Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism

Globalization is usually thought of as the worldwide spread of Western—particularly American—popular culture. Yet if one nation stands out the dissemination of pop culture East and Southeast Asia, it is Japan. Pokemon, anime, pop music, television dramas such as Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation —the export of Japanese media and culture is big business. In Recentering Globalization, Koichi Iwabuchi explores how Japanese popular culture circulates Asia. He situates the rise of Japan’s cultural power light of decentering globalization processes and demonstrates how Japan’s extensive cultural interactions with the other parts of Asia complicate its sense of being in but above or similar but superior the region. Iwabuchi has conducted extensive interviews with producers, promoters, and consumers of popular culture Japan and East Asia. Drawing upon this research, he analyzes Japan’s localizing strategy of repackaging Western pop culture for consumption and the ways Japanese popular culture arouses regional cultural resonances. He considers how transnational cultural flows are experienced differently various geographic areas by looking at bilateral cultural flows East Asia. He shows how Japanese popular music and television dramas are promoted and understood Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and how Asian popular culture (especially Hong Kong’s) is received Japan. Rich empirical detail and theoretical insight, Recentering Globalization is a significant contribution to thinking about cultural globalization and transnationalism, particularly the context of East cultural studies.