Monday, July 30, 2007

Japanese Culture on the Web

I. Web Japan

Web Japan was launched with the aim of helping people around the world get to know more about Japan and the Japanese. With more than about 200 million hits per year from around the world, it has become one of Japan’s leading websites for information on the country.
The site provides highly reliable information on Japan across many different genres including culture, sightseeing, society, history and nature. The content is provided primarily in English, but a portion of the site is multilingual.
Web Japan is sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and operated by a Japanese non government organization.


Lots of useful information and links regarding Japan. Of interest to visual anthropologists is a link to "Japan Video Topics."

Link to Web Japan
http://web-japan.org/index.html


II. Creative Japan

Lately many have been focusing on the cool aspects of Japanese culture that get exported to the rest of the world. How does the Japanese government describe contemporary Japanese culture?

All over the world, people are focusing their attention on contemporary Japanese culture. From the 1990s onwards, in manga, anime, gaming, art, architecture, design, literature, food and fashion there was a burst of cultural energy among the population at large. This has now blossomed into contemporary Japanese popular culture whose influence is reverberating around the globe and continuing to fascinate many people, mostly the young generation.

This site is edited by the Embassy of Japan in the UK and sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan. Adviser to the project is Yasuki Hamano (Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo).

How successful is the use of visual images on this website?

Link to Creative Japan
http://www.creativejapan.net/