Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon and Hello Kitty, online argots like selfies and super-kawaii emojis. But these gadgets, escapes, and diversions did more than entertain. They created entirely new ways of living, paving the way for our perplexing modern lives. Pure Invention is a secret history about how a wild bunch of Japanese creatives shaped modern life, forging new tools for navigating the weirdness of late-stage capitalist societies.
I've long been fascinated by the ways things from Japan inflected Western worldview, whether gentle (such as the Japonisme of the Victorian er) to the jarring (the "chan culture" of online imageboards that gave rise to conspiracies like Qanon.) Pure Invention is a pop cultural detective story about how that came to be. Japan made itself rich in the 20th century by selling us all the things we needed, like cars and computers. It made itself loved by selling us everything we wanted -- with results none of us, even those Japanese creators themselves, could never have imagined.
Available now in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook.
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