13: Pacific Rim

Introduction: The Future of America

Annalee Newitz
Most of the contributors to this issue of Bad Subjects have chosen to explain Pacific Rim culture by looking at the kinds of popular fantasies Pacific Rim nations exchange with each other.

Asian Envy

Jesse Berrett
Though envy is by consensus a bad thing -- one of the Seven Deadly Sins, after all -- it's also an underappreciated forum for cultural communication and transmission.

A Pair of Blood-Spattering Essays on Hong Kong Action Movies

Steven Rubio, Jillian Sandell
Chow Yun-Fat is the coolest movie actor in the world today, and the only way I can explain this is to talk about his mouth.

Anime Otaku: Japanese Animation Fans Outside Japan

Annalee Newitz
In order to affiliate themselves with anime fan culture, American fans are calling themselves by a name the Japanese use as an insult.

Cuts Like a Knife: Zen, Ginsus, and Japanese Rock 'n Roll in America

Joel Schalit
The adoption of punk by the culture industry has made Americans look to other countries for new forms of rock'n'roll to help reconstruct a now meaningless and spent counter-cultural tradition.