Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book elaborates on the global spread of Japanese popular culture that accompanied Japan's opening to the West after the 1868 Meiji Restoration. It examines the early entry of girls' magazines on the Japanese publishing scene at the turn of the twentieth century. The book focuses on the role women's magazines played in thrusting average women into wider society in the interwar period. It explores how the media aggressively promoted a universal program of extreme self-sacrifice for the sake of national greatness and racial destiny that enshrined and inculcated eusocial behavior. The book outlines the unique role of Japanese newspapers and television in political communication. It also explores the economic, cultural and historical foundations upon which newspapers in Japan have flourished into one of the world's most robust print media industries.