The Meaning of Japan

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
There was that time a decade or so ago where it was almost a tautology that the most experimental and serious Avant Garde music came from Japan. The Wire covering those guys who made noise from no-input mixing boards, or improv stuff that involved playing one note every 15 minutes. Keiji haino as well of course.

That type of western fascination with Japan seems to have cooled off a little now sadly.
 

luka

Well-known member
There was that time a decade or so ago where it was almost a tautology that the most experimental and serious Avant Garde music came from Japan. The Wire covering those guys who made noise from no-input mixing boards, or improv stuff that involved playing one note every 15 minutes. Keiji haino as well of course.

That type of western fascination with Japan seems to have cooled off a little now sadly.
its alive and well at oto.
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
Yes it's partly that that I find so comforting about cafe oto i think. It's a bit of a relic of what the Avant Garde used to be when I was young and vivacious.

Nowadays it's all graphic designers from Berlin doing modular synth "experiments" of course which oto rightly shuns
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
I think the hikikomori culture is a bit overplayed by the West , I don't know if it's that much more pervasive than in the US for example.
makes sense, but since the OP is specifically asking for "fantasy Japans" in "western imaginations" you could argue that that's exactly why it's worth mentioning. in the west, japan was seen as both heralding and most vividly exemplifying cyberpunk aesthetics, despite most people there being, you know, normal. now it's seen as the cocoon future.
 
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muser

Well-known member
makes sense, but since the OP is specifically asking for "fantasy Japans" in "western imaginations" you could argue that that's exactly why it's worth mentioning.

definitely I just always think it needs pointing out as the idea has come from a weird media bias/ obsession with presenting Japan as this sexually repressed and impotent nation of super nerds, such an accepted idea it needs a bit of counterbalance.
 

luka

Well-known member
definitely I just always think it needs pointing out as the idea has come from a weird media bias/ obsession with presenting Japan as this sexually repressed and impotent nation of super nerds, such an accepted idea it needs a bit of counterbalance.
This is very important and I never wanted to ride roughshod over it apologies if
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
definitely I just always think it needs pointing out as the idea has come from a weird media bias/ obsession with presenting Japan as this sexually repressed and impotent nation of super nerds, such an accepted idea it needs a bit of counterbalance.
absolutely! not all japanese youth are shut ins who spend all their free time consuming escapist media, just the ones who are similar to me.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i assume you mean "modern japan" cos otherwise there are wayyyyy more than that?!

and also: food to a great extent. wagamama

maybe takeshi kitano
All the beat Takeshi films are good, he had a good run. Sonatine my fav of his. That woman.


Anyone read that LRB article about the ghosts after the tsunami? I got it as a photocopy zine off a guy who told me it's the best thing he's ever read. It's not that, but it is good. Why are there no ghosts anymore?

 
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