Animating the chaos: Contemporary Japanese anime, cinema, and postmodernity

Due to the growing popularity of Japanese popular culture in the global market, this thesis seeks to illuminate the reason why those Japanese popular media such as anime (Japanese animation) are so popular among the youth in other late-capitalist nations, especially North America. My hypothesis is that the voice integrated into Japanese media reflects the voice of the young audience in other late-capitalist societies since Japan has been recognized as the most advanced postmodern nation (McGray, 2002). Japanese visual media animate the consumer capitalist Japan; at the same time, they criticize its social condition by mediating the frustration toward the false contentment associated with the blind pursuit of money and pleasure. People living in the consumer capitalist societies whose hearts are torn between the obsession to possess materials and the dissatisfaction in those very same materials, hence, find comfort and sympathy in Japanese media.;Chapters are composed of analysis of three Japanese visual media: Spirited Away (2001: an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki), Elfen Lied (2004: an anime TV series emerged from manga of the same title), and Bright Future (2003: a live-action film illustrating the frustrated youth in contemporary Japan).