Just as a person contrives a style, the purpose of which is integration and the effect of which is presentation, so a nation collectively projects an appearance, a "national" style. Such styles are made of many layers. The deepest layer is composed of the immutable and the traditional. Nearer the surface floats fashion, changeable but sometimes more abiding. And frothing on the surface is fad.

By definition a fad is novel and appears from outside. Fads must have instant appeal and do not have a long shelf life. In Japan, an assortment of islands, the outside is often the quality that defines the inside.

Japan has a history of chasing fads and fashion. Since the 19th century, foreign products have been welcomed in, from the cult for "squeaky shoes" in the mid-19th century to the current fad for virtual reality girlfriends. Japan’s mandate was that, having been opened late, it had to hurry to catch up. Fads provide both a social distraction and a sense of cohesion, indicating not only foreign importation but also native adaptation.

The Image Factory is both an investigation into fads, fashions and style – such as US Army surplus uniforms, "pachinko", mutating hair colors – and an appreciation of their inherent meanings. The Japanese have seized upon fads and fashion as an arm of enterprise to a much greater extent than elsewhere in the world. Ephemerality has been put to work, the transient has become industrialized, and the results are highly conspicuous.

Rashomon is one of the greatest of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's films, the winner of the 1951 Venice Festival prize and the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1952. It features Toshiru Mifune, the best-known Japanese actor in the West, as the bandit, an accused rapist and murderer. At the beginning of the film, a woodcutter, priest, and commoner happen to meet at the ruined gate--Rashomon--outside the city of Kyoto. This tale of rape and murder is first seen through the eyes of the woodcutter and the priest, both of whom have been touched by the events. The cynical, detached commoner, "everyman," listens to and comments upon their stories. 

The central section of the film, a series of flashbacks and tales within tales, consists of the same events retold by the husband (speaking through a medium, from the grave), the wife, the bandit, and the woodcutter. Each tells what happened--or possibly, what should have happened. The film deals with multiple truths; Richie summarizes the director's point of view in the introduction: "the world is illusion, you yourself make reality, but this reality undoes you if you submit to being limited by what you have made."

The sixth title in the Rutgers Film in Print Series and the first Japanese film, this volume brings together for the first time the full continuity script of Rashomon; an introductory essay by Donald Richie; the Akutagawa stories upon which the film is based; critical reviews and commentaries on the film; a filmography; and a bibliography. 

Donald Richie takes the reader on a revealing tour of the different districts of Japan's capital city. Starting from the original centre of Tokyo – the Imperial Palace – Richie branches outwards, taking in other areas such as Yoshiwara, the original red-light district, and Ginza, the world-famous shipping street. The author has kept a diary for the entire time he has lived in Tokyo, and excerpts from it provide on-the-spot insights into the significance of fashions and fads in Japanese culture (for example the recent Tamagochi craze), as well as the various aspects of life in a small neighborhood. Richie gives a real sense of how Japanese society has changed since the Second World War, yet remained rooted in its past.

With the eclectic eye and ear of a film-maker, Richie describes the flavor and idiosyncrasies of this chaotic, teeming city. Tokyo is illustrated with 30 intriguing photographs by Seattle-based photographer, Joel Sackett.