Nice piece from the Economist’s Prospero blog on artists in Japan thematically linking to fears and memories of nuclear holocaust.

Always interesting to see how artists in Japan work to take on the system while still maintaining a very Japanese conformity with wider norms – grafitti art on sticky-tape for example.

When I lived in Japan, I was always fascinated by how dissent and counter-culture behaviour dives underground and where it pops up. In adult cartoon books or manga for instance, or in masochistic porn, all of which can be incredibly graphic and confronting for Westerners, yet which appears pretty freely everywhere, lascivious covers on and all on full display.

Not only is it available, it appears to be encouraged as an appropriate outlet for counter-cultural currents.