1. Introducing Japanese Popular Culture: Serious Approaches to Playful Trends
Part 1: Characters
2. Kumamon: Japan’s Surprisingly Cheeky Mascot
Debra J. Occhi
3. ’Hello Kitty Is Not a Cat?!?’: Tracking Japanese Cute Culture at Home and Abroad
Christine R. Yano
Part 2: Television
4. The Grotesque Hero: Depictions of Justice in Tokusatsu Superhero Television Programs
Hirofumi Katsuno
5. Tokyo Love Story: Romance of the Working Woman in Japanese Television Dramas
Alisa Freedman
6. The World Too Much with Us in Japanese Travel Television
Kendall Heitzman
Part 3: Videogames
7. Nuclear Discourse in Final Fantasy VII: Embodied Experience and Social Critique
Rachael Hutchinson
8. Policing Youth: Boy Detectives in Japanese Visual Novel Games
Tsugumi (Mimi) Okabe
9. The Cute Shall Inherit the Earth: Postapocalyptic Posthumanity in Tokyo Jungle
Kathryn Hemmann
Part 4: Fan Media and Technology
10. Managing Manga Studies in the Convergent Classroom
Mark McLelland
11. Thumb Generation Literature: The Rise and Fall of Japanese Cellphone Novels
Alisa Freedman
12. Purikura: Expressive Energy in Female Self-Photography
Laura Miller
13. Cosplay Everywhere: Costume Diplomacy at the World Cosplay Summit
Emerald L. King
14. Hatsune Miku: Virtual Idol, Media Platform, and Crowd-Sourced Celebrity
Ian Condry
Part 5: Music
15. Electrifying the Japanese Teenager Across Generations: The Role of the Electric Guitar in Japan’s Popular Culture
Michael Furmanovsky
16. The "Pop Pacific": Japanese American Sojourners and the Development of Japanese Popular Music
Jayson Makoto Chun
17. AKB Business: Idols and Affective Economies in Contemporary Japan
Patrick W. Galbraith
18. In Search of Japanoise: Globalizing Underground Music
David Novak
19. Korean Pop Music in Japan: Understanding the Complex Relationship Between Japan and Korea in the Popular Culture Realm
Eun-Young Jung
Part 6: Popular Cinema
20. The Prehistory of Soft Power: Godzilla, Cheese, and the American Consumption of Japan
William M. Tsutsui
21. The Rise of Japanese Horror Films: Yotsuya Ghost Story (Yotsuya Kaidan), Demonic Men, and Victimized Women
Kyoko Hirano
22. V-Cinema: How Home Video Revitalized Japanese Film and Mystified Film Historians
Tom Mes
Part 7: Anime
23. Apocalyptic Animation: In the Wake of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Godzilla, and Baudrillard
Alan Cholodenko
24. Toy Stories: Robots and Magical Girls in Anime Marketing
Renato Rivera Rusca
25. The World According to Ghibli, or How a Small Japanese Animation Studio Became a Global Phenomenon
Susan Napier
26. Condensing the Media Mix: The Tatami Galaxy’s Multiple Possible Worlds
Marc Steinberg
Part 8: Manga
27. A Jew and a Nazi Walk into an Izakaya: Tezuka Osamu’s Holocaust Manga
Ben Whaley
28. Gekiga, or Japanese Alternative Comics: The Mediascape of Japanese Counterculture
Shige (CJ) Suzuki
29. The Beautiful Men of the Inner Chamber: Gender-Bending, Boys’ Love and Other Shōjo Manga Tropes in Ōoku for Yoshinaga Fumi
Deborah Shamoon
30. Cyborg Empiricism: The Ghost Is Not in the Shell
Thomas Lamarre
Part 9: Spectacles and Competitions
31. Hanabi: The Cultural Significance of Fireworks in Japan
Damien Liu-Brennan
32. Kamishibai: The Fantasy Space of the Urban Street Corner
Sharalyn Orbaugh
33. Making A Game of Their Own: Baseball as Japan’s National Sport
Paul Dunscomb
34. Pop Go the Games: Japanese Popular Culture and Politics at the Olympics
David Leheny
Part 10: Sites
35. Shibuya: Reflective Identity in Transforming Urban Space
Izumi Kuroishi
36. Akihabara: Promoting and Policing ‘Otaku’ in ‘Cool Japan’
Patrick W. Galbraith
37. Japan Lost and Found: Modern Ruins as Debris of the Economic Miracle
Tong Lam
Part 11: Fashion
38. Cute Fashion: The Social Strategies and Aesthetics of Kawaii
Toby Slade
39. Made in Japan: A New Generation Fashion Designers
Hiroshi Narumi
Part 12: Contemporary Art
40. Superflat Life
Tom Looser
41. Aida Makoto: Notes from an Apathetic Continent
Adrian Favell
42. The Art of Upcycling in the Set Inland Sea
James Jack
Biography
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).
