Gilles Poitras was born in Quebec in 1951 and raised in California from age four. Part of a California childhood in those days involved lots of cheap Japanese toys sold at mom and pop stores, playing Japanese games at school (having no idea they were Japanese), and having Japanese American classmates. In 1961, Gilles saw his first anime in a movie theater: a heavily edited and redubbed version of Tezuka’s Saiyūki, released in the U.S. as Alakazam the Great. In high school, he became interested in world cinema. In 1977 during grad school, he discovered anime while visiting Japantown in San Francisco and seeing part of an episode of Space Battleship Yamato on a TV displayed in a store. This led to seeing every anime feature shown at the UC Theatre in Berkeley, then to joining Cal Animage Alpha, the anime club at UC Berkeley, in 1990. Gilles no longer attends Cal Animage Alpha meetings, but that club is still running. He wrote his first articles on anime for the club’s newsletter, Konshuu. Later, he published an anime newsletter on Usenet that included release dates for all forthcoming titles and also listed the titles released in the previous month. In 1999, The Anime Companion, his first of three books on anime, was published. As a result of this writing, he ended up speaking at many public libraries, doing presentations at anime conventions, curating an anime exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, introducing movies at the Smithsonian, and even teaching a class on anime for Pixar staff.
All of this exposure to anime and manga quickly led to a growing interest in Japan, even tracking down information on locations seen in shows. When he first went to Tokyo with friends, it was to explore the city, not as a regular tourist, but as an anime tourist. Further trips and research resulted in a large set of notes that became foundational for his latest book, Tokyo Stroll, a guide to wandering through over 20 neighborhoods in that city. He is now planning his next trip to Tokyo.
FanimeCon welcomes back Gilles, one of our most faithful guests of honor!
Website: https://www.koyagi.com
Bluesky: @gillespoitras.bsky.social
Facebook, administrator of the Tokyo Stroll group