1st weekly response

   From the Art Studies 400B class, I expect to gain more knowledge about my own culture and society.  How the society came to be as it is today is a fascinating topic. In my opinion, Japan is a very unique country (not that I am saying other countries are not) because of its history. Since the beginning of time, Japan had a privilage to choose what can be imported and what cannot be, in order to improve the society in terms of rules, system, and the like. They could also alter the imported system to fit their needs. So now Japanese society contains somewhat of other Asian countries’ and western influences.  There are many other factors that have shaped up the society of now, and I’m willing to know more about them.

   Of what we discussed about on last Thursday “what is popular culture”, I would like to give a response to it. Popular culture is the type of culture that majority of people in the society recognize as the latest trend.  When newspaper, magazines, any sort of media talk about a certain thing quite frequently such as clothes, music, movies, etc, it becomes popular. Words spread, people notice and they buy, see, check them out. But what is popular in a society and what is popular outside of the society differ. For example, manga and anime. I assume that in Japan there are tons of people who love reading and watching mangas and anime generally, but at the same time, there are as many or more people in foreign countries, who are into this media. Also, there are differences in likes and dislikes among those people. In Japan, I do not think there are as many people in Japan, who love Ghost in the Shell, as are in foreign countries.  This movie appears to be more appreciated in other countries, and so does Akira. In foreign countries, I think that when it comes to a popular culture, it focuses on one or two, or a few mangas and animes that are so big among the foreigners because it is perhaps rare to meet such an opportunity to check out Japanese mangas and animes.  But in Japan, mangas and animes are widely recognized and welcomed.