Promiscuous Media: Film and Visual Culture in Imperial Japan, 1926-1945

In Promiscuous Media, Hikari Hori makes a compelling case that the visual culture of Showa-era Japan articulated urgent issues of modernity rather than serving as a simple expression of nationalism. Hori makes clear that the Japanese cinema of the time was in fact almost wholly built on a foundation of Russian and British film theory as well as American film genres and techniques. Hori provides a range of examples that illustrate how maternal melodrama and animated features, akin to those p...