{"product_id":"pure-invention-how-japan-made-the-modern-world","title":"Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmazingly Well Researched, Fabulously Informative And An Awful Lot Of Fun. If You Love Japanese Culture Or Are Just Curious To Know More I CanT Recommend This Book Highly Enough Jonathan RossA Nerd- And Generalist-Friendly Look At How Japan Shaped The Post-World War Ii World, From Toys To Trump . . . A Non-NativeS Savvy Study Of JapanS Wide Influence In Ways Both Subtle And Profound Kirkusthe Walkman. Karaoke. Pikachu. Pac-Man. Akira. Emoji. WeVe All Fallen In Love With One Or Another Of JapanS Pop-Culture Creations, From The Techy To The Wild To The Super-Kawaii. But As Japanese-Media Veteran Matt Alt Proves In This Brilliant Investigation Of TokyoS Pop-Fantasy Complex, We DonT Know The Half Of It. JapanS Toys, Gadgets, And Fantasy Worlds DidnT Merely Entertain. They Profoundly Transformed The Way We Live. In The 1970S And 80S, Japan Seemed To Exist In Some Near Future, Soaring On The Superior Technology Of Sony And Toyota While The West Struggled To Catch Up. Then A Catastrophic 1990 Stock-Market Crash Ushered In The Lost Decades Of Deep Recession And Social Dysfunction. The End Of The Boom Times Should Have Plunged Japan Into Irrelevance, But ThatS Precisely When Its Cultural Clout Soared - When, Once Again, Japan Got To The Future A Little Ahead Of The Rest Of Us. Hello Kitty, The Nintendo Entertainment System, And Multimedia Empires Like Pokmon And Dragon Ball Z Were More Than Marketing Hits. Artfully Packaged, Dangerously Cute, And Dizzyingly Fun, These Products Made Japan The Forge Of The WorldS Fantasies, And Gave Us New Tools For Coping With Trying Times. They Also Transformed Us As We Consumed Them - Connecting As Well As Isolating Us In New Ways, Opening Vistas Of Imagination And Pathways To Revolution. Through The Stories Of An Indelible Group Of Artists, Geniuses, And Oddballs, Pure Invention Reveals How Japanese Ingenuity Remade Global Culture And May Have Created Modern Life As We Know It. ItS JapanS World; WeRe Just Gaming, Texting, Singing, And Dreaming In It.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Constable","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45875276349638,"sku":"DADAX1472131851","price":9.33,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/9389\/1014\/files\/81juuGiaGCL.jpg?v=1779601910","url":"https:\/\/ergodemedia.com\/products\/pure-invention-how-japan-made-the-modern-world","provider":"Ergodemedia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}