This book explores the phenomenon of V-Cinema, founded in Japan in 1989 as a distribution system for direct-to-video movies which film companies began making having failed to recoup their investment in big budget films. It examines how this period of history in Japanese cinema was an exceptionally diverse and vibrant film scene.

Tom Mes is a Lecturer at Keio University, Japan

1. Scholars, Canons, and Videotape: Unboxing Japanese Cinema

2. Parallel Canons: Japanese Cinema in the Eyes of the World, 1951-2000

3. Video Revolutions: Models of Video Distribution in the U.S.A. and Japan

4. V-Cinema: A Domestic Model in Transnational Context

5. Accidental Auteurs: The Director in V-Cinema

6. Slaughterhouse V