Odaiba Water Illumination, Tokyo, Japan

Art
Japanese art dates from the Jomon Period (8000 BC) to the present. Japanese painting is one of the oldest of the Japanese arts, with early figurative paintings dating back to at least 300 BC. The history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of imported ideas. The interaction between Japanese and European art has been significant: ukiyo-e prints, which began to be exported from the middle of the 19th century, in a movement known as Japonism, had a significant influence on the development of modern art in the West, perhaps most notably on post-Impressionism. The fusion of traditional woodblock printing and Western art led to the creation of manga, a typically Japanese comic book format that is now popular within and outside Japan. Manga-influenced animation for television and film is called anime. Japanese-made video game consoles have been popular since the 1980s.