VLVL-related: Japanese low culture sweeps U.S.

[Doug Millison]

http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/cute-high-art.html

Article about the wave of Japanese manga and anime culture sweeping across
the U.S.

Excerpt:
"Some view Japan's love of childish effects, from female fashion trends to
Hello Kitty accouterments, as a recreational release valve for Japan's
conventions of public conformity. Artistic preoccupation with animated
fantasy also reflects Japan's obsession with comics. "More people read
manga than read newspapers in Japan," says Jeff Yang, co-editor of _Eastern
Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture From Astro
Boy to Zen Buddhism_. "School kids read it; businessmen read it; homemakers
read it. There are different manga for virtually every background,
profession and kink. In America, the television sitcom is like a fun-house
mirror of the American id. In Japan, you have that in manga."
[...]
The presence of manga fantasies in museums also suggests the blurred lines
in Japan between fine art and pop culture. "With established Japanese
artists like Yasumasa Morimura or emerging artists like Yanobe and Mori,
you see the self-invention of a persona," says Renny Pritikin, director of
the Yerba Buena Center. "Just as a pop singer might change his image or
even his name from tour to tour, these visual artists put on masks to
explore social  and political conditions. Among contemporary Japanese fine
artists, I see a form of magical realism that is tough, fragile and
electric."