An international team of authors, with an anthropological perspective, explore the many facets of Japanese popular culture. Topics include sumo, karaoke, manga, women's magazines, horse-racing, soccer and morning television. Deeper themes, such as globalisation, identity and the construction of gender, are also discussed. I INTRODUCTION Gender, shifting boundaries and global cultures, D.P. Martinez 1 Sumo in the popular culture of contemporary Japan, Yamaguchi Masao II THE MALE DOMAIN 2 Transformational magic: Some Japanese super-heroes and monsters, Tom Gill 3 Akira, postmodernism and resistance, Isolde Standish 4 Japan's empty orchestras: Echoes of Japanese culture in the performance of karaoke, Bill Kelly III THE FEMALE DOMAIN 5 Vampries, psychic girls, flying women and sailor scouts: Four faces of the young female in Japanese popular culture, Susan Napier 6 Japanese women's magazines: The language of aspiration, Keiko Tanaka 7 Nonchan's dream: NHK morning serialised television novels in the 1980s, Paul Harvey IV SHIFTING BOUNDARIES 8 Media stories of bliss and mixed blessings in marriages, Halld&#243 r Stef&#225 nsson 9 The cult of Oguricap: Or, how women changed the social value of Japanese horse-racing, Nagashima Nobuhiro 10 Soccer shinhatsubai: what are Japanese consumers making of the J League?, Jonathan Watts.