Burakku Metaru (ブラック ・メタル): Japanese Black Metal Music and the ‘Glocalization’ of a Transgressive Sub-Culture

Abstract

This thesis will demonstrate how Black Metal music became established in Japan, how it evolved, and how musicians situate themselves in a globalized form of community. It is a study of how Japanese Black Metal functions in the tensions between globalization and localization, a term called “glocalization” (Victor Roudometof 10). Japanese Black Metal is globalized around a set of rules and ideas, a term Deena Weinstein uses to describe Heavy Metal music called “codes” (Heavy Metal the Music 100). Additionally, as this music is localized, it reveals how many Japanese musicians express uniquely cynical viewpoints of religion and established authority using these globalized codes. Due to its anti-Christian and brutal history in other countries, Black Metal is seen as transgressive against mainstream society. Through electronic ethnographic research with Japanese Black Metal artists, this thesis finally examines how Black Metal is at once desirable yet also transgressive in Japanese society, a country with a comparatively low population of Christians.