Book review: Japanamerica
Jul. 23rd, 2007 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootSo, I just finished Japanamerica, How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the U.S. by Roland Kelts.
It's a good book, less a study of any particular anime or manga or game or toy than an overview of cultural interaction between the US and Japan, around the axis of popular culture. Kelts especially focuses on the rise and fall(ing) of the anime industry, and its struggle to find a business model that will a) actually make money and b) not stifle the creativity of the medium. He tells the story in a colloquial tone, via many interviews with industry historians, giants and newcomers. His comparisons of the possible cultural consequences of the bomb and of 9/11 are speculative but thought-provoking.
The one area I think he falls down on is the gender and sex analysis. He devotes a chapter to anime/manga porn, and, in that chapter, cleaves to the side of the debate that says the pervasive violence of Japanese porn is pure fantasy, not reflected in the actual actions of the culture, and not harmful in any way. He points to the rape stats of Japan, which are far lower than in the US.
In a later chapter, he mentions in passing the frequency of groping on trains as the one truly common form of sexual assault in Japan, and notes that the women almost never protest or say anything about being so assaulted in public. Nor do bystanders speak up or intervene, except in truly exceptional cases. Kelt does not, apparently, see the connection between this and the earlier chapter, in which he tells us about a video game in a porn store, which is a first-person perspective 'game' in which the male customer acts out a rape. He does not make the connection that a pornography industry that caters so relentlessly to violent, degrading images of women being attacked and humiliated for the sexual pleasure of men supports and inculcates the mindset that leads to a real life man putting his hand up a real-life woman's skirt on the train and not meeting with any opprobrium, or social or legal consequence. Or to 'compensated dating'. Or to the view in the Japanese workplace, still prevalent, that a woman is there to serve the men and not to be a fully functional, working and productive subject in herself. I find this a rather extreme failing in an otherwise perceptive and interesting book.
My recommendation: Read it, but skip the chapter titled "Strange Transformations".
It's a good book, less a study of any particular anime or manga or game or toy than an overview of cultural interaction between the US and Japan, around the axis of popular culture. Kelts especially focuses on the rise and fall(ing) of the anime industry, and its struggle to find a business model that will a) actually make money and b) not stifle the creativity of the medium. He tells the story in a colloquial tone, via many interviews with industry historians, giants and newcomers. His comparisons of the possible cultural consequences of the bomb and of 9/11 are speculative but thought-provoking.
The one area I think he falls down on is the gender and sex analysis. He devotes a chapter to anime/manga porn, and, in that chapter, cleaves to the side of the debate that says the pervasive violence of Japanese porn is pure fantasy, not reflected in the actual actions of the culture, and not harmful in any way. He points to the rape stats of Japan, which are far lower than in the US.
In a later chapter, he mentions in passing the frequency of groping on trains as the one truly common form of sexual assault in Japan, and notes that the women almost never protest or say anything about being so assaulted in public. Nor do bystanders speak up or intervene, except in truly exceptional cases. Kelt does not, apparently, see the connection between this and the earlier chapter, in which he tells us about a video game in a porn store, which is a first-person perspective 'game' in which the male customer acts out a rape. He does not make the connection that a pornography industry that caters so relentlessly to violent, degrading images of women being attacked and humiliated for the sexual pleasure of men supports and inculcates the mindset that leads to a real life man putting his hand up a real-life woman's skirt on the train and not meeting with any opprobrium, or social or legal consequence. Or to 'compensated dating'. Or to the view in the Japanese workplace, still prevalent, that a woman is there to serve the men and not to be a fully functional, working and productive subject in herself. I find this a rather extreme failing in an otherwise perceptive and interesting book.
My recommendation: Read it, but skip the chapter titled "Strange Transformations".
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 10:46 pm (UTC)Why would he see anything wrong with that?
Date: 2007-07-23 10:34 pm (UTC)Re: Why would he see anything wrong with that?
Date: 2007-07-23 10:48 pm (UTC)Gawd, he's a classic Fannish Nice Guy™
Date: 2007-07-24 02:51 pm (UTC)I'll bring the Clue-by-Four, you bring the sporks.
(afterthought)
Date: 2007-07-23 10:35 pm (UTC)Re: (afterthought)
Date: 2007-07-23 10:49 pm (UTC)I don't think Kelts got it.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 04:32 am (UTC)If you want to read up on the Japanese legal system and sexual violence, I'd recommend Sexual Violence and the Law in Japan by Catherine Burns. It's a Routledge book, so look for it in the library rather than the bookstore. It's not an easy book to stomach. It reminds of some of the things about Japanese culture that make me uneasy, like (to name a few) the women-only cars and the numerous stores full of porn. Akihabara is most famous for this, but I found these stores all over Tokyo. It was actually more than a little creepy because the bottom floor was usually full of general magazines like JUMP or Newtype, and so I'd go upstairs looking for more stuff and run into a wall of really explicit anime porn.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 03:19 pm (UTC)And, more importantly, how does such cluelessness get published at an academic press?