Japanese Science Fiction with William O. Gardner

Thanks for joining us this week, How Do You Like it So Far? Crew! This week, Colin and Henry welcome William O. Gardner, a Professor of Japanese at Swarthmore College whose work has looked at the response of Japanese popular culture to real world disasters such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Garder, who is releasing a new book called The Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City in Postwar Japanese Architecture and Science Fiction, puts together architecture and science fiction. He dives deep into the origins of architects in post-WWII Japan called The Metabolists. Many of the environments they made are somewhat relatable to how we are living right now. He also discusses how the visions of our “new normal” of deserted streets and people wearing masks is the embodiment of the tropes of apocalyptic speculative fiction. Listen in as Gardner dives deep into how some Japanese Anime, Manga and book authors created scarily prescient visions of the future. He also gives us some recommendations on what he’s reading right now! Check out the notes section for those. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at [email protected]. Music: “In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X. In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet  https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––