Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid, and Alternate Media, edited by John A. Lent and Lorna Fitzsimmons, is an interdisciplinary study of popular culture practices in Asia, including regional and national studies of Japan, China, South Korea, and Australia. The contributors explore the evolution and intersection of popular forms (gaming, manga, anime, film, music, fiction, YouTube videos) and explicate the changing cultural meanings of these media in historical and contemporary contexts. At this study's core are the roles popular culture plays in the construction of national and regional identity. Common themes in this text include the impact of new information technology, whether it be on gaming in East Asia, music in 1960s' Japan, or candlelight vigils in South Korea; hybridity, of old and new versions of the Chinese game Weiqi, of online and hand-held gaming in South Korea and Japan that developed localized expressions, or of United States culture transplanted to Japan in post-World War II, leading to the current otaku (fan boy) culture; and the roles that nationalism and grassroots and alternative media of expression play in contemporary Asian popular culture. This is an essential study in understanding the role of popular culture in Asia's national and regional identity.

IntroductionChapter 1. Weiqi Legends, Then and Now: Cultural Paradigms in the Game of Goby Marc L. MoskowitzChapter 2. Locating Play: The Situated Localities of Portable and Online Gaming in East Asiaby Dean ChanChapter 3. Regionalism in the Era of Neo-Nationalism: Japanese Landscape in the Background Art of Games and Anime from the Late-1990s to Presentby Kumiko SaitoChapter 4. Otaku Evolution: Changing Views of the Fan-boy in Kon Satoshi's Perfect Blue and Paprikaby Joseph Christopher SchaubChapter 5. Breaking Records: Media, Censorship, and the Folk Song Movement of Japan's 1960sby James DorseyChapter 6. Mad-Cow Disease and Alternative YouTube Videos: Brechtian Politics of Aesthetics in Grassroots Media Spectacles, Voluntary Mobilization, and Collective Governance from Korea's Candlelight Movementsby Gooyong KimChapter 7. Reaching Beyond the Manga: A Samurai to the Ends of the World and the Formation of National Identityby Michael WertChapter 8. Zen Dog: Lian Hearn's Hybrid Otori Pentalogyby Sheng-mei Ma