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It's to the best of our knowledge from PRI.

I'm Anne Strange Champs.

Pop culture thrives on fads and trends, from skateboards to sneakers, and then there's Japanese

cool.

That's what's interesting today is to look at what comes out of Japan, and conversely, if you're in Japan, to look at what comes out of America

because there's almost a mirror imaging or reflection going back and forth.

Godzilla started off in the 1950s as a very dark character,

a symbol of death, a metaphor for the Cold War and

nuclear holocaust.

Johnny Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I than the song.

Sometimes it seems like we just can't get enough of Japanese pop culture.

American kids grow up playing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-O and wearing Hello Kitty underpants. As adults, we line up for the latest

anime movies and hang out in karaoke bars. In other words, Japanese pop culture is serious business.

So serious that Japan's prime minister recently appointed a Cool Japan Minister to oversee a multi-million

dollar Cool Japan campaign. The goal is to make

Japan one of the leading cultural forces in the world, but didn't that already happen? I mean, look

around. Our houses are already full of Pokemon cards and manga comics. We grew up with Japanese

pop culture. We love it. Anthropologist Anne Allison explains.

Some people call it soft power. There was an American reporter who called this Japan's GNC

gross national cool. And the word, kind of laughable, and he didn't mean it to be any more

...