Editor’s introduction

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through this special issue, we aim to provide the language to describe and give weight to the significance that the lifting of the Japanese cultural ban in 1998 had in understanding modern cultural exchange between Korea and Japan. We credit the lifting of the ban with the active cultural exchange that has happened between Korea and Japan, as well as the swift and indelible changes that were happening in South Korean culture in a short amount of time. We call this period and the effects of such the Japanese Cultural Influx, as a reflection of how Japanese culture has entered the Korean cultural landscape. We highlight the permanence of these changes, and we spotlight: 1. the dramatic shift in Japanese cultural consumption by the Korean public, 2. the active rather than passive role that the Korean public took to create legal and cultural shifts, and 3. how this period influenced the current approach to Japanese culture as well as the resurgence of nostalgic Japanese culture of the period.