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In Praise Of Iron Grandeur: The Sensibility Of Kōjō Moe And The Reinvention Of Urban Technoscape, Ikuho Amano

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications

Since the late 1980s, sci-fi fans and machinery aficionados in Japan have expressed their fascination with factories, projecting an imagination that sites of industrial facilities are simulacra of futuristic urban technoscape portrayed in Hollywood films. Although factory watching used to be an activity for a limited population, in the past decade organized factory night tours are becoming increasingly popular in Japan. This type of tour has expanded public interest in factories located on coastal industrial zones as a form of popular leisure-time activity. Widely known as kōjō moe (‘factory infatuation’), fans have elevated plants to objects for aesthetic appreciation. This …