Pure TokyoScope PODCAST #76: W. David Marx Interview - Digital Life in an Analog Japan!
Patrick Macias and Matt Alt bring you pop culture from Japan!
In the latest episode of the PURE TOKYOSCOPE Podcast, authors Matt Alt (Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World) and Patrick Macias (TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion) talk to their old drinking buddy W. David Marx about his book Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style and riff on a whole bunch of topics including weeb and vintage fashion, the origins of the word "otaku", analog vs digital culture, and (most important) the secret origins of the Pure TokyoScope theme song!
David just released an updated version of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style!
What is the PURE TOKYOSCOPE Podcast? Well… Author and fellow Substack writer Matt Alt and I have been recording together for about a year now. I still can’t believe we’ve made it all the way to episode 53.
Our show is a mix of Japanese pop culture news and features and some of our best episodes to date have been:
PURE TOKYOSCOPE usually comes out every week on Wednesdays (US time), but we’re experimenting with early launches of the latest episode a few days early right here via this newsletter on Substack.
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Incredible ep! I did want to tackle the idea that KPop is somehow better than Jpop. Because it’s more “popular”. Which it is.
In Japanese pop music - even some of the very successful stuff; I hear more attempts at individuality, adventurous stuff compositionally. Here and there they get weirder. Which I think is part of why it hasn’t been able to break through to the west in the same way.
Still.. Davis is great guest with such a lot of insight packed into one show. 💪
I forgot to mention, regarding “otaku”. There is an anime/manga called Love is hard for otaku about the lives and loves of some 20-something’s who are all different types of nerds. It’s very funny that some of the “manga otaku” look down upon the “gaming otaku”. It seems like there is an unspoken hierarchy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8254880/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk