Japanese Culture Overview

 Japan has a rich cultural history. This includes one of the most recognizable things from Japan, its music. Music has always played an important part in the history of Japan. The instruments that were used in the medieval period have a very distinctive sound.  Take the shamisen, for instance. The shamisen is a three-stringed instrument with a very large and specialized pick, called a bachi. The pick is used to create a long, sustained sound with the strings of the shamisen. This sound is iconic to the shamisen, and is used in a lot of music that attempts to emulate traditional Japanese music. Another very common Japanese instrument is the koto . The koto is a Japanese harp essentially. It has 13 strings held up via multiple bridges along the width of the instrument. Special picks placed on individual fingers are used to play the koto. The koto is often used with the shamisen and a bamboo flute called a shakuhachi in an ensemble during theater or for imperial courts. Taiko are a form

 It's hard to talk about Japanese culture without bringing up anime. The term "anime" is the Japanese word for animation, so they use it for any animation. In the west, the term "anime" refers to animation created in Japan. Anime has a very signature style that plenty of people all around the world enjoy, and the market for it seems to only be growing as time goes on.   Anime has a deep history in Japan. Starting in the early 1900s, with a short animation using some animation techniques taken from Western countries. Moving forward from this, many more anime were created using cel animation as the medium evolved. Due to the limited resources that animation studios in Japan had compared to European or American ones, their style evolved to fit as such. With simpler art styles and less animation frames, they could tell stories within the limitations they were given. This overall helped lead to anime's signature style, with snappy movements, simpler designs and

 Video games are my true passion, so I have a lot of experience in many different kinds of games that come from many parts of the world. The resurgence of video games after the Video game crash of 1983 was even thanks to the help of a Japanese product, the Nintendo Entertainment System.  The NES was Japan's first foray into the international video game market, and it was a huge success. In Japan, however, the NES was something completely different. It was known as the Family Computer, or Famicom. It had cartridges that were completely differently shaped from the ones on the NES and it had a completely different color scheme and controllers. The NES was made more bulky and had more monotone colors, to fit into the western market more. The name change was also to make sure that it was not confused with the PCs and such that were also in the market around the time. Since then, video games have become a huge and accepted part of society, with many different series' and references