Post

An observation: Much of Japan-focused academia is--perhaps willfully--ignorant of Japanese pop culture. They Ivory Tower themselves for the "important" culture and distain the rest. I was at a gathering of luminaries recently, and I was the only one to recognize the Sailor Moon theme song.

In context, recognizing the Sailor Moon theme song was an important part of what we were there to watch. They can read kanbun and quote the Heikei Monogatari, but can't sing a word of Miracle Romance.

I was chatting history/art with a Japanese studies PhD student last year in Tokyo. The moment I mentioned that I liked anime, there was a tonal shift from them. They spent the next few minutes trying to parse how I could talk intelligently about proper "high culture" but still consume pop culture.

They weren't being totally haughty or rude, mind you. They had always been told by their advisors and seen personally that pop culture interest didn't correspond much to interest of "classier" stuff and they were really quite curious.