New York Times Discovers J-Pop,
May Soon Realize Hong Kong Films Are Popular

If you've ever wandered off the home page and gone wandering around in my interview archives, you may have noticed the occasional banner ad for Vertical, a publishing company that specializes in translations of Japanese pulp fiction. The company's been around for about a year now, and the Times got around to noticing, assigning Motoko Rich to get the scoop. (I'm still not entirely convinced Motoko isn't just a pseudonym Frank Rich takes up when he wants to delve into Asian culture, but I'm paranoid, don't mind me.) Amusingly, the article seems to lump Kodansha, which has been around for ages, in with Vertical in order to advance the thesis that J-lit (as I guess we can call it) is so newly hip and trendy that a bunch of upstart start-ups are trying to get in on the action.