The Image Factory

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, and yamanba (mountain hag) girls, to cell phones, 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 discarded. As such, parts of The Image Factory are naturally outdated.

Richie was well aware of this, and so he chose to focus on how Japanese culture, its rules, and its history give rise to such distinct trends and modes of expression, many of them more extreme than their counterparts overseas. What we get is a shrewd and often witty exploration of a society and the forces that drive its constant creation of images to reflect an ever-shifting identity, along with plenty of examples of fads and fashions from earlier decades.

Cosplay

Rockabilly

Geisha

Yamanba (Mountain Hag) Girls

Ganguro Girl