Japan Pop: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture

Japan Pop: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture PDF Author: Timothy J. Craig
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317467205
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
A fascinating illustrated look at various forms of Japanese popular culture: pop song, jazz, enka (a popular ballad genre of music), karaoke, comics, animated cartoons, video games, television dramas, films and "idols" -- teenage singers and actors. As pop culture not only entertains but is also a reflection of society, the book is also about Japan itself -- its similarities and differences with the rest of the world, and how Japan is changing. The book features 32 pages of manga plus 50 additional photos, illustrations, and shorter comic samples.

Pure Invention

Pure Invention PDF Author: Matt Alt
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1984826719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The untold story of how Japan became a cultural superpower through the fantastic inventions that captured—and transformed—the world’s imagination. “A masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling.”—W. David Marx, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives. In the 1970s and ’80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, gliding on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the “lost decades” of deep recession and social dysfunction. The end of the boom should have plunged Japan into irrelevance, but that’s precisely when its cultural clout soared—when, once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and multimedia empires like Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. Artfully packaged, dangerously cute, and dizzyingly fun, these products gave us new tools for coping with trying times. They also transformed us as we consumed them—connecting as well as isolating us in new ways, opening vistas of imagination and pathways to revolution. Through the stories of an indelible group of artists, geniuses, and oddballs, Pure Invention reveals how Japan’s pop-media complex remade global culture.

Japan Pop: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture

Japan Pop: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture PDF Author: Timothy J. Craig
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317467213
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
A fascinating illustrated look at various forms of Japanese popular culture: pop song, jazz, enka (a popular ballad genre of music), karaoke, comics, animated cartoons, video games, television dramas, films and "idols" -- teenage singers and actors. As pop culture not only entertains but is also a reflection of society, the book is also about Japan itself -- its similarities and differences with the rest of the world, and how Japan is changing. The book features 32 pages of manga plus 50 additional photos, illustrations, and shorter comic samples.

Tokyo Boogie-Woogie

Tokyo Boogie-Woogie PDF Author: Hiromu Nagahara
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674971698
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Emerging in the 1920s, the Japanese pop scene gained a devoted following, and the soundscape of the next four decades became the audible symbol of changing times. In the first English-language history of this Japanese industry, Hiromu Nagahara connects the rise of mass entertainment with Japan’s transformation into a postwar middle-class society.

Japan Edge

Japan Edge PDF Author: Annette Roman
Publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781569313459
Category : Animated films
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This lively, idiosyncratic survey of Japanese film, music, animation, and comics showcases the experiences of five avid American fans: journalist Carl Gustav Horn, who writes about anime; critic and musician Mason Jones, who releases Japanese alternative music on his Charnel Music record label; Patrick Macias, a writer on Asian film for the San Francisco Bay Guardian; Matt Thorn, a translator and expert on shojo (girls') manga;

Japan Pop-Up Book

Japan Pop-Up Book PDF Author: Sam Ita
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784805316498
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : ja
Pages : 12

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Book Description
Take an exciting manga pop-up journey across Japan with Chico and Neko the Cat! Pick up where Tokyo Pop-Up Book left off, as Chico and his mischievous cat Neko visit Japan's most famous landmarks. The chase is on as naughty Neko slips away yet again--this time becoming a stowaway on a Japanese bullet train! Using his phone to track his runaway cat, Chico follows Neko to some of Japan's most iconic places: Mt. Fuji and the Big Buddha at Kamakura Serene Kinkaku-ji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion Himeji Castle, an ancient Samurai fortress with its formidable stone ramparts A sushi train restaurant, where an endless parade of fish is truly a cat's dream! The Children's Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, where Chico pauses to reflect The famous "floating" Torii gate at Itsukushima "Cat Island" (Tashirojima), where Neko finds a few new friends and the adventure comes to a happy conclusion! Educational and entertaining in equal measure, this exciting manga pop-up book will be treasured by readers of all ages.

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. PDF Author: Roland Kelts
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 140398476X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Addresses the American experience with the Japanese pop culture craze, including anime from Hayao Miyazaki's epics to the burgeoning world of hentai, or violent pornographic anime to Haruki Murakami's fiction.

Pop Culture and the Everyday in Japan

Pop Culture and the Everyday in Japan PDF Author: Katsuya Minamida
Publisher: Apollo Books
ISBN: 9781920901455
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In this study, a group of young Japanese sociologists scrutinizes the sociological foundations of the ways in which the Japanese people produce and consume cultural commodities and live their everyday lives surrounded by these products.

Japanamerica

Japanamerica PDF Author: Roland Kelts
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403974754
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Contemporary Japanese pop culture such as anime and manga (Japanese animation and comic books) is Asia's equivalent of the Harry Potter phenomenon--an overseas export that has taken America by storm. While Hollywood struggles to fill seats, Japanese anime releases are increasingly outpacing American movies in number and, more importantly, in the devotion they inspire in their fans. But just as Harry Potter is both "universal" and very English, anime is also deeply Japanese, making its popularity in the United States totally unexpected. Japanamerica is the first book that directly addresses the American experience with the Japanese pop phenomenon, covering everything from Hayao Miyazaki's epics, the burgeoning world of hentai, or violent pornographic anime, and Puffy Amiyumi, whose exploits are broadcast daily on the Cartoon Network, to literary novelist Haruki Murakami, and more. With insights from the artists, critics, readers and fans from both nations, this book is as literate as it is hip, highlighting the shared conflicts as American and Japanese pop cultures dramatically collide in the here and now.For more information visit http://www.japanamericabook.com/

Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon PDF Author: Michael K. Bourdaghs
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231158742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
From the beginning of the American Occupation in 1945 to the post-bubble period of the early 1990s, popular music provided Japanese listeners with a much-needed release, channeling their desires, fears, and frustrations into a pleasurable and fluid art. Pop music allowed Japanese artists and audiences to assume various identities, reflecting the country's uncomfortable position under American hegemony and its uncertainty within ever-shifting geopolitical realities. In the first English-language study of this phenomenon, Michael K. Bourdaghs considers genres as diverse as boogie-woogie, rockabilly, enka, 1960s rock and roll, 1970s new music, folk, and techno-pop. Reading these forms and their cultural import through music, literary, and cultural theory, he introduces readers to the sensual moods and meanings of modern Japan. As he unpacks the complexities of popular music production and consumption, Bourdaghs interprets Japan as it worked through (or tried to forget) its imperial past. These efforts grew even murkier as Japanese pop migrated to the nation's former colonies. In postwar Japan, pop music both accelerated and protested the commodification of everyday life, challenged and reproduced gender hierarchies, and insisted on the uniqueness of a national culture, even as it participated in an increasingly integrated global marketplace. Each chapter in Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon examines a single genre through a particular theoretical lens: the relation of music to liberation; the influence of cultural mapping on musical appreciation; the role of translation in transmitting musical genres around the globe; the place of noise in music and its relation to historical change; the tenuous connection between ideologies of authenticity and imitation; the link between commercial success and artistic integrity; and the function of melodrama. Bourdaghs concludes with a look at recent Japanese pop music culture.