Issue 23 of Bubblegum Slut, one of the U.K.'s most popular music fanzines, features an interview with Josephine Yun, author of jrock, ink. Here's an excerpt:
Bubblegum Slut: A number of Japanese bands have toured extensively outside Japan over the last few years, i.e. Shonen Knife, The Mad Capsule Markets, etc., but the first few bands in the new wave of interest in Japanese music have often played at anime conventions. Do you think this detrimental to the music being taken seriously?
Josephine Yun: Not at all. Music is music; anime is anime. You can like one and not the other. Besides, there are so many different kinds of anime. Writing anime off as being the same across the board and doing the same with Japanese music, which is produced indpendently of anime, is detrimental only to whoever's dismissing it. That said, several anime conventions, having evolved into Japanese culture or East Asian culture conventions, now name themselves as such to more accurately reflect the media they offer, each rich with variety in its own right.
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