This volume is a collection of three peer-reviewed essays which have been organically expanded from their original versions published between 2014 and 2017. Additionally, they have been re-written in a more accessible language for a broader readership than the limited academic community. What the phenomena described in this booklet have in common is the fact that they are all media-related appearances in the spectrum of popular culture in contemporary Japan, while possessing music as their secondary tool: Takarazuka Revue is primarily a theatrical genre, anime is fundamentally a visual medium, Murakami Haruki publishes (mainly) literary works. Moreover, an essential focus is placed on music and its function to retrieve more powerfully messages which would otherwise get lost in the communication process. Music enhances the emotional layers of cultural experiences and highlights their hidden significances.

The first essay - The Magic of Love - deals with Takarazuka Revue, a highly popular all-female musical theater in West-Japan, which has proved itself along its centennial existence both a faithful mirror of and an influential model for the Japanese society.

The third essay - The Unbearable Lightness of Longing - critically approaches Murakami Haruki's writings, which, in international literary circles, are often situated at the crossroads between enthusiastic readers, with corresponding financial results, and discontented critics, who crushingly categorize them as consumption or trash literature.

May the Music be with you. Maria Grajdian, PhD. (born 1977, in Bucharest/Romania) is associate professor of Media Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Aesthetics of Subculture(s)/Popular Culture(s) at Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences (Hiroshima/Japan).