To be considered complete, this analytical essay (three to five pages in length for students in HIS 373, four to six pages for those enrolled in HIS 573) must contain a readily identifiable thesis statement, a series of supporting generalizations and appropriate specific examples and illustrations.

The thesis statement must be integrated into the concluding sentence at the end of the following opening paragraph:

Japanese popular culture today exerts a considerable global influence well beyond the borders of the island nation itself. Whether in the form of a Hello Kitty coin purse, a Dragonball-Z animated televison series, a collection of Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards, the novels of Haruki Murakami or the rock music of Sakamoto Ryuichi, consumer goods emanating from Japan have penetrated the popular consciousness from Rio to Cairo, from Rome to Boise. Yet each of these contemporary manifestations of Japanese pop culture also reflects distinct elements linked to Japan's past and provides evidence as well of an internally generated sense of change and development based in Japanese history and tradition. These ties to Japan's history and tradition can readily be discerned, for example, in [list the attributes here] found in [list the topic of your analysis here].

The essay that follows must proceed, in an organized and structured way, to analyze the cited attributes and specific ways in which each reflects a distinctly "Japanese sensibility" drawn from traditional characteristics manifest in the nation's history and culture. Consider how your chosen topic reflects indegenous religious and philosophical values drawn from Shinto, Buddhism and/or Neo-Confucianism, how its characteristics might reflect a particular geographical location or set of characteristics tied to the Japanese geological setting, the degree to which it exhibits a gemeinschaft orientation, visuality, a "right-brained" mentality, a preference for the group over the individual. You might trace the topic's historical roots back to its origins and detail how particualar historical influences impacted on subsequent development patterns.

A resulting final introductory sentence might then read as follows:

These ties to Japan's history and tradition can readily be discerned, for example, in the group orientation, the visuality, and the Neo-Confucian values found in the recent hit romantic comedy television drama DENSHA OTOKO.