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Image Factory: Fads and Fashions in Japan
Just as a person contrives a style, the purpose of which is integration and the effect of which is presentation, so a nation collectively projects an appearance, a "national" style. Such styles are made of many layers. The deepest layer is composed of the immutable and the traditional. Nearer the surface floats fashion, changeable but sometimes more abiding. And frothing on the surface is fad.
By definition a fad is novel and appears from outside. Fads must have instant appeal and do not have a long shelf life. In Japan, an assortment of islands, the outside is often the quality that defines the inside.
Japan has a history of chasing fads and fashion. Since the 19th century, foreign products have been welcomed in, from the cult for "squeaky shoes" in the mid-19th century to the current fad for virtual reality girlfriends. Japan’s mandate was that, having been opened late, it had to hurry to catch up. Fads provide both a social distraction and a sense of cohesion, indicating not only foreign importation but also native adaptation.
The Image Factory is both an investigation into fads, fashions and style – such as US Army surplus uniforms, "pachinko", mutating hair colors – and an appreciation of their inherent meanings. The Japanese have seized upon fads and fashion as an arm of enterprise to a much greater extent than elsewhere in the world. Ephemerality has been put to work, the transient has become industrialized, and the results are highly conspicuous.
By definition a fad is novel and appears from outside. Fads must have instant appeal and do not have a long shelf life. In Japan, an assortment of islands, the outside is often the quality that defines the inside.
Japan has a history of chasing fads and fashion. Since the 19th century, foreign products have been welcomed in, from the cult for "squeaky shoes" in the mid-19th century to the current fad for virtual reality girlfriends. Japan’s mandate was that, having been opened late, it had to hurry to catch up. Fads provide both a social distraction and a sense of cohesion, indicating not only foreign importation but also native adaptation.
The Image Factory is both an investigation into fads, fashions and style – such as US Army surplus uniforms, "pachinko", mutating hair colors – and an appreciation of their inherent meanings. The Japanese have seized upon fads and fashion as an arm of enterprise to a much greater extent than elsewhere in the world. Ephemerality has been put to work, the transient has become industrialized, and the results are highly conspicuous.
192 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2004
84 people want to read
About the author
Donald Richie
119 books104 followersDonald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17. Although Richie speaks Japanese fluently, he can neither read nor write it.
During World War II, he served aboard Liberty ships as a purser and medical officer. By then he had already published his first work, "Tumblebugs" (1942), a short story.
In 1947, Richie first visited Japan with the American occupation force, a job he saw as an opportunity to escape from Lima, Ohio. He first worked as a typist, and then as a civilian staff writer for the Pacific Stars and Stripes. While in Tokyo, he became fascinated with Japanese culture, particularly Japanese cinema. He was soon writing movie reviews in the Stars and Stripes. In 1948 he met Kashiko Kawakita who introduced him to Yasujiro Ozu. During their long friendship, Richie and Kawakita collaborated closely in promoting Japanese film in the West.
After returning to the United States, he enrolled at Columbia University's School of General Studies in 1949, and received his Bachelor's Degree in English in 1953. Richie then returned to Japan as film critic for the The Japan Times and spent much of the second half of the twentieth century living there. In 1959, he published his first book, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, coauthored with Joseph Anderson. In this work, the authors gave the first English language account of Japanese film. Richie served as Curator of Film at the New York Museum of Modern Art from 1969 to 1972. In 1988, he was invited to become the first guest director at the Telluride Film Festival.
Among his most noted works on Japan are The Inland Sea, a travel classic, and Public People, Private People, a look at some of Japan's most significant and most mundane people. He has compiled two collections of essays on Japan: A Lateral View and Partial Views. A collection of his writings has been published to commemorate fifty years of writing about Japan: The Donald Richie Reader. The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 consists of extended excerpts from his diaries.
In 1991, filmmakers Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir produced a film version of The Inland Sea, which Richie narrated. Produced by Travelfilm Company, the film won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival (1991) and the Earthwatch Film Award. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992.
Author Tom Wolfe describes Richie as: "the Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish, and deceptively lucid medium between two cultures that confuse one another: the Japanese and the American."
Richie's most widely recognized accomplishment has been his analysis of Japanese cinema. From his first published book, Richie has revised not only the library of films he discusses, but the way he analyzes them. With each subsequent book, he has focused less on film theory and more on the conditions in which the films were made. One thing that has emerged in his works is an emphasis on the "presentational" nature of Japan's cinema, in contrast to the "representational" films of the West. His book, A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film includes a helpful guide to the availability of the films on home video and DVD mentioned in the main text. In the foreword to this book, Paul Schrader says: "Whatever we in the West know about Japanese film, and how we know it, we most likely owe to Donald Richie." Richie also has written analyses of two of Japan's best known filmmakers: Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.
Richie has written the English subtitles for Akira Kurosawa's films Kagemusha (1980) and Dreams (1990)[8].
In the 21st century, Richie has become noted for his erudite audio commentaries for The Criterion Collection on DVDs of various classic Japanese films, notably those of Ozu (A Story of Floating Weeds, Early Summer), Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascend
During World War II, he served aboard Liberty ships as a purser and medical officer. By then he had already published his first work, "Tumblebugs" (1942), a short story.
In 1947, Richie first visited Japan with the American occupation force, a job he saw as an opportunity to escape from Lima, Ohio. He first worked as a typist, and then as a civilian staff writer for the Pacific Stars and Stripes. While in Tokyo, he became fascinated with Japanese culture, particularly Japanese cinema. He was soon writing movie reviews in the Stars and Stripes. In 1948 he met Kashiko Kawakita who introduced him to Yasujiro Ozu. During their long friendship, Richie and Kawakita collaborated closely in promoting Japanese film in the West.
After returning to the United States, he enrolled at Columbia University's School of General Studies in 1949, and received his Bachelor's Degree in English in 1953. Richie then returned to Japan as film critic for the The Japan Times and spent much of the second half of the twentieth century living there. In 1959, he published his first book, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, coauthored with Joseph Anderson. In this work, the authors gave the first English language account of Japanese film. Richie served as Curator of Film at the New York Museum of Modern Art from 1969 to 1972. In 1988, he was invited to become the first guest director at the Telluride Film Festival.
Among his most noted works on Japan are The Inland Sea, a travel classic, and Public People, Private People, a look at some of Japan's most significant and most mundane people. He has compiled two collections of essays on Japan: A Lateral View and Partial Views. A collection of his writings has been published to commemorate fifty years of writing about Japan: The Donald Richie Reader. The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 consists of extended excerpts from his diaries.
In 1991, filmmakers Lucille Carra and Brian Cotnoir produced a film version of The Inland Sea, which Richie narrated. Produced by Travelfilm Company, the film won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival (1991) and the Earthwatch Film Award. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992.
Author Tom Wolfe describes Richie as: "the Lafcadio Hearn of our time, a subtle, stylish, and deceptively lucid medium between two cultures that confuse one another: the Japanese and the American."
Richie's most widely recognized accomplishment has been his analysis of Japanese cinema. From his first published book, Richie has revised not only the library of films he discusses, but the way he analyzes them. With each subsequent book, he has focused less on film theory and more on the conditions in which the films were made. One thing that has emerged in his works is an emphasis on the "presentational" nature of Japan's cinema, in contrast to the "representational" films of the West. His book, A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film includes a helpful guide to the availability of the films on home video and DVD mentioned in the main text. In the foreword to this book, Paul Schrader says: "Whatever we in the West know about Japanese film, and how we know it, we most likely owe to Donald Richie." Richie also has written analyses of two of Japan's best known filmmakers: Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.
Richie has written the English subtitles for Akira Kurosawa's films Kagemusha (1980) and Dreams (1990)[8].
In the 21st century, Richie has become noted for his erudite audio commentaries for The Criterion Collection on DVDs of various classic Japanese films, notably those of Ozu (A Story of Floating Weeds, Early Summer), Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascend
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 14, 2007
Donald Richie is around 80 years old, yet he's hipper than any kid on the block writing about pop Japanese culture. How is that possible? Richie's writings are like a huge attena sticking out, yet he's only getting cool information. Don Richie I salute your greatness!
October 18, 2019
The Image Factory: Fads & Fashions in Japan (2003), by Donald Richie, takes a penetrating and frequently humorous look at Japan’s styles and crazes, from Tamagotchi digital pets, cosplay, manga, yamanba (mountain hag) girls, and cell phones, to pachinko, fake foreigners, the kawaii mindset, and the sex trade.
Writing about fashion, as Richie points out in the book, is to write about the past. Particularly in Japan, where styles are rapidly adopted and dropped. As such, parts of The Image Factory are naturally outdated. Richie was aware this would be the case, and so in writing the book he chose to shine light especially on how Japanese culture, its rules, and its history engender such uniquely Japanese trends and modes of expression, many of them extreme in comparison to their counterparts overseas. So we get a shrewd and witty exploration of a people and the stimuli that activate its constant creation of images to reflect its ever-changing identity, with plenty of examples of fads and fashions from the years and decades before.
Writing about fashion, as Richie points out in the book, is to write about the past. Particularly in Japan, where styles are rapidly adopted and dropped. As such, parts of The Image Factory are naturally outdated. Richie was aware this would be the case, and so in writing the book he chose to shine light especially on how Japanese culture, its rules, and its history engender such uniquely Japanese trends and modes of expression, many of them extreme in comparison to their counterparts overseas. So we get a shrewd and witty exploration of a people and the stimuli that activate its constant creation of images to reflect its ever-changing identity, with plenty of examples of fads and fashions from the years and decades before.
January 20, 2026
for a book with fashion invoked in the title this disappointed me with its tendency to abstract beyond necessity while covering the canon of trends. chapter titles like “manga culture” or “pachinko”were only identifying particular conduits for his larger sociological argument and i missed out on coverage of the trend cycles themselves, at least until the final two chapters (which were my favorites)
other than that i found this really compelling and the argument itself came about brilliantly. richie composes nonfiction with much elegance which is not always easy
other than that i found this really compelling and the argument itself came about brilliantly. richie composes nonfiction with much elegance which is not always easy
May 20, 2025
I'm not quite sure who this book is for, and I think the 22 years time difference is why. There is little wrong with the book, except his views of manga as "trash". He writes very surface level about many things, and shows great insight on other subjects. It's a bit too superficial to be an academic work, but it's not the 2003 equivalent of a two minute Instagram post either.
It's not bad, but there wasn't very much there for me because most of it is slightly old hat. The gyaru and ganguro chapter was the most interesting to me because it's such a time capsule style.
It's not bad, but there wasn't very much there for me because most of it is slightly old hat. The gyaru and ganguro chapter was the most interesting to me because it's such a time capsule style.
April 21, 2018
Interesting insight into Japanese culture, although much of the analysis is either flawed by an oldfashioned author viewpoint, or obsolete (the book dates from the early '00s, and the author is still bewildered by young people using their mobile telephones for more than telephone calls).
May 4, 2008
This is yet another one of those overly academic books that seems to be totally weirded out about the things in japan that most people who live here find mundane. I have lived in Japan for almost three years and I really like that most things don't surprise me anymore, because they make sense. This book has some great pictures (many of which were probably outdated before the book even came out), and talks about the usual- kawaii, love hotels, pachinko, para para dance, Japanese people who emulate Western fashion (which would be just about everyone in Japan)... I wouldn't mind sitting down and getting stoned to the bone with this author, and just being like, "Dude! Salarymen! Isn't that the weirdest shit ever!" but once again, Japan and Japanese culture makes sense. It makes sense more than the United States. As an American, I dare you to try to live outside of your country for a few years and take an objective look. The book was kind of great, I blazed through it. I don't want to say it was fantastic, just because I am a tad bit jaded about books like this. I did buy the damn thing and read it cover to cover, though. Obviously I am a sucker for this kind of thing! Okay, okay, I REALLY liked it. If you are interested in Japan one iota, please read it too! As a matter of fact, if you want it, please tell me, and I will give you my copy!
P.S.- Goth in Japan=ewwww!
P.S.- Goth in Japan=ewwww!
August 24, 2013
A fascinating set of essays on fads and fashions in lat 20th and early 21st century Japan, wonderfully enhanced by Richie's engagingly pompous and arch authorial voice. Reminded me quite a bit of Alexander Theroux. Do his other writings have the same tone, anybody know?
May 29, 2007
After picking this book up at Kinokuniya Books in Shinjuku, Tokyo, I would sit on the train and watch the fashion trends discussed in the book acted out in front of me. Pretty cool.
June 9, 2008
aneh, tapi keren2. terlalu eksentrik untuk ditiru tapi seru juga untuk special event T_T'
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews