"A compelling and visionary analysis. William O. Gardner traces shared imaginations of the future city in postwar Japanese fiction, film, and architecture, brilliantly demonstrating the originality of Japanese visions of cities and societies to come. At the same time, he shows how even the most innovative urban visions of recent novels and anime are anchored in ancient Japanese aesthetic and building traditions. A must-read for anyone interested in urban studies, architecture, and science fiction-or, quite simply, the future."-Ursula K. Heise, author of Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species
"The Metabolist Imagination is an ambitious and meticulously researched study of the intersections of science fiction and architectural discourse in postwar through contemporary Japan, an innovative pairing that leads to numerous insights across disciplines."-Seiji Lippit, author of Topographies of Japanese Modernism
"William O. Gardner is a splendid scholar-critic of Japanese cityscape. The Metabolist Imagination brilliantly foregrounds the postmodern transactions between cutting edge architecture and emergent Japanese science fiction. No one has ever succeeded in exploring so provocatively the singular point between Metabolist works exhibited at EXPO70 and hardcore science fiction novels as represented by Sakyo Komatsu, one of the producers of the very exposition."-Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio University
"The Metabolist Imagination-dense and scholarly but highly enjoyable and revealing, especially for someone who likes Japanese architecture and the occasional anime."-Daily Dose of Architecture
"Eye-opening in more ways than one."-ArchiECHO
"The Metabolist Imagination is a thrilling new contribution that disentangles Japans complex 1960s and 1970s from the vantage of interdisciplinary insight."-Journal of Asian Studies
"The significant contribution of this book is to invite us to consider our relationship to the ever-changing natural/cultural environment by exploring the interrelationship between future-oriented architecture (and the city) and science fiction."-Journal of Japanese Studies
"The Metabolist Imagination is an important contribution to Japanese urban studies and to the burgeoning scholarly discussion of Japans 1960s and 1970s. In its attention to architecture, popular literature, film, anime, collage, performance, and the ferment among those, it admirably demonstrates the rewards of an intermedial approach."-Monumenta Nipponica
