Cultural Change and Gender Identity Trends in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract  As in most capitalist countries, the advent of the "consumer society" has brought about radical cultural change in Japanese society. In this paper I aim to illustrate the undercurrents of this change, focusing on the transformation of social consciousness and gender identity as it is reflected in the popular and youth cultures. In order to show these changes, I have sellected several bestsellers from youth fictions ( sekhun-shousetsu ) as my main object of study and have presented several diagrams to illustrate the apparent relationship between this type of fictions and the so-called "aprgs-guerre" generation, the "gang of sun," the "baby-boomers," the "moratorium generation," the "mutant generation." While analyzing the historical trend of youth fiction for the last 45 years and refering to the other types of popular culture (films, popular songs, comics etc.), I shall attempt to throw light upon the substance of these changes and predict what directions the Japanese culture is likely to take in the future.