Modern Man and Mammaries
Modern theories on breast fixation center on the idea of resource competition and biology. Scientists see the presence of large-breasted statues and cave drawings from the earliest period of human history as evidence for men’s focus on the female chest. Researchers see these artifacts across cultures (Chivers, 2012). It’s thought large breasts developed to keep men interested in women with children. They are a form of competition to attract men with resources. Basically, they work similar to how a male bird has colorful feathers. Breasts also mimic the shape of the backside which is a turn on for other apes (Miller, 2006). Larry Young, a professor of psychiatry at Emory University, suggests men like breasts because stimulating a woman’s nipples releases oxytocin, the neurochemical responsible for strengthening affection. The chemical helps bond a lady to the man (Wolchover, 2012).
Sounds like science has the reason sewn up, doesn’t it? Not so fast. While these explanations are accepted, some argue against breast attraction as a natural part of male sexuality. These arguments offer convincing evidence that men learn to be attracted to breasts.
Men Aren’t Naturally Attracted to Breasts?
What about breasts looking like a woman’s backside? This is a cultural projection of the West. Breasts don’t look like a lady’s backside without being squished together by bras and corsets. Both of which are Western inventions.
In Japanese culture, you also find a distinct lack of interest in the chest until the modern era. If you look at Japanese woodblock prints from the Edo period, not a lot of attention is lavished on the breast. Artists rendered other body parts in loving detail, but they largely ignored breasts. Yoshihiko Shirakawa, an expert on woodblock prints states (Kozuka, 2013):
“It appears that men of the Edo period considered breast to be a tool for child rearing. They were not a sexualized part of the body. In shunga from the early Edo Period, men and women were depicted with largely similar chests. From the point of view of the artists, breasts really didn’t seem to matter.”
Shunga are pornographic woodblock prints. Typically, shunga shows small breasts when they show up at all. When breasts appear, they appear in scenes where a woman breastfeeds an infant. Only a few artists fixated on sexual scenes involve breast stimulation. Such behavior doesn’t appear across shunga.
Back here in the West, the erotic breast appears in a brief period during the 15th and 16th centuries. The French painter Jean Fouquet paints one of the first erotic breasts in Western art. He painted Agnes, the mistress of Charles the VII with a bare breast specifically designed to suggest her eroticism. During the 16th century, prostitutes would stand on the streets bare-chested as a form of advertisement (Domshy, 2003). However, in the United States, the breast didn’t become erotic until the 1940s. Miller (2006) argues that the science of breasts is a projection of this late cultural fixation and the boom in breasts as a form of advertisement. The arguments seek to validate what is an aberration or vested interest. In 1982, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons went as far as labeling small boobs as a disease. Because scientists live and grew up in a culture that fixates on breasts as a symbol for sex, they struggle to view breasts in any other way.
Anime and Breasts
All of that brings us back to anime and its breast fetish. Anime came out of the complex interchange of American culture and Japanese culture after World War II, the same time breast fixation developed in the United States (Miller, 2006). The United States had a large influence on Japanese culture. For example, the United States is responsible for the panty fetish we see in anime. It stands to reason that the US also influenced how Japan views female chests. On the opposite side of the coin, anime targets the West. In order to make more money, studios need to make stories that have the widest appeal. This explains why you often see Japanese humor–falling flat, puns, and other jokes that are strange for Westerners–combined with breast hijinks. Both the US and Japan share the same fetish, so it’s common ground for marketing stories.
Culture becomes a self-perpetuating loop. That loops can make us think something is natural. Think about Chinese foot-binding. That was a practice in ancient China that forced women to have abnormally small feet by binding them so they couldn’t grow. It caused pain and even prevented women from being able to walk. But Chinese men at the time thought it was erotic. These small, 4-inch feet, hidden in elaborately embroidered shoes, became the focus of erotic fantasies. It shows nearly anything that is hidden can gain sexual attraction. Eroticism in humans starts in our large brains. It isn’t as hardwired as some people believe. In Japanese culture, the nape of a lady’s neck excites men. For most of us here in the West, the nape of the neck is about as sexy as a wrist — which was also sexy in feudal Japan I might add. During the Roman Empire, women considered the sweat of gladiators sexy.
This article doesn’t seek to validate objectification of women. Rather, I attempt to sketch some of the reasons why we have a cultural breast fetish. Culture directs the biological drive for sex. In this article, I focused on male sexuality, but culture shapes women’s ideas of eroticism as well. While genetics creates the foundation for attraction, culture determines how that attraction forms. But in all cases, culture fixates on individual body parts. Which body part depends on culture and time period. Anime focuses on breasts because it is a product of American and Japanese culture. The breast fixation in otaku culture will disappear once culture shifts to the next erotic body part. Perhaps elbows will be the next big fetish.
References
Chivers, T (2012) Is it really ‘the West’ that’s breast-obsessed? Or just men? Telegraph. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100129578/is-it-really-the-west-thats-breast-obsessed-or-just-men/
Domshy, H. (2003) (Re) Imaging the Breast: An Analysis of a Cultural Obsession. Fellowship. 34 (3).
Kozuka, J. (2013) How Times Change: Japanese Men in Edo Period Not Interested in Breasts. RocketNews24. http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/04/18/how-times-change-japanese-men-in-edo-period-not-interested-in-breasts-nsfw/
Miller, L. (2006) Beauty Up: Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics. University of California Press.
Wolchover, N (2012) New Theory on Why Men Love Breasts. Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/23500-why-men-love-breasts.html
I did not expect to randomly find a well thought out post, but one that fucking used references and used several points of analysis.
What the fuck and good job friend.
Thanks! I’m pleased my obsession with references and solid information surprised you :).
If thats all that made them seem attractive, I wonder why those believing breasts were ever required to be covered more to begin with. They’ll say ankles and hair made them as sexually attractive to men where they’d been covered as often. So do they think there are any parts uniquely shaped on males that women have to be conditioned to think sexy too, or just that people had to be deluded to think something unique to women looks sexy? That doesn’t seem fair. There was a study that found that only 13 cultures of 191 thought breasts were attractive. I don’t think breast size matters, but it is a difference on women I enjoy thinking sexually attractive about them and would hate to think that there’s less differences that are natural to be attracted to. That seems boring to me and conlficts me the more I believe it. I mostly think breasts attraction is natural because there have been cultures where breasts were seen as often as chests and still thought attractive. This is true of most European countries now. Song of Songs 7:7-8 Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. 8 I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree, I will grasp its fruit stalks.’ Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the fragrance of your breath like apples. Ezekiel 23:21 So you longed for the outrageous sin of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your breasts because of the breasts of your youth.
A Reddit user named Pallidium said this (Some of the text is quotes of who he’s responding too): Female breasts weren’t considered sexual throughout western culture until pretty recently.
This is baseless and not supported by historical evidence. Ovid’s love poems (https://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineaslovepoems.php) are a good source to go back to for human sexuality in ancient Rome (i.e. part of the foundations of Western culture).
As examples:
In *The Dinner Party* in Book I of *Amores*, the poem reads:
>…Don’t let him drape his arms around your neck,
>or lay your gentle head on his firm chest,
>or your breasts or convenient nipples accept his fingers.
>Don’t, above all, be willing to yield a single kiss!…
In *Corinna in an Afternoon* in Book I of *Amores*, the poem reads:
>…Breasts formed as if they were made for pressing!
>How flat the belly beneath the slender waist!
>What flanks, what form! What young thighs!…
In *The Ring* in Book II of *Amores*, the poem reads (the sexuality of this one is probably most clear of all of them):
>…Then, when I wanted to touch my girl’s breasts
>and slip my left hand into her tunic,
>I’d glide from her finger, however tight and clinging,
>and with wonderful art fall into the loose folds…
edit: added a source pdf for all Ovid’s loved poems
Another reddit user: I can’t really speak to the whole world, but with my experience studying Greece and Rome, they absolutely viewed breasts as sexual (https://www.jstor.org/stable/26308160#metadata_info_tab_contents). Greek erotic poetry went into great detail on how they looked: the size, color, firmness, etc.
When Rufinus was describing the ideal female body, the breasts were those of Aphrodite (while the head, eyes, etc. were attributed to less attractive goddesses). This likely signifies a belief (at least in his case) that it was the most beautiful part of a woman.
There’s also the old legend about the Trojan war that Menelaus was hunting down Helen to kill her for infidelity until she exposed her breasts, causing him to throw aside his sword and take her back as his wife. For unknown reasons, she’s known as “the face that launched a thousand ships” rather than “the breasts that dropped a single sword”. That seems like relatively strong cultural evidence that attraction to breasts was seen as normal.
Since that only covers the male gaze, there’s also a line from one of Sappho’s poems:
>Where it is allowed to make this thing stand up erect, to grab the breast and touch with both hands
So we can conclude that attraction to breasts was not just limited to men.
Finally, in Roman times, in the *Ars Amatoria* (a handbook for both men and women on how to court and have sex with each other), Ovid lists off a number of unattractive traits and ways to fix them. One of these is “Is your trouble a flat bust? Wear a good bra*.” Given that this was a widely popular book intended to capture the popular beauty views of the day, we can conclude that larger breasts were linked to being more attractive. Ovid goes on to discuss various sexual positions based on the most attractive part of the body:
>She who has youthful thighs, and faultless breasts, the man might stand, she spread, with her body downwards.
*Ars Amatoria* also describes how Paris “was taken to her [Helen’s] warm breast” in order to show how they committed adultery, connecting it once again to sex.
There’s also just the fact that almost any erotic artwork in Greece or Rome which involved a woman displayed her breasts prominently. Some examples include
* Erotic pinax, cubiculum D, Villa della Farnesina, Rome
* Erotic scene, cubiculum x’, House of the Vettii, Pompeii (this one directly depicts a man groping a woman’s breast during sex)
* Satyr and Maenad, House of Caecilius Jucundus, Pompei (no sex occurs, only the satyr groping a naked breast)
\This is the Peter Green translation, which takes some minor liberties. Romans didn’t have what we’d consider a bra, but they had similar breast altering clothing, so he just translated it as the most recognizable word.)
Thank you for pointing this out. In the Roman period, prostitutes would walk the streets bare-chested to advertise their availability. Do you think this association of sexual availability with breast exposure in Roman society contributed to this association? It reminds me of an account Jared Diamond wrote in one of his books. He accounts of a hunter-gatherer society where teen girls started wearing a grass skirt that only brides would wear on their wedding days. The rest of the time, they were, for all purposes, nude. The grass skirt tantalized the young men because of its association with sexual availability and marriage. Perhaps there’s a similar link with breasts in Western society and, now, modern Japanese society?
I would say the fascination with sexual display is more of a inexperienced youth orientation and that the main market, except for wild cards like myself still watching anime at 67, is such youth. Most are single and do not have sex regularly, so it is more mystical for them. Most will tire of it eventually, but until then, we should expect it will continue to be somewhat prominent to one degree or another.
For me, I take it in stride as an expected element, but there is a limit to my acceptance and when it becomes highly obtrusive, I just cross a particular series off my list. As in most things where there is some production and marketing it is the CONSUMER who is ultimately responsible, because we control what we accept, and we can always choose to move on and watch something else. In essence we must have standards and stick to them.
I take a similar approach. I’ve stopped watching many series just because of the breast fixation or lolita fixation. I may drop “Akebi’s Sailor Uniform” despite the beautiful (at times) animation and backgrounds because it is uncomfortably focused on the middle-school girls’ feet. While the well-done foot animations can be expressive of their differing personalities, there’s far too many scenes that make their feet a centerpiece. It’s off-putting and smacks of voyeuristic pedophilia sometimes.
the Asians, especially the Japanese revere the “white” Americans, period! and are in some ways the 2 are brethren counterparts … because of this, the Japanese emulate American culture, to a degree… Japanese men have a infatuation with Caucasian Americans, especially the blue-eyed blonde females —- like the gods of old, supposedly where very white skinned many with blue eyes and blonde hair, but not all …
here’s what all of you’ve missed, the anime characters also have overly exaggerated large round eyes, something completely opposite of natural Asian facial features ..
reason being, like I’ve already mentioned, they think it’s more physically appealing .. white skinned god are the reason why the geisha girls paint their skin even whiter than there already natural ” white ” skin.. does it make sense now ?
because they are covered, breast that is, makes them more mysterious, insightful! . but there is even a deeper part, element to all this, most of which you would not understand. ..
Ironically, many Americans (especially during the West’s Japanismo era) revere Asian women for similar traits: their straight, blue-black hair, mysterious eyes, and petite physiques (relative to Western body shapes). People have a tendency to fear or to become infatuated with the different.
I will comment: geisha painted their faces white so they would be more visible in the low-light teahouses of pre-electric time periods. This happened long before Westerners had visited Japan. The practice dates to at least the Heian period. Please see: Geisha by Liza Dalby and Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World by Lesley Downer for more information.
You seem to have a white supremacist/nazi mentality. What about the west’s obsession with tanning and darker skin? In some cultures, dark eyes were seen as beautiful, as well as dark hair. Not everyone follows eurocentric beauty standards.
White Europeans aren’t the only ones with “large” eyes and I would argue aren’t even known for it! The Arabs and some other people are known for larger eyes. Many black and South Asian people have large eyes too.
What about thin tiny lips? That is more of a white feature, yet there is a crazy trend of lip injections in the west. And what about white men and their interest in East Asian girls? To the point that they go and exploit/abuse them in some developing countries? (Sex tourism).
Absolutely correct and then some.
Pretty much white washing. There are a lot of controversal issue with anime inspite being an otaku.
The fixation on breast is more than superficial. Its ist fat and technically men have the exact same thing- given hormones some can actually lack tacked. Oversexed generation.
I am tired of the same projected image of anime where the image clearly is marketing not only towards men, the majority but race as well.
Anime sports enough racial misconceptions and stereotypes.
I don’t thank Japanese people are certainly not rascist- ignorant a d brainwashed by media and their caucasian friends but as for the otaku world I questioned it for the characters are NOT PROJECTED EVEN 2 percent of Asian people ( except clothes and culture) but it’s a fetish fantasy of whites.
Why the projection from authors men and women, their ideas in the conceptual art reveals.
The other obvious problem why are they always child characters? Middle school high school. A man’s point of view dissects their immoral mental state. Its disturbing and I’ve run into several videos of authors who were exposed and arrested in relations to pedo acts.
NOT IMPRESSIVED or surprised. Anime needs a lot of laws to regulate its content seriously because it wouldn’t touch the book shelves if it was over here lma. ( in a book store I over listen to women complaining about it. I dont blame them)
I’ve often wondered how the increasing economic power of Japanese women and the declining economic power of Japanese men will shift manga and anime. In the end, manga and anime are businesses that will chase profit. So far, large breasts, high-school stories, and middle-school stories have driven profit margins. If Japanese women’s increasing economic power becomes the main source for profit, we might see these trends decrease.
This was a great explanation. It’s disappointing that so many animes are filled with overbearing and often unnecessary fanservice, even animes with good plot and characters fall prey to this fetish. It’s especially frustrating when a good story is just interrupted by the mandatory boob or panty flash. With the amount of fanservice that’s added to anime every year, I can’t believe there might really be that many people who enjoy this in basically every show they watch. On a lighter note, I’ve read a few articles on here and I highly enjoy this blog!
The way fan-service disrupts the story and demeans characters is the worst aspect. I’m glad you are enjoying JP. I post a new article on Sunday every week.
In the first place, the Japs degraded cartoon(lol) is designed for misogynistic and sexist males, and there is no room for improvement.
The “good plot and characters” as cherumi calls them are just a stage set to stimulate the sexual desires of such males.
Nowadays, the Japs anime is a horrible product of pornography with no direct sexual expression and snuff films.
Rather than looking at the geriatric nation that is forever doing the lost 30 years, it would be better to look at the better and more socially conscious western cartoons, Bande dessinée and Korean productions.
@WOW,ち
thats kinda racist and shows you stay within a very specific type of genre and complain about it…
there are a ton of anime that don’t focus on women that way (attack on titan, any sports anime ever, some seinen based anime, mob psycho 100, a silent voice, all shojou, etc.)
I wouldn’t say every anime is simply made to act as pornography, though it is quite difficult to find an anime that features little to no fanservice, or at least keeps fanservice to a minimum. It’s a shame that many people would rather substitute a good story for constant sexualization of the female characters.
Korean productions such as kdramas have really improved in the last decade (I have been a fan since I was a kid) and I would love to see their animation industry grow as well and one day reach the level of the Japanese animation industry in terms of popularity.
Not even just fanservice, it’s sexism. How often are male characters sexualised in this way?
No one has ever given a non-sexual reason for why enlarged breasts to that point would exist in the first place, though. (That is, a reason besides sexual selection.) Faking/hiding signs of pregnancy/childbearing only accounts for a small fraction of the size, and I have never heard a non-sexual explanation for the rest of the size.
The only two things I can think of are ease of breastfeeding, and the lower steadiness somehow requiring the baby to use their jaw and tongue muscles more, increasing their odds of adopting good body/tongue posture. The first one seems unlikely it would have that much of an effect, while the second one seems unlikely because if it had such a significant impact, there would not be any significant quantity of women with smaller breasts.
The amount of women with larger breasts than necessary to hide signs of pregnancy/childbearing means there has to be a good reason. If that reason is not sexual, or an honest indicator of health/youth, (meaning it is sexual anyway) then what is it? Most people with the argument that the attraction is not innate just seem to graze over this question, and never even consider it.
It could also be due to the fact the breasts are in that waist/hip/chest area that is so important for attractiveness, (Both an hourglass figure and a narrow waist relate to that area, and it is the most sexually dimorphic) combined with the fact only women have them, just makes it much more likely for them to be sexually attractive, which would also explain how they would be sexually selected for. Which is probably the same way a peacock got its tail, making the comparison accurate. The difference being there are practical and aesthetic limitations on how big breasts can get.
I also suspect nutrition and hormones play a role. We have an overabundance of easy calories and estrogen in the environment. Plastics often have estrogen-mimicking properties. Combined, these could increase breast growth in women and hurt male development. This could be why “man boobs” are more common.
I just thought of this more, and have elaborated on the theory at the end.
I believe that, essentially, the chest area is an attractive area anyway, and breasts simply draw attention to that area in a similar way to how pubic hair and a mons veneris are attractive because they draw attention to other areas.
The urge to touch/suck comes because modern culture, (Also, kissing/sucking and touching many of the more sexual areas is common in general.) especially american culture, assumes touch is sexual most of the time, and thus get sensitized to touch when touching others naturally gives feel-good hormones as one of the many ways we have evolved to promote empathy, cooperation, and being around others. (Not sexual hormones, just bonding and general feel good hormones.) This is even worse to men, as men touching women is assumed to be sexual, and men touching other men is assumed to be homosexual, leading to even more sensitization to touch, and a very large lack of touch of the opposite sex leads to it being sexualized more than it would be. This, combined with the sexuality of the area, and the fascination of something only women have that highlights the already attractive area.
That’s a good observation and idea. You make good points about how touch, at least for American culture, is associated with sexuality. At least with men-men, men-women interactions. There might also be something more primal at work. After all, breasts were the only natural food source for infants. That attraction may well linger deep in our brains.
Considering you used a bird example, in nature, there are male animals that are “prettier” to attract the female animal. Why are you only focusing on women?
As for “hourglass” figure, it seems to be become a trend in the west more recently. I don’t remember men complaining about the skinny/small butt girls in the music/movies when that was the trend. And in places like Japan, big breasts seem to be more attractive to men than butts.
So it’s more about trends and culture than “evo biology” it seems. Although, women being attracted to men and men being attracted to women is obviously natural.
What’s your opinion on big d preferences and height in men though?
The changing trends also appear related to what society deems healthy and wealthy at that time. Rubenesque women and men with paunches were sexy for many cultures and periods when calories were scarce. Health and wealth signaling remains constant even if those signals differ.
Originally, the culture of “breasts are sexual” didn’t exist among the Japs themselves, like the tropical naked people.
After the 19th century, the 19th century, when the 19th century expelled the expulsion of the expelled foreigners, they thought it was unbecoming to expose their breasts to the Westerners, who believed that breasts were sexual, and repressed them.
After the war, there was still an edge to this, and although women divers did show their breasts during breastfeeding and other activities, it was socially accepted as not being sexual.
After the war, the culture of “big tits are sexual” was not clearly expressed until the 60’s when the popular term “boing” was created, and
In the old days, they were a fetishistic people who were like Muslims rutting on their green-black hair and then rutting on the nape of their neck.Others seem to have rutted on their feet and other parts of their body.
In other words, the Japs are an extremely empty race, where even their sexuality was changed by a complex of white people.
There is No other race is as empty and pathetic as this one.
I disagree in the assessment that the Japanese are an empty people. It’s natural for cultures to influence each other. Rome, for example, adapted many aspects of their neighbors. Also: referencing the Japanese as “Jap” is considered offensive.
Nothing more should have to be said. It’s sad that games/anime have to focus around making the females have large tits in order to grab the gamer/readers attention. If they just focused on making the actual anime/game good instead of a bra size, everything would be so much better. I see a lot of girls watch anime and never do I see huge male junk or am able to make it bigger in games. But why with tits? Idk this shit ruins everything for me.
It is exhausting, but the audience is to blame, at least in part. If such content didn’t sell, it wouldn’t be made. I suspect that is why male sliders in video games aren’t really a thing.
Thank you !!’ I’m tired of not seeing men with no JUNK IN THEIR TRUNK( GROIN AREA) make that happen .. maybe we need female Anime writers and artists to start a new Anime character body print of the above mentioned ?? I’m here for it !! These humongous breasts are out of control .. with no ass nor hips to match.. make it stop!!
I’m uncertain if that would happen. Genitals are censored by Japanese decency laws. Breasts are not. But the market will go where the money is. So if demands for, ehem, larger male characters increases, anime will go there.
I still don’t get it. American hollywood films have a lot of breasts too. Western animation has breasts. None of them have such surreal and omnipresent breasts like anime does.
Also anime has women with giant breasts paraded around in shots and contexts where the message is not intended to be primarily sexual.
It just feels both overly present while simultaneously timid in this bizarre disaffecting way that I do not encounter in other media.
Much of the contrast seems to come from the fact anime is drawn. You can do anything you want in a drawn medium, including exaggerations of any body part or body type. And let’s be frank, a good bit of the audience are straight males, so such exaggerations and omnipresence sell anime. Add this to the extremes Internet culture encourages, and the breast proliferation makes sense. It creates a feedback loop of ever increasing cup sizes, and ever younger-looking small-breasted characters on the opposite end of the spectrum. Frankly, I find the extremes of both designs troubling.
I mean i knew there was a big science to Bewbs and fan-service alike.
Really, it really gets me when a American messes with a japanese person but then some get mad at the American (not saying I support this) but do they know that japan got influenced by America? So you would continue to think that its on Japan. OR maybe not. The history is useful tho. and i’m bound to see the ‘panty inspiration’ news as well XD
I cleared up your comment a little for readers.
History helps people understand where an idea or habit originated, and this helps people empathize better or curb the behavior. Cultures constantly influence each other. Anime and kawaii are known throughout the world, for example.
Hi Chris, from your article I understand the American influence on anime and huge tits but isnt depicting every female character (well, almost every) bestowed with huge breasts a sort of an overkill and monotony? Have you come across anyone with a similar complaint? :p
I have that complaint :D. Fan service of all stripes is a problem in anime, and the commonality of large breasts is a part of that issue. You are right. It is monotonous to see so many large-chested ladies. Of course, anime uses breast size as a kind of short-hand for characterization. Some of the monotony is a result of character stereotypes.
Well you certainly don’t hold back now do you? What got you interested in doing this type of research. I think it’s quite amazing, I’ve done a lot of research in human sexuality and mate selection. A lot of poses questions towards todays ‘cuckolding’ fetish. But more so towards why women do what they do etc to be able to attract an ‘alpha male’ and make a ‘beta’ take care of the children. Anyway, fascinating stuff!
I’m glad you enjoyed the article. I’m interested in stories, and human sexuality is a story. Sometimes we hold onto stories that may not describe reality. Those stories change our perception of reality to the point where we can’t see it any longer.
Are you majoring in anything particular or you just freelancing it in the real world? I personally am not currently working towards anything at the moment at least in a college sense. Although, I’m quite fascinated by the stories of Japan… Just learned a bunch about the yokai the other day and how those stories came about… Really neat stuff actually, perhaps you’d like it. I learned about it on a Begin Japanology video, but they really jumped into the history books and showed quite a bit about how people were thinking about the unexplained back in those day, and how they started to use illustrations to de-mysified the control of the yokai… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLanOF50yCI –
I hold a Masters degree in Library and Information Science (My undergrad degrees are in different branches of computer science), and research was my specialty. I write books about Japanese folklore on the side. I work as an Assistant Director at a public library. College isn’t for everyone, and people can often educate themselves better than college can.
Thanks for the link! I’m always hunting for more reference sources for my writing.
Right on! Yeah I was pretty sure you had something surrounding that area of study. You’ve got a lot of great articles of research here.
I’ve been a researcher in many fields for awhile, I’ve made tons of websites since I was in my mid-teens. My latest research is now Japan (has been for 15 years now… but whose counting :P). Being my wife and I will be heading to Fukuoka next year, I always like learning as much as possible about the culture, traditions etc before I go anywhere new, or think about going somewhere new or even meeting new people from around the world.
It will also be for when were over there and when I learn new things first hand! Seems to help me retain the information when I can regurgitate it in written form.
All the best, keep up the great content, I really enjoy it, quite refreshing actually.
-Nathan