Anne Allison: Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys & the Global Imagination May 5, 2008

From sushi and karaoke to martial arts and technoware, the currency of made-in-Japan cultural goods has skyrocketed in the global marketplace during the past decade. The globalization of Japanese "cool" is led by youth products: video games, manga (comic books), anime (animation) and cute characters that have fostered kid crazes from Hong Kong to Canada. Drawing on popular examples from Pokemon to Sailor Moon, Anne Allison speaks about the popularity of Japanese goods today, and the relationship of these products to the cultural and historical context in which they were both developed and consumed.