The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture

This is such a great read - I live in Japan and thought it would get me in touch with the people around me. Since most of the entries feature pop culture from the late 1950s through the early 1990s, though, what I've ended up with is a lot of fun stories which the Japanese 30-somethings around me have never even heard! The result? Everyone thinks I'm that weird foreigner who knows about and likes Pink Lady, who knows how many members there were in SMAP when they first started, and all the different generations of Ultraman. The author lives in Japan, and does know what he's talking about. He pokes fun at some of the goofy stars and trends which have come along, without ever getting mean about them. This makes for a highly readable book of short essays - highly recommended!

it's not possible. It just is -not- possible to do a pop culture encyclopedia no matter how hard one tries to. If you're going to do one, though, the key ingredients are to pick the lasting phenomenas and to assure your reader there's a depth in it worth covering.Schilling doesn't cover most of what I remember from Japan. He doesn't cover rock music. He doesn't cover kogaru. He doesn't cover ramune or pocky. Honestly, on an encounter level with other similar books I've found myself insulted by the lack of knowledge presented in their so-called "encyclopedia". But with what he covers, he covers it well and authoratatively and with an expressed but not hideously overt sense of irony about the entire situation.I've found myself keeping it for a reference piece because what he does cover tends to get incorporated into a lot of what he doesn't.

Instead of cataloging the people and subcultures on the commercial fringe that Americans and other non-Japanese may be more familiar with, Schilling takes care to give the reader a broad view of actual Japanese pop culture from the post-WWII period through the mid-nineties. As to the criticism that Schiller chose to leave many things out of his encyclopedia: any other 320 page encylopedia on pop culture that spanned fifty years would be much the same. As Schiller says himself in the Introduction, "The book could easily have contained twice as many articles, but I tried to put more emphasis on depth than breadth of coverage ..." I feel I now have a better understanding of Japanese 20th century pop culture, not just of the quirky, fringe, or subcultural elements that happen to make their way to other countries or have a large presence on the internet.

I like this book very much, and can let foreigner know Japanese culture more and more, deep and deep.

I lived in Japan for five years from 1991-1996. This book is manna from heaven by a guy who knows everything. I recommend it for greenhorns FOB and longtime permanent residents of Japan. With over 20 years in Japan, Schilling certainly knows his way around!