Big in Japan. The Myth of Japan in Western Audiovisual Media

This chapter will take a closer look at the global spread of “Japaneseness” through anime and manga, but also leading to the global phenomenon of Pokémon, which has been on the crest of a wave for over twenty years, able to span various generations, pervasive, and crossmedial. The example of Pokémon will be useful for understanding a mixed imaginary, totally hybridized, in which components specifically drawn from the aesthetics of Japanese manga are fused with elements coming from other semiospheres. The chapter will then also take a look at the growing value of Japanese cinema in the West, concentrating initially on the direct relationship between the works of Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) and classic American cinema, and then on the importance of the “J-horror” genre in the definition of a globalized aesthetics of terror, and on the growing appreciation of the Japanese cinematographic context in the rest of the world.