Introducing Japanese Popular Culture

Specifically designed for use in a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, while reaching specialists and general readers, this second edition of Introducing Japanese Popular Culture is a comprehensive textbook offering an up-to-date overview of a wide variety of media forms.
It uses particular case studies as a way into examining the broader themes in Japanese culture and provides a thorough analysis of the historical and contemporary trends that have shaped artistic production, as well as politics, society, and economics. As a result, more than being a time capsule of influential trends, this book teaches enduring lessons about how popular culture reflects the societies that produce and consume it.
With contributions from an international team of scholars, representing a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to art history and media studies, the book covers:
Characters
Television
Videogames
Fan media and technology
Music
Popular cinema
Anime
Manga
Spectacles and competitions
Sites of popular culture
Fashion
Contemporary art.
Written in an accessible style with ample description and analysis, this textbook is essential reading for students of Japanese culture and society, Asian media and popular culture, globalization, and Asian Studies in general. It is a go-to handbook for interested readers and a compendium for scholars.

Alisa Freedman is a Professor of Japanese Literature, Cultural Studies, and Gender at the University of Oregon, USA. Her books include Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (2021) and Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (2010).

1. Introducing Japanese Popular Culture: Serious Approaches to Playful Trends Part 1: Characters 2. Kumamon: Japan's Surprisingly Cheeky Mascot 3. 'Hello Kitty Is Not a Cat?!?': Tracking Japanese Cute Culture at Home and Abroad Part 2: Television 4. The Grotesque Hero: Depictions of Justice in Tokusatsu Superhero Television Programs 5. Tokyo Love Story: Romance of the Working Woman in Japanese Television Dramas 6. The World Too Much with Us in Japanese Travel Television Part 3: Videogames 7. Nuclear Discourse in Final Fantasy VII: Embodied Experience and Social Critique 8. Policing Youth: Boy Detectives in Japanese Visual Novel Games 9. The Cute Shall Inherit the Earth: Postapocalyptic Posthumanity in Tokyo Jungle Part 4: Fan Media and Technology 10. Managing Manga Studies in the Convergent Classroom 11. Thumb Generation Literature: The Rise and Fall of Japanese Cellphone Novels 12. Purikura: Expressive Energy in Female Self-Photography 13. Cosplay Everywhere: Costume Diplomacy at the World Cosplay Summit 14. Hatsune Miku: Virtual Idol, Media Platform, and Crowd-Sourced Celebrity Part 5: Music 15. Electrifying the Japanese Teenager Across Generations: The Role of the Electric Guitar in Japan's Popular Culture 16. The "Pop Pacific": Japanese American Sojourners and the Development of Japanese Popular Music 17. AKB Business: Idols and Affective Economies in Contemporary Japan 18. In Search of Japanoise: Globalizing Underground Music 19. Korean Pop Music in Japan: Understanding the Complex Relationship Between Japan and Korea in the Popular Culture Realm Part 6: Popular Cinema 20. The Prehistory of Soft Power: Godzilla, Cheese, and the American Consumption of Japan 21. The Rise of Japanese Horror Films: Yotsuya Ghost Story (Yotsuya Kaidan), Demonic Men, and Victimized Women 22. V-Cinema: How Home Video Revitalized Japanese Film and Mystified Film Historians Part 7: Anime 23. Apocalyptic Animation: In the Wake of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Godzilla, and Baudrillard 24. Toy Stories: Robots and Magical Girls in Anime Marketing 25. The World According to Ghibli, or How a Small Japanese Animation Studio Became a Global Phenomenon 26. Condensing the Media Mix: The Tatami Galaxy's Multiple Possible Worlds Part 8: Manga 27. A Jew and a Nazi Walk into an Izakaya: Tezuka Osamu's Holocaust Manga 28. Gekiga, or Japanese Alternative Comics: The Mediascape of Japanese Counterculture 29. The Beautiful Men of the Inner Chamber: Gender-Bending, Boys' Love and Other Sh-jo Manga Tropes in -oku for Yoshinaga Fumi 30. Cyborg Empiricism: The Ghost Is Not in the Shell Part 9: Spectacles and Competitions 31. Hanabi: The Cultural Significance of Fireworks in Japan 32. Kamishibai: The Fantasy Space of the Urban Street Corner 33. Making A Game of Their Own: Baseball as Japan's National Sport 34. Pop Go the Games: Japanese Popular Culture and Politics at the Olympics Part 10: Sites 35. Shibuya: Reflective Identity in Transforming Urban Space 36. Akihabara: Promoting and Policing 'Otaku' in 'Cool Japan' 37. Japan Lost and Found: Modern Ruins as Debris of the Economic Miracle Part 11: Fashion 38. Cute Fashion: The Social Strategies and Aesthetics of Kawaii 39. Made in Japan: A New Generation Fashion Designers Part 12: Contemporary Art 40. Superflat Life 41. Aida Makoto: Notes from an Apathetic Continent 42. The Art of Upcycling in the Set Inland Sea