Anime Boston Panel Highlight: Evangelion Tripartite

I’ve been meaning to do a few articles about Anime Boston (it was a few weekends ago), and I have no excuse for not getting them written and published. At the very least, here’s a little something more about panels from Anime Boston (if you missed Part I, you can check out the panel recording here).

Surprisingly, Anime Boston hosted a trio of panels about Neon Genesis Evangelion — a great opportunity because 1) Evangelion is maybe too influential, and 2) there are too many fans today that haven’t seen it. The three panels were hosted by a guy who goes by the moniker V, and while he was masked and played the character well, I couldn’t find any other info on him, and he was fairly reticent when I gave him my card after the first panel. V spoke at three panels: “The Evangelion Franchise: Past, Present, and Future,” “Explanation of Evangelion,” and “The Psychology and Philosophy of Evangelion.” I recorded the audio from the first two sessions, but V made a smart move: he recorded the video of all three panels and posted them to YouTube. Since the audio definitely isn’t as good as audio including panels (and a little humorous acting), I’m going to link to the videos for your perusal and enjoyment. I only attended the first two panels, but they were well researched and among the best at the con. Please watch, and check out V’s YouTube channel (filled with many more videos) at Revolution of Eva!

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Reflections: Shibata Motoyuki on Japan’s Reception of Media (EXPANDED)

Last Thursday and Friday, I got the opportunity to attend two lectures (one detailed here) by Shibata Motoyuki, who is a professor of American literature at the University of Tokyo and who has translated over fifty English-language texts into Japanese. There’s a good (and humorous) article over at NeoJaponisme that discusses a panel he spoke on in 2006 about translation. Shibata is also known as an associate of Murakami Haruki (the popular author), and the two have consulted each other frequently for a number of translations.

The Thursday lecture, which I believe to be the exceptional talk of the two, dealt with the reception of translations of English-language literature in Japan. Shibata designated two periods of reception in Japan: the first, instructive, the second, aesthetic.

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