Introduction

The Introduction of this book offers a background for the theoretical framework of the volume. Underlying the voluminous literature on the spread of Japanese popular culture are two opposing theoretical discourses. The first is the ‘globalisation’ thesis and a later version of it, ‘regionalisation’; the other is ‘localisation’ and its varieties, including ‘cultural resistance’, ‘creolisation’, and ‘hybridisation’. The first part of this introductory chapter is intended to offer a critical review of these two theoretical discourses, as they are like two poles between which the theoretical perspectives on the globalisation of Japanese popular culture have oscillated since the second half of last century, in order to see where the problems lie.