Pop-Texts in Global Contexts

How do Japanese pop-texts take on new meanings as they travel across cultures? This volume explores how manga, anime, literature, and related media circulate globally and are transformed in regional contexts. Drawing on interdisciplinary case studies from Europe, Asia, and beyond, it shows how these texts are reinterpreted through language, media, and cultural differences. Moving beyond nation-centered and industry-based approaches, the contributors analyze pop-texts as sites of translation, negotiation, and cultural politics. By foregrounding local transformations, this book reveals how global popular culture is reshaped through processes of translation, reinterpretation, and local reconfiguration, grounded in close textual analysis.Contributors are: Marco Pellitteri, Yuriko Yamanaka, Raj Lakhi Sen, Ylva Lindberg, Yuri Kato, Yukari Yoshihara, Takako Kondo, and Francisco Noriyuki Sato.

Noriko Hiraishi, Ph.D. (University of Tokyo), is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her research spans Japanese, European, and Southeast Asian literature and popular texts, with publications on gender, translation, and transnational media in modern contexts. Yokota-Murakami, Takayuki, Ph.D. (1994), Princeton University, is a former Associate Professor of Osaka University. His publication include Don Juan East/West: On the Problematics of Comparative Literature (SUNY P, 1998), Manga wa yokubō suru (Desire in Comics), Irootoko no kenkyū (The Study of Japanese Libertines); Kadokawa gakugei shuppan, 2007; The winner of the Suntory Award for the Outstanding Academic Book), and Mother-Tongue in Modern Japanese Literature and Criticism: Toward a New Polylingual Poetics (Palgrave, 2018). Lately he has been active as a performer/composer. His latest musical composition is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 2025.