Cultural Concepts

An ordinary Japanese man — a salaryman, a high school student, an unemployed shut-in — is going about his ordinary day. He gets hit by a truck. He wakes up in a fantasy world filled with…

An anime character is introduced. She seems sweet, devoted, gentle. As the story progresses, the protagonist begins receiving small gifts from her — too many, too frequent. Photos of him appear in her room, taken from…

The stage is bare. A single pine tree is painted on the back wall — the only decoration. The actors enter: men in elaborate brocade robes, faces hidden behind carved wooden masks. They move slowly, almost…

You’re walking through the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, looking at a wall of Japanese woodblock prints. A wave curves dramatically over fishermen in tiny boats; Mount Fuji sits small and serene behind it. A few…

An anime character is introduced. She’s sharp-tongued, prickly, dismissive of the male protagonist, prone to physical violence (small comedic punches), constantly insulting him. By episode six, she’s blushing while denying she cares about him. By episode…

A Japanese mother opens her four-year-old daughter’s bento box at the kitchen counter, late at night, preparing tomorrow’s lunch. Inside, she will arrange: rice shaped into a panda’s head, eyes made from two halves of a…

Walking through Kyoto’s Gion district in the early evening, you see two women hurrying down a narrow alley toward an appointment. Both wear elaborate kimono, hair styled with ornaments, white-painted faces and red lips, traditional wooden…

The actor enters the stage. His face is painted white, with bold red lines radiating from his eyes and curving down his cheeks. The audience, watching from the dim auditorium, immediately knows several things about the…

A Japanese woman in a department store buys a gift box. At the counter, the clerk asks if she would like it wrapped in paper. She declines, takes the box, and steps aside to a small…

You walk into a Japanese friend’s small apartment in the morning. The room you slept in last night looks completely different from the room you saw before bed. Last night, there was a mattress on the…