Japanese Cultural Influence

[Matthew Hurwitz]

I agree on finding the discusssion on the transition to some extent from economic power to cultural power to be an interesting one. Just as you did, after the lecture I went back through my mind to think about all the Japanese cultural influences on my life that I haven't really thought about. I didn't get into Pokemon Go!, but I distinctly remember being in elementary school when the original Pokemon gameboy game came out, and how obsessed everyone was with it, and how the fervor only died down when it was replaced by another anime game...Yu-Gi-Oh. These, along with the Tamagotchi (remember those?) form some key memories from growing up. It made me think about ways of tying together the current "fads" that students are into, analyzing what they say about our society right now, and comparing those to fads from history and what they tell us about the way that kids and adults saw certain events/movements/stories at the time as a way of connecting the past and the present in a way that elicits student buy in.