Course Description: This course explores post WWII Japanese music, literature, artistic media, and hi-tech products. Investigates social themes ranging from post-holocaust Japanese hedonism to childhood fantasies by looking at Manga comic books, Animation, and popular music, as well as fashion and style, popular technology, consumerism, and environmental issues. Explores the evolution of pop culture and its impact on society. Taught in English.
Course Narrative: The class that I took to fulfill MLO 4: Secondary Language was JAPN 308: Japanese Pop Culture. I took this class in the fall semester of 2019 with An Pham. When I first enrolled into this class I was not sure what to expect because I had no personal knowledge of Japanese Pop culture. In fact, I came in thinking the class was going to be non interesting. However, taking Japanese Pop Culture has been one of the most memorable classes I've taken in my college career. Throughout the semester, during every class session we either discussed an assigned reading and/or watched a film about Japanese Pop Culture to further understand their culture. What I thought was most interesting was learning about cosplay, how huge cosplay events can be, and most amazingly how serious Japanese culture takes cosplaying. Cosplay is when people dress up as their favorite character. As mentioned above, cosplaying was taken very seriously and people would spend months, days, and hours making the clothes to dress as their favorite character. Furthermore, during class we also discussed assigned readings where we learned about Japanese foods, snacks, etc. For my final exam I had to write an essay about Captain Tsubasa, an iconic Japanese manga and anime series, has undeniably impacted Japanese popular culture since its debut in 1981. The series follows the story of Tsubasa Oozora, a soccer prodigy, and his journey to becoming the best soccer player in Japan. final_paper_308_.pdf