Look, we can do the reductio even further. We can claim that the so called political, economic and geopolitical realities of which you speak are made up by humans to defray the painful biological realities of our existence as Homo sapiens. Are you trying to claim that Humans, Bonobos and Goldfish share the same realities? My genetics Professor taught me that culture is a uniquely human property. This is not a chicken and egg scenario. Culture isnt just made up because we are playing games – or make believe, or trying to mask this, that or the other: But I am getting into an entirely different ball game and I am not going to have a sociobiology argument on NeoJ.

Also, I haven’t heard “pillows” and “humping” mentioned together since grammar school. Very nice.

When talking about anime’s appeal towards otaku’s materialism impulses, keep in mind the perpetual merchandising blitz many of the big titles are produced under. Many of these shows are based off comics that ran in weekly or monthly anthologies themselves packed with toy, videotape, models, whatever advertising. Shin Mazinger, a TV show that premiered early this year, is a remake of a famous robot cartoon from the 70s and whose ad breaks feature advertisements for “toys” clearly marketed at the 30-something males who watched the original show and are watching this remake. What came first, the merchandising blitz or the demand for useless pieces of plastic, I have no idea (the entire point of this discussion in brief, isn’t it? Oh well).

Gundam is produced by Sunrise/Bandai, one of the most relentless of otaku merchandisers. Sunrise was widely known for being a mass producer of giant robot shows in the late 70s and throughout the 80s. They were also known for spewing out industrial levels of model kits for their properties and not hesitating to exercise their executive control to make a show more easily marketable. The stories of the most successful directors, animators and mechanical designers who started out in the Sunrise system almost always involve them endlessly battling the execs to gain a favorable compromise. Sunrise publishes entire glossy magazines for the sole purpose of selling their properties and toys (see “Gundam Ace,” still going today).

I mean the Japanese origins of punk which was in the hardcore scene in the late 1970′s right around the same time the rest of it was blossoming. I’m not going to say that it was an isolated island effort without influence from the western world, but Japanese hardcore would go on to be an influence to the famous hardcore acts the world over.

Not to take the piss out of yankee culture though. I find yankee culture to be one of the most genuinely Japanese subcultures still around today and it’s no wonder to me that many yankees end up graduating into the punk scene here.

But re: fashion punk, I think there’s a big difference at work between that and what goes on in Japan. Because I think there is a core Japanese punk scene that is truly a subculture, although I might laugh a bit at some of their more prudish interludes, a wanna-be (fashion punk) culture, and then a culture of punk that is truly in it for the fashion. I don’t think so much in the states we have the latter segment, except perhaps in the fairly extreme ends of total couture snobs who suck up Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood and the like and giggle about the punky elements.

So yes, if you talk to a poser who wants to be punk but hasn’t clued into it enough to pass the authenticity litmus, then they’re gonna be pissed you’re calling them a fashion punk. In Japan though there are whole brands that base their image on fashion punk and the legions of (mainly, yes) girls who suck the shit up would call my scene terrifying and alien. While they may all rip up their clothes and wear patches they are no longer involved in the same cultures.