Popularity of Little Red: Media, Me

When I was in Japan I noticed that Little Red Riding Hood was everywhere. On bento boxes, in horror films and in anime, just to name a few places. Even when I window shop online, little images of Red Riding hood can be found everywhere. She's unbelievably popular there. I couldn't understand why at first someone would want to post that fairy tale out of all of them anywhere. Especially since that fairy tale has such a negative connotation as being a warning tale about rape.

Then I began researching topics of interest for my English 380 Criticism and Theory class, I started with fairy tales. We began the class with Little Red Riding Hood, and that is how I wanted to end it.So, I did a preliminary Google search on Little Red Riding Hood in Japan. That's when I stumbled upon this. It was a New York Times article on Western Fairy Tale adaptions in Japan, aptly titled "Big Wolves Aren't so Bad in Japan." It was the kickstarter I needed. It reminded me of "The Ants and the Cicada" which focused more on togetherness than morals or consequences.

So now I'm beginning an intense research paper (just a mere 10 pages minimum) on Little Red Riding Hood and why she might be the poster child instead of other fairy tale adaptations from the west. I'm really excited because I have a lot of Books including Recycling Red Riding Hood by Sandra Beckett and The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood by Jack Zipes. These books at least have small sections on Little Red, which is a lot more than most books I scavenged for on WorldCat. It was partially thanks to Google that I was able to find and reserve these books because of "Google Books." The Google search was much more efficient because it just searched for books that mentioned both Japan and Little Red Riding Hood on the same page of a book. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone unless the topic or thesis for a paper was absurdly obscure or barely researched.

I'm not sure what I will find or what my paper will turn into, but I'm rather excited to see what develops based off my sources. The professor says that we should write our paper out in full first before reading and incorporating our sources, so I'm a little anxious about that. Once I get deeper into this project, I'll post more.