This exciting and fascinating text explores the 'Japanessness' of Japanese popular culture by focusing on the intersection of globalization and popular cultural products associated with Japan. "Social scientists and scholars of the humanities and the arts from New Zealand, Australia, and Japan address the relationship between the three aspects in ways that problematize the ownership of Japanese popular culture. They examine movements of popular cultural ideas and artefacts into and out of Japan, and offer new perspectives on forms of popular culture that extend beyond current Eurocentric notions that Japan - the Oriental or exotic Other - informs the production, distribution, and consumption of Japanese popular culture." -- Book News, 2007 "...the essays in this book are widely varied and difficult to categorize under one particular framework, except that of positioning Japanese popular culture within an increasingly transnational world. While the editors do touch on this aspect in the introduction, an even fuller discussion might have helped make the book more effective as a general textbook. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that each article on its own is well researched, thoughtful, and thought provoking. The pieces in this volume explore Japanese popular culture more widely and more deeply than those in previous compilations. Both students and scholars will have much to learn from it." - Susan J. Napier, Journal of Japanese Studies 34:2 (2008)