The Pokemon Hegemon

The United States isn’t the only reigning cultural superpower in the world these days. Japan is rising. In the May/June issue of Foreign Policy, Douglas McGray offers a thoughtful, detailed examination of how Japan is exerting growing cultural influence across the globe. He looks at a range of influences, from Pokemon and anime to Hello Kitty and the “Super Flat” art movement. “Millions of teenagers in Hong Kong, Seoul, and Bangkok covet the latest fashions from Tokyo, most of which never make it to New York,” McGray writes. “Japanese lifestyle magazines, some of the most lavishly produced in the world, are smuggled by illegal distributors across Asia as soon as they are on newsstands in Tokyo, though none has launched an American edition. At the same time, Japan has made deep inroads into American culture, usually written off by the rest of the world as aggravatingly insular.”

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