"The Image Factory is both an investigation into Japanese fads, fashions and styles, and an appreciation of their inherent meanings. Donald Richie investigates all aspects of this strange and ephemeral world, from manga, karaoke and mobile phones to the sex industry and the mutating hair colours of 'image clubs'. He reveals that the Japanese have seized on fads and fashions as an arm of enterprise to a much greater extent than anywhere else in the world: ephemerality has been put to work, the transient has become industrialized, and the results are unique and highly individual."--Jacket.