Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization - (Key Issues in Asian Studies) by William M Tsutsui (Paperback)

About the Book

This book offers a concise overview of Japan's phenomenal influence on world pop culture. Surveying Japanese forms from anime and manga to monster movies and Hello Kitty products, it is an accessible introduction to Japan's pop creativity and its global appeal.

Book Synopsis

Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization is the only concise overview of Japan's phenomenal impact on world pop culture available in English. Surveying Japanese forms from anime (animation) and manga (comic books) to monster movies and Hello Kitty products, this volume is an accessible introduction to Japan's pop creativity and its appeal worldwide. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with more than 20 photographs, Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization combines a historical approach to the evolution and diffusion of Japanese pop with interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, literary studies, political science, and the visual arts. It also includes a useful glossary of terms and a bibliography of recommended readings.

Review Quotes

The riotous, rich, and multilayered nature of Japanese popular culture is crisply presented in this delightful overview. Hardcore student fans, bewildered teachers, and clueless scholars will all benefit from the way William Tsutsui makes sense of the diverse styles, narratives, and images surfacing in manga, anime, TV drama, music, and cinema.--Laura Miller, University of Missouri-St. Louis

About the Author

WILLIAM M. TSUTSUI is Edwin O. Reischauer Distinguished Professor of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Banking Policy in Japan: American Efforts at Reform during the Occupation (London: Routledge, 1988), Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), and Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). He received the 1997 Newcomen Society Award for Excellence in Business History Research and Writing, the 2000 John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies (for best book on Japan or Korea published in 1998), and the 2005 William Rockhill Nelson Award for non-fiction.