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Monstrous Melodies and Island Fantasies: Mothra, The Peanuts, and Japan's Cold War Cultures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Michael Bourdaghs
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Abstract

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This article explores popular music of Japan's Cold War era, with a special focus on singing duo The Peanuts and the film Mothra. It argues that Japanese culture of the Cold War must be understood as participating simultaneously in all three networks of the Cold War order—the First World of capitalist liberal democracies, the Second World of the socialist bloc, and the Third World of the decolonizing and nonaligned Bandung Movement.

Keywords

Popular musicIndonesiaBandung MovementAfro-Caribbean musicHotta YoshieKoseki Yūji
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , April 2024 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2024

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