Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture (review)

More so than ever, Japanese children's artifacts are of global interest. Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, edited by Takashi Murakami, is thus far the most compelling analysis of manga (Japanese comic books or serialized graphic novels), anime (Japanese animation), and kawaii ("cute" character products or goods). Little Boy, titled after the nickname of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, is also perhaps the most important survey in English of Japanese children's culture.

This book is actually an exhibition catalog published alongside the 2005 Little Boy art exhibition, which opened in New York at the Japan Society. In Superflat (2000), the first of his curatorial trilogy, Murakami, who has a Ph.D. in Japanese Nihonga painting, argued that the very flat representations of contemporary Japanese artists (from "fine art" to anime) stem from traditional Japanese painting techniques that are both two dimensional and unconcerned with the boundaries between high and low art. Murakami's main argument in his second installation, Coloriage (2002), is that contemporary Japanese expression comes "not from Western-style 'art,' but from what the West calls 'subculture.' . . . Japan . . . [is] a country where no distance exists between mainstream culture and subculture" (156). In Little Boy, the third and final installation, Murakami holds that uniquely Japanese children's and youth culture emerged from military aggression and Japan's defeat in the Pacific War (1932–45); atomic devastation; Japan's military and political dependence on the United States; and the replacement of a traditional, hierarchical Japanese culture with a disposable consumer culture. For over sixty years, "Japan has been a testing ground for an American-style capitalist economy, protected in a greenhouse, nurtured and bloated to the point of explosion. The results are so bizarre, they're perfect. . . . [W]e Japanese are truly, deeply, pampered children" (141). According to Murakami and the other essayists, the ephemera created for children, as well as artists' representations of childhood, point to U.S. militarism and the infantalization of Japan.

Little Boy received a lot of attention from art journals and the mainstream press primarily because Murakami is an artistic and commercial superstar. His fine art repeatedly sells for record-breaking, multimillion dollar prices; however, he also distributes free toys and regularly collaborates with fashion designers including Issey Miyake, Marc Jacobs, and Louis Vuitton. As Murakami becomes ever more a kind of pop icon, his constant concern for and critique of Japan becomes increasingly more nuanced.

The coffee-table book–sized, 312–page catalog is written in both Japanese and English. It includes 500 color illustrations and is divided into two sections. The first 100 pages consist of gorgeous full-color reproductions of stills from popular Japanese children's books, manga, television shows, and films (Time Bokan, Godzilla, Doraemon, Ultraman/Ultraseven, Space Battleship Yamato, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira), as well as the artists responsible for these shows and films (Tohl Narita, Daicon IV, Shoji Otomo, Toho Tokusatsu Film Studio, Shigeru Komatsuzaki). Also featured are Japanese toys, characters, and famous toy collectors, like Hello Kitty, Yuru Chara Yurui characters, and Mobile Suit Gundum. "Kitahara Collection" is an interesting inclusion, as the collector can also be considered a children's culture scholar: "Kitahara's toys, once considered useless junk, have become invaluable 'vintage' goods. The collector himself has been instrumental in the rediscovery of antique Japanese toys: not only has he published a number of books on the subject, but he has appeared on TV and given dozens of lectures" (33). Murakami himself fits into the final "category," that of the contemporary Japanese artist employing the signs of children's culture but not necessarily for a child audience. Murakami includes other artists who are also employing these signs: Taro Okamoto, MR., Chiho Aoshima, Izumi Kato, Chinatsu Ban, Ohshima Yuki, Yoshitomo Nara, Hideaki Kawashima, Kenji Yanobe, Aya Takano, Mahomi Kunikata, and Noboru Tsubaki. These "signs" include depictions of children, representations inspired by childhood, and forms resembling...