Tag Archives: Pastiche

Zengakuren reaches milestone (and new viewers) with tongue-in-cheek and self-aware political YouTube video series

Posted on Jun 17, 2018 by William Andrews

Zengakuren is not only an organisation of left-wing student activists; it is also a group of YouTubers. Perhaps the most unlikely Japanese Internet hit of recent months, Zenshin Channel is named after the main newspaper of the Zengakuren parent organisation, … Continue reading →

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SEALDs becomes pastiche in “Food Party” TV commercial for Sapporo beer

Posted on Jan 2, 2017 by William Andrews

You know you’ve genuinely cemented a place in popular culture when you spawn a TV parody, though perhaps there can be no cheaper a spoof than one mustered up by the folk behind the ubiquitous commercials in Japan’s competitive beer … Continue reading →

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Kumano Dormitory students occupy Kyoto University clock tower hall roof

Posted on Nov 26, 2016 by William Andrews

Life spent monitoring Japanese radicalism and counterculture would be dull if there weren’t high jinks at Kyōdai. And here they are again: students at Kyoto University yesterday occupied the Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall. On November 25th, students from … Continue reading →

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Zenkyōtō gets the AKB48 makeover

Posted on Apr 30, 2016 by William Andrews

The idol group AKB48 has made a music video for its new song, the folk-tinged “Tsubasa wa iranai” (literally, “wings aren’t needed”), as a pastiche of the 1960s-1970s campus strikes and student movement in Japan. There’s guitars, helmets, and placards … Continue reading →

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Ultra-nationalist anger at security bills protests manifests as “cute” moe character

Posted on Sep 21, 2015 by William Andrews

As I wrote earlier this year, there is a mini online community in Japan that exists seemingly solely to revel in the subculture of Japanese New Left moe (moé). Users like @honoka51934835, @gabageba07, @samusamu1002 @negi1919 fill their Twitter feeds with … Continue reading →

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