Magic in Japanese Popular Culture
Balser 1 Magic in Japanese Popular Culture Hannah M. Balser University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Balser 2 Abstract This thesis examines the depiction of magic in Japanese popular media in order to find out how certain forms of popular media reflect societal views regarding national identity, youth, and gender. Through this examination, I aim to explain the context surrounding the cultural ideas being exported through Japanese popular media and their global influence. Various primary sources of Japanese popular media were analyzed, namely anime, manga and light novels. These works were analyzed under the theoretical frameworks provided by a number of anthropologists and Japanese popular culture scholars. By combining the disciplines of pop culture studies and anthropology, this analysis of magical Japanese popular media examines not only what the kinds of cultural messages are being expressed through magic in popular media, but who benefits from the popularity of magical power fantasies, and what effects these messages and fantasies have on Japanese society. Keywords: Japan, magic, pop culture, anime, manga, fantasy, youth, gender, identity Balser 3 Introduction A redheaded girl of 15 sits beside a still pond, nearly done with carving a long wooden staff. She turns to a man with long fair hair and deceptively youthful looks, the thousands of years old protector of the land of the dragons. He takes the staff and combines them with two jewels and a large amount of the girl’s hair. The girl, Chise, thanks the man, and tells him that she must be off, because there’s something she needs to tell her master Elias.
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