With the video-game business now outgrossing Hollywood's box office, and anime being distributed to destinations as diverse as Patagonia and Phuket, the influence of Japan's entertainment industry on young people worldwide has never been as powerful.
But it doesn't stop there, because interest in "Cool Japan" now extends to the most low-tech media, too -- its homegrown style of comics known as manga.
Literally meaning "whimsical pictures," the much-used but little understood term is usually used in reference to Japanese comics characterized by a set of stylistic conventions that evolved in the postwar period. These include exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs; right-to-left panel sequencing; and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography.