bThe untold story of how Japan became a cultural superpower through the fantastic inventions that captured--and transformed--the world's imagination.b pbA masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling.--W. David Marx, author of iAmetora How Japan Saved American Styleib pThe Walkman. Karaoke. Pikachu. Pac-Man. iAkirai. Emoji. We've all fallen in love with one or another of Japan's pop-culture creations, from the techy to the wild to the super-ikawaiii. But as Japanese media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation of Tokyo's pop-fantasy complex, we don't know the half of it. Japan's toys, gadgets, and imaginary worlds didn't merely entertain. They profoundly transformed the way we live. p In the 1970s and '80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, gliding on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota while the West struggled to catch up. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the lost decades of deep recession and so