JAPN 308: Japanese Pop-Culture (MLO 2) Completed Fall 2011
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, Anime animated movies, and popular music from Enka to J-Pop to Karaoke, as well as fashion and style, popular technology, consumerism, and environmental issues. Explores the evolution of pop culture and its impact on society.
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, Anime animated movies, and popular music from Enka to J-Pop to Karaoke, as well as fashion and style, popular technology, consumerism, and environmental issues. Explores the evolution of pop culture and its impact on society.
Course Narrative:
From taking this course, I was able to fulfill the MLO 2 requirement of this major because this course contributed to my small knowledge of the Japanese Pop-Culture. One of the things I learned from taking this class was that many popular cultural icons are influenced by many religious supernatural, or society beliefs. One example of this comes from one of the movies I watched called “Spirited Away.” After I watched this movie, I wrote a feedback review about this movie saying that there were many different society beliefs as well supernatural ideas throughout the movie. For supernatural ideas, the ideas of a spirit world separated from the human worlds as well as ideas of spirit monsters stream from the ideas and folklore that come from Japanese stories from their past while for society beliefs ideas such as being independent from ones family as well as accepting changes in one’s life comes from ideas that the way Japanese people live in society. Many of these ideas were kind of interesting to learn because they made me realize that this connects to some of the ideas that I was learning from one of my other classes known as JAPN 306 course that I was taking at the same time as this class. Even though I have completed this course there are still aspects that I am not too familiar with. Although I am familiar with Japanese Anime and Manga culture I am not too familiar with things such as Japanese robotics, dramas, or literature. Hopefully, in the future I may be able to gain a deeper understanding as to how these things became important to Japanese popular culture. In the future I am hoping to either take classes that will help expand the knowledge I have gained so far or that I hope to research it on my own time.
Feedback paper #3: PDF
From taking this course, I was able to fulfill the MLO 2 requirement of this major because this course contributed to my small knowledge of the Japanese Pop-Culture. One of the things I learned from taking this class was that many popular cultural icons are influenced by many religious supernatural, or society beliefs. One example of this comes from one of the movies I watched called “Spirited Away.” After I watched this movie, I wrote a feedback review about this movie saying that there were many different society beliefs as well supernatural ideas throughout the movie. For supernatural ideas, the ideas of a spirit world separated from the human worlds as well as ideas of spirit monsters stream from the ideas and folklore that come from Japanese stories from their past while for society beliefs ideas such as being independent from ones family as well as accepting changes in one’s life comes from ideas that the way Japanese people live in society. Many of these ideas were kind of interesting to learn because they made me realize that this connects to some of the ideas that I was learning from one of my other classes known as JAPN 306 course that I was taking at the same time as this class. Even though I have completed this course there are still aspects that I am not too familiar with. Although I am familiar with Japanese Anime and Manga culture I am not too familiar with things such as Japanese robotics, dramas, or literature. Hopefully, in the future I may be able to gain a deeper understanding as to how these things became important to Japanese popular culture. In the future I am hoping to either take classes that will help expand the knowledge I have gained so far or that I hope to research it on my own time.
Feedback paper #3: PDF