context: thematic routes > realism > sources

A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains in Japanese Culture by Ian Buruma

It could as easily have been called 'stereotypical female and male roles in Japanese culture' - and he is a little inclined to ignore any portrayals of women not fitting his thesis, though to be fair he is accurate in most of his main points (though a lengthy piece on the 'typical' yakuza film seems very unfamiliar and wrong to me, and I have watched quite a lot of them - I think he is talking about the typical '50s yakuza film), and he knows his stuff very well. He has some slightly old-fashioned cultural snobbery (the picture credits are good on movies and art, and then there are "examples from comic books", some without any kind of credit), which makes this feel a bit dated. I guess my main problem is that Buruma wants to tell us about the Japanese psychology - almost entirely its less appetising traits too - and is using its stories as evidence for his points. My interest is in its arts, and I'm interested in the psychology as it affects and illuminates that, so we are coming from very different angles. I think this book is dated, unbalanced and narrow in a lot of ways, but there is a lot of good information and analysis in it, and he writes very well.

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