Commitment to 3.11: Response to Disaster through Culture and Creativity in Japan

The history of Japan teaches us that artistic and cultural production (as well as consumption) was a very important tool for metabolizing the traumatic effects of catastrophic events into forms of renewed individual and collective expression. So notes Italian researcher Guido Ferilli in the preface of his book investigating such metabolism in contemporary Japanese culture following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami disaster that forever changed the nation it struck. Drawing upon connections between representation of destruction and rebirth in Japanese pop culture, including animation, comics, and video games, Ferilli's research goes beyond mere observation and included in this book are twenty-four in-depth interviews with a variety of artists, directors, musicians, and other people lined to the cultural and creative sectors of Japan. The images and text of this book are, like those interviewed within, "united by the desire to reflect on the events and the changes in society with their creativity through art". This book is essential reading for those interested in the current creative climate of Japan and how it's used art and creativity to rebound from the greatest post war disaster.