanese audiovisual entertainment industry, but it seems to be a useful tool for people working on these subjects if they need analysis of asian societies in general.

It looks like I'm not about to get an iPad! I have already decided not to get an iPhone (short-lived batteries, locked software, cost of mobile internet subscription) but it looks like Apple is heading in a direction with which I can't agree, meaning that my next computer certainly won't be from this brand. There were things I didn't like with Microsoft either, but it seems that Apple is doing even worse. And Google isn't walking that much of a more satisfying path. After I'm done with my dissertation, I'm definitely planning on learning better how to use linux and other open-source materials.

Yes yes, it was a bad call, thank you for rubbing it in ;) In my defense, they hadn't started with the app-bannings and absurd censorship policies back then. Listening to Jobs defining "freedom" now, it's like hearing Agent Smith explain the purpose of the Matrix. I'm not sure what my next phone will be, either. Android looks better, but Google owns quite enough of me as it is.

Well, I don't blame you! My father got one as soon as he was able to. His excuse was that he needed to receive emails on his cellphone, but there were other brands and models who could do the same. They just weren't as sexy and let's face it, not as frequently displayed in public spaces. As for me, since I didn't want to get a mobile internet subscription, as they are quite expensive in Switzerland (around 60 Euros/month and for a limited amount of downloaded data), an iPhone would have been pretty much useless and would have costed me a fortune (without phone subscription, they were sold between 700 and 800 Euros a piece). So, what saved me, in reality, was simply lack of money and other priorities than mobile telephony. Moreover, I have an iPod mini on which I can download music, radio recording and video shows, so I don't need anything else to entertain me during my train travels. So, really, I have absolutely no merit whatsoever for not following fashion...if I had had the money, who knows...I might have fallen to the craze too! ^_^

Die neue Initiative namens Anime Copyright Allianz stellt eine Kooperation von Fans, Conentanbietern und Medienakteure dar, die gemeinsam die Respektierung des Urheberrechts in der deutschsprachigen Manga- und Animeszene fördern will.

This is a German website about promoting the respect of copyrigths in the field of animes and mangas. I know that this is an issue of debates, but I think it is worthwhile to read what people on both sides have to say.

"Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works. TWC publishes articles about transformative works, broadly conceived; articles about media studies; and articles about the fan community. We invite papers in all areas, including fan fiction, fan vids, film, TV, anime, comic books, fan community, video games, and machinima. We encourage a variety of critical approaches, including feminism, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, audience theory, reader-response theory, literary criticism, film studies, and posthumanism. We also encourage authors to consider writing personal essays integrated with scholarship; hyperlinked articles; or other forms that test the limits of the genre of academic writing."

This online journal is opened to work on anime and manga fandom, so I thought this would be of interest to this group!

Depuis sa première édition en 2005, le festival Animasia vous invite à un voyage inoubliable. Placé sous le signe de la découverte et de l'échange, notre festival est surtout le vôtre. Que vous soyez complètement accro au manga, passionné par le cinéma de Kitano, cosplayeur, féru de jeux-vidéo, joueur de go, ou tout simplement intrigué par le feng-shui, la cuisine au wok, Bollywood, les polars asiatiques ou l'origami, Animasia est fait pour vous. Animasia c'est aussi une incursion vers les cultures asiatiques souvent boudées. Et ce, que vous souhaitiez en savoir plus sur les cultures tibétaine, birmane ou laotienne, découvrir les steppes de Mongolie, le cinéma coréen ou l'histoire du Cambodge. Expositions, cinéma, jeux, conférences, documentaires, toute une programmation est dédiée à ce pan fascinant, mais souvent méconnu, de l'Asie.

This is only in French, unfortunately, but basically, it is a festival devoted to Asian popular cultures in the region of Pessac, in Southern France. There are several of these small festivals in France and this is one of them.