Edited by Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin
Palgrave Macmillan | 256 pages | 2012
ISBN-10: 0230298303
ISBN-13: 978-0230298309

This volume is masterful in treating Japanese idol culture with the seriousness it deserves. Scholarly and astute, the essays massage all the edges of a phenomenon that is capitalism’s celebrity image: idols valued for an aura that trades between authenticity and the artifice of media/commodity production. From scandal to spectacle, Johnny’s to AKB48, the K-wave to virtual games, Japanese idols breed interest–affective as much as economic. This volume beautifully captures the complexity with which Japanese idols have been produced and consumed, loved and spurned, in postwar (and now post postwar) Japan.

–Anne Allison, professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University and author of Millennial Monsters

Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture goes beyond the terrain of female idols as well as critically analyzing fans and otaku. Alert to omnipresent consumerism, this volume deftly navigates realms of virtuality and fantasy. Overseen by editors Galbraith and Karlin, the celebrity-fetish intersects here with ideology and intimacy, advertising and activism, sexuality and scandal. An informative and compelling take on Japanese media culture.

–Matt Hills, Reader in Media & Cultural Studies at Cardiff University and author of Fan Cultures

Table of Contents

Forward: Revisiting “Idology” (Aoyagi Hiroshi)
Introduction: The Mirror of Idols and Celebrity (Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin)
1. The Jimusho System: Understanding the Production Logic of the Japanese Entertainment Industry (W. David Marx)
2. Megaspectacle and Celebrity Transgression in Japan: The Sakai Noriko Media Scandal (Igor Prusa)
3. Through a Looking Glass Darkly: Television Advertising, Idols and the Making of Fan Audiences (Jason G. Karlin)
4. Johnny’s Idols as Icon: Female Desires to Fantasize and Consume Male Idol Images (Kazumi Nagaike)
5. From Boys Next Door to Boys’ Love: Gender Performance in Japanese Male Idol Media (Lucy Glasspool)
6. The Homo Cultures of Iconic Personality in Japan: Mishima Yukio and Misora Hibari (Jonathan D. Mackintosh)
7. Idol as Accidental Activist: Agnes Chan, Feminism and Motherhood in Japan (Alexandra Hambleton)
8. Emotions, Desires and Fantasy: What Idolizing Means for Yon-sama Fans in Japan (Ho Swee Lin)
9. Idols: The Image of Desire in Japanese Consumer Capitalism (Patrick W. Galbraith)
10. The Virtual Idol: Producing and Consuming Digital Femininity (Daniel Black)

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