Description
Book SynopsisTodayâs convergent media environment offers unprecedented opportunities for sourcing and disseminating previously obscure popular culture material from Japan. However, this presents concerns regarding copyright, ratings and exposure to potentially illegal content which are serious problems for those teaching and researching about Japan. Despite young peopleâs enthusiasm for Japanese popular culture, these concerns spark debate about whether it can be judged harmful for youth audiences and could therefore herald the end of âcool Japanâ.
This collection brings together Japan specialists in order to identify key challenges in using Japanese popular culture materials in research and teaching. It addresses issues such as the availability of unofficially translated and distributed Japanese material; the emphasis on adult-themes, violence, sexual scenes and under-age characters; and the discrepancies in legislation and ratings systems across the world. Considering how these issues a
Trade Review
"The End of Cool Japan is a forceful intervention into the study and flow of Japanese pop culture around the world. Taking the arousals of fandom seriously, the essays also consider the ways J-pop culture gets both manipulated and constrained (by politics, legal constricts, religion, nationalism) to make it decidedly "uncool" at various hands. Advocating for a critical pedagogy that scrutinizes Japanese pop culture in all its complexities and iterations, the volume is sharp-edged and smartly conceived throughout. This is an invaluable contribution to the field—that of Japanese studies and also beyond."
Anne Allison, Duke University, USA.
"From its cheeky, quirky cover, to the selection of its contributors, to its unifying tone, Mark McLelland’s new anthology deserves to shoot right to the top of Japanese Studies reading lists. The End of Cool Japan: Ethical, Legal and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture offers a vital and timely warning for all those students who think that scholarship amounts to a diary of what they did at the weekend...I cannot recommend this book highly enough, to libraries, lecturers and students."
Jonathan Clements, All The Anime, August 2016
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Negotiating "Cool Japan" in Research and Teaching
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- Death Note, Student Crimes, and the Power of Universities in the Global Spread of Manga
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- Scholar Girl Meets Manga Maniac, Media Specialist, and Cultural Gatekeeper
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- Must We Burn Eromanga? On Trying Obscenity in the Courtroom and the Classroom
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- Manga, Anime and Child Pornography Law in Canada
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- The "Lolicon Guy:" Some Observations on Researching Unpopular Topics in Japan
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- All Seizures Great and Small: Reading Contentious Images of Minors in Japan and Australia
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- "The Love that Dare Not Speak its Name": Chinese Danmei Communities in the 2014 Anti-Porn Campaign
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- Negotiating Religious and Fan Identities: "Boys Love" and Fujoshi Guilt
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- Is there a Space for Cool Manga in Indonesia and the Philippines? Postcolonial Discourses on Transcultural Manga
Appendix: The Rise and Fall of the King of Lolicon: An Interview with Uchiyama Aki
