The aim of this Special Issue lies in expanding contemporary discussions on Japanese Cinema and its transnational aspects by applying new critical methodologies and stances and in revealing the contradictions inherent in the way the old paradigm of 'National Cinema' has traditionally been articulated. In order to do so, this publication highlights the limitations of assessing Japanese film as a cinematic phenomenon confined to its national borders. Throughout this issue, the concept of transnationality is not confined to a single definition and is instead used as an analytical framework which allow authors to surpass narrow perspectives that neglect the complex nature of Japanese film in terms of its esthetics, narratives, and theoretical approaches as well as production, consumption, and distribution systems. This volume casts light on the extraordinary international flows of images, stories, iconographies, and theories between Japan and other countries, and assesses the dialectic relationship between two apparently contradictory aspects: external influences and Japanese uniqueness, revealing how 'uniquely Japanese' films may ironically contain foreign codes of representation. Thus, the articles presented here bring a more comprehensive understanding of how global cultural flows have shaped local creativity. Some authors adopt additional transnational perspectives, through which they analyse how Japan is represented as 'other' from outside and how the rest of the world is represented by Japan, or propose a renewal of film theories on Japanese cinema that have traditionally been dominated by Western writings. Overall, manuscripts included in this publication help the reader to understand different ways in which Japan expands beyond Japanese Cinema and Japanese Cinema expands beyond Japan.

"Because imperialism has had such an appalling ideological reputation, we’ve lost sight of its excitement, the breathless anticipation of adventures in far-off lands. The Attractive Empire is a tour de force of enthralling historical scholarship that puts the appeal, and seductions, of imperialism on display, without underestimating its ugly consequences. Like its chosen subject, the book covers an astonishing array of texts, events, people, and issues. The clarity and vividness of the writing make it work effortlessly. Baskett’s organizational skills, narrative, and rhetoric deftly orchestrate a complex subject." —Darrell William Davis, University of New South Wales "Michael Baskett removes imperial Japanese film from its solitary confinement and commandingly analyzes how it functioned internationally. He commits a depth of research rarely found in English-language studies of Japanese cinema, and his mastery of the primary and secondary sources from beyond Japan’s borders distinctly set his book apart from previous scholarship on the subject. Not only is this a work that historians and film scholars will appreciate but also one that I look forward to assigning to undergraduates." —Barak Kushner, Cambridge University Japanese film crews were shooting feature-length movies in China nearly three decades before Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) reputedly put Japan on the international film map. Although few would readily associate Japan’s film industry with either imperialism or the domination of world markets, the country’s film culture developed in lock step with its empire, which, at its peak in 1943, included territories from the Aleutians to Australia and from Midway Island to India. With each military victory, Japanese film culture’s sphere of influence expanded deeper into Asia, first clashing with and ultimately replacing Hollywood as the main source of news, education, and entertainment for millions. The Attractive Empire is the first comprehensive examination of the attitudes, ideals, and myths of Japanese imperialism as represented in its film culture. In this stimulating new study, Michael Baskett traces the development of Japanese film culture from its unapologetically colonial roots in Taiwan and Korea to less obvious manifestations of empire such as the semicolonial markets of Manchuria and Shanghai and occupied territories in Southeast Asia. Drawing on a wide range of previously untapped primary sources from public and private archives across Asia, Europe, and the United States, Baskett provides close readings of individual films and trenchant analyses of Japanese assumptions about Asian ethnic and cultural differences. Finally, he highlights the place of empire in the struggle at legislative, distribution, and exhibition levels to wrest the "hearts and minds" of Asian film audiences from Hollywood in the 1930s as well as in Japan’s attempts to maintain that hegemony during its alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

The Japanese Cinema Book provides a new and comprehensive survey of one of the world's most fascinating and widely admired filmmaking regions. In terms of its historical coverage, broad thematic approach and the significant international range of its authors, it is the largest and most wide-ranging publication of its kind to date. Ranging from renowned directors such as Akira Kurosawa to neglected popular genres such as the film musical and encompassing topics such as ecology, spectatorship, home-movies, colonial history and relations with Hollywood and Europe, The Japanese Cinema Book presents a set of new, and often surprising, perspectives on Japanese film. With its plural range of interdisciplinary perspectives based on the expertise of established and emerging scholars and critics, The Japanese Cinema Book provides a groundbreaking picture of the different ways in which Japanese cinema may be understood as a local, regional, national, transnational and global phenomenon. The book's innovative structure combines general surveys of a particular historical topic or critical approach with various micro-level case studies. It argues there is no single fixed Japanese cinema, but instead a fluid and varied field of Japanese filmmaking cultures that continue to exist in a dynamic relationship with other cinemas, media and regions. The Japanese Cinema Book is divided into seven inter-related sections: · Theories and Approaches · * Institutions and Industry · * Film Style · * Genre · * Times and Spaces of Representation · * Social Contexts · * Flows and Interactions

Japanese Horror and the Transnational Cinema of Sensations undertakes a critical reassessment of Japanese horror cinema by attending to its intermediality and transnational hybridity in relation to world horror cinema. Neither a conventional film history nor a thematic survey of Japanese horror cinema, this study offers a transnational analysis of selected films from new angles that shed light on previously ignored aspects of the genre, including sound design, framing techniques, and lighting, as well as the slow attack and long release times of J-horror’s slow-burn style, which have contributed significantly to the development of its dread-filled cinema of sensations.

What might Godzilla and Kurosawa have in common? What, if anything, links Ozu’s sparse portraits of domestic life and the colorful worlds of anime? In What Is Japanese Cinema? Yomota Inuhiko provides a concise and lively history of Japanese film that shows how cinema tells the story of Japan’s modern age. Discussing popular works alongside auteurist masterpieces, Yomota considers films in light of both Japanese cultural particularities and cinema as a worldwide art form. He covers the history of Japanese film from the silent era to the rise of J-Horror in its historical, technological, and global contexts. Yomota shows how Japanese film has been shaped by traditonal art forms such as kabuki theater as well as foreign influences spanning Hollywood and Italian neorealism. Along the way, he considers the first golden age of Japanese film; colonial filmmaking in Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan; the impact of World War II and the U.S. occupation; the Japanese film industry’s rise to international prominence during the 1950s and 1960s; and the challenges and technological shifts of recent decades. Alongside a larger thematic discussion of what defines and characterizes Japanese film, Yomota provides insightful readings of canonical directors including Kurosawa, Ozu, Suzuki, and Miyazaki as well as genre movies, documentaries, indie film, and pornography. An incisive and opinionated history, What Is Japanese Cinema? is essential reading for admirers and students of Japan’s contributions to the world of film.

The film star is not simply an actor but a historical phenomenon that derives from the production of an actor’s attractiveness, the circulation of his or her name and likeness, and the support of media consumers. This book analyzes the establishment and transformation of the transnational film star system and the formations of historically important film stars—Japanese and non-Japanese—and casts new light on Japanese modernity as it unfolded between the 1910s and 1930s. Hideaki Fujiki illustrates how film stardom and the star system emerged and evolved, touching on such facets as the production, representation, circulation, and reception of performers’ images in films and other media. Examining several individual performers—particularly benshi narrators, Onoe Matsunosuke, Tachibana Teijirō, Kurishima Sumiko, Clara Bow, and Natsukawa Shizue—as well as certain aspects of different star systems that bolstered individual stardom, this study foregrounds the associations of contradictory, multivalent social factors that constituted modernity in Japan, such as industrialization, capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, and consumerism. Through its nuanced treatment of the production and consumption of film stars, this book shows that modernity is not a simple concept, but an intricate, contested, and paradoxical nexus of diverse social elements emerging in their historical contexts.

Japan’s film industry has gone through dramatic changes in recent decades, as international consumer forces and transnational talent have brought unprecedented engagement with global trends. With careful research and also unique first-person observations drawn from years of working within the international industry of Japanese film, the author aims to examine how different generations of Japanese filmmakers engaged and interacted with the structural opportunities and limitations posed by external forces, and how their subjectivity has been shaped by their transnational experiences and has changed as a result. Having been through the globalization of the last part of the twentieth century, are Japanese themselves and overseas consumers of Japanese culture really becoming more cosmopolitan? If so, what does it mean for Japan’s national culture and the traditional sense of national belonging among Japanese people?