Pure Invention - Matt Alt

. .

Résumé :

Praise for Pure Invention

'Over the last four decades, Japan accomplished a transformation as impressive as its postwar economic miracle: it became cool. Pure Invention tells this story in its full glory-a masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling'
W. DAVID MARX, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style

'From karaoke to manga, emoji to Pok?mon, the creations of modern Japanese style have transformed that country and daily life around the world. Pure Invention is a delightful and highly informed view of the people, ideas, and insights behind this pop-cultural revolution'
JAMES FALLOWS , author of China Airborne

'Pure Invention is part careful ethnography, part insightful cultural history of the creative men and women who reimagined Japan in the postwar period. Matt Alt tells their backstories and illuminates the impact of their creations, from toy army jeeps stamped from tin cans in the rubble of World War II to a torrent of anime streamed on Netflix. It's difficult to imagine a more instructive or entertaining account of a fascinating place, people, and period'
STEPHEN SNYDER, professor of Japanese studies at Middlebury College and translator of Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police

'Hello Kitty and Pikachu didn't just wander into your house by accident. Maybe they snuck in while you were out crooning karaoke with Super Mario? Intriguing and insightful, Pure Invention hands readers a backdoor key to Japan's culture trend factory, whose offbeat creators remixed and reimagined the world right under our noses'
ALFRED BIRNBAUM, translator of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

'The rise of Japanese popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is an incredible story. Japan conquered hearts and minds with appealing objects and new sensibilities: kawaii characters, digital cultures, and new forms of personal identities. Alt tells this story with verve and panache, giving a comprehensive overview of Japan's soft power that is informative, enlightening, and always entertaining'
SUSAN NAPIER, professor of the Japanese program at Tufts University and author of Miyazakiworld