Critical Discourse in Japan

[http://www.otakunovideo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/fractale-257x300.png|257x300px|Fractale]

Hiroki Azuma--author of the otaku-critical book Otaku: Japan's Database Animals and creator of the anime series Fractale--has just launched a new website. Genron is intended to be "an English-based web portal for critical discourse in Japan."

Azuma writes in his introduction: Japanese society has undergone a major change both politically and culturally during the quarter-century from the end of...the Cold War to the burst of the economic bubble. Living conditions changed significantly and so did the beliefs and norms and the sense of “selfhood”. However...much of what is said about Japan still fails, unfortunately, to adapt to [this change]. This gap in awareness is wide enough in Japan...but it is even more serious outside of the country. For example, what people talk about or who the opinion leaders are on Twitter in the Japanese-speaking world, remain largely unknown abroad. This is despite the fact that it is said that Japanese accounts for 25% of all the messages posted on Twitter!

...The products and cultural values that Japan gives life to are appreciated around the world. However, although Japanese intellectuals and people in the publishing industry have been extremely passionate about analyzing the latest trends abroad to present them to a Japanese audience, very few have shown interest in doing the opposite, analyzing changes in Japan to present them to an international audience. Genron is being established to blast a hole into such a situation. I'm very excited about this. If Azuma can pull it off, this will be a fantastically useful view of true Japanese modern culture, especially as it's changed in the past few decades.

Here's hoping!