Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Hailed by Japanese critics as a milestone in the study of contemporary Japanese media, this book explores the contemporary ‘boom’ in Japanese media representations of the recent past. Recent years have seen the production of an unprecedented number of films, animation, manga, and television programmes focusing on the ‘glory’ of the 1960s period of high economic growth known in Japan as the Showa ‘30s. Hidaka provides a comprehensive account of an under researched contemporary Japanese media phenomenon by exploring why this nostalgia has been sparked at this particular historical juncture and how that period is represented in the Japanese media today.