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2. Schilling, Mark. "Popularizing Pop Culture." Japan Quarterly. (Tokyo: July-Sept 1999.) Vol. 46, Iss. 3; pg. 93, 3 pgs.

Schilling's review of Dolores P. Martinez's edited work entitled, The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures begins with an observation that the pop culture of Japan is drawing interests from all over the world focusing mainly on anime, arcade games and trendy merchandise including Hello Kitty^®. Martinez compiles essays in an attempt to present the three subtopics of gender, global culture, and changing cultural boundaries in Japan. Schilling records that Japanese children of today no longer learn ancient traditions such as folklore from grandparents or other ancestral family members but through pop culture such as manga or anime. In the Martinez compilation, Yamaguchi Masao's "Sumo in the Popular Culture of Contemporary Japan" is to Schilling "the weakest" of all the essays. He incorrectly explains the setting of Sumo, and tells readers that Sumo had a lapse in popularity during the Meiji Era and didn't pick up until the 1970's when really, as the author explains, Sumo held many periods of popularity throughout the 20^th century. On the other side of commentary, Schilling criticizes Tanaka Keiko's essay on the language of Japanese women's magazines with praise for his in depth analysis of the magazines themselves and the attitude toward the reader.

Mark's finishing words on his study of the various essays that "the mainsprings of pop culture fashions and fads are truly universal." While his article is at first rather difficult to grasp right away readers are soon shown a rough report of the work under observation. Readers are taught that Japan feeds many fads to the rest of the world while accepting quite a few as well. Japanese popular culture, as the article attempts to point out, thrives on the people of the country's interest in expanding and improving their economic status and their level of intelligence and technology in comparism to neighboring countries.

Leah Cumsky-Whitlock