From sushi and karaoke to martial arts and technoware, the currency of made-in-Japan cultural goods has skyrocketed in the global marketplace during the past decade. The globalization of Japanese "cool" is led by youth products: video games, manga (comic books), anime (animation) and cute characters that have fostered kid crazes from Hong Kong to Canada. Drawing on popular examples from Pokémon to Sailor Moon, Anne Allison speaks about the popularity of Japanese goods today, and the relationship of these products to the cultural and historical context in which they were both developed and consumed. Dr. Allison is Professor and Chair of the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, and author of Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination.

Moderated by Thomas Looser, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at New York University.

For tickets and additional information, please visit: www.japansociety.org/event_detail?eid=470a5984