199 Yamato Eriko is a senior lecturer at Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She has completed her PhD in Mass Communication focusing on media consumption of Japanese popular culture. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of media consumption of Japanese popular culture among Malaysian young adults. Such a study is important in order to understand the consequence of the consumption of foreign cultural products since the development of information and communication technology has brought changes to media entertainment consumption styles, especially among the younger generation. This article discusses the ‘accumulation’ of Japanese popular culture as part of media consumption experiences. Through the interpretation of some young Malaysians’ experiences, the accumulation was found to be an important part of media consumption in developing the young Malaysians’ mindset towards specific formats, genres or products from Japan despite the differences that exist between the lifestyles of the Japanese and the Malaysians. The paper highlights that the contents of Japanese popular cultural products are crucial. Without a sophisticated depiction of ‘an essential human aspect’ to which young Malaysians could relate, Japanese popular culture would not be well-liked. Yamato Eriko Accumulating Japanese Popular Culture Media Consumption Experiences of Malaysian Young Adults T he Internet enables people to obtain digitalised media contents from all over the world. The consumption of popular cultural products used to be a topic of discussion within a domestic context. In the era of the Internet, digitalised popular cultural products easily cross national, geographical and cultural borders. According to studies conducted outside of Japan, the major overseas distribution of Japanese popular culture had not been initiated by Japanese copyright holders, despite its increasing export. Okamura (2005, p. 4) remarked that the authors of famous manga or anime were not very interested in battling against pirated distribution of their copyrighted products in Asian regions. Leonard (2005, pp. 282–283) reported in his historical study that anime gained public recognition in the United States through the efforts of enthusiastic fans. He argued that the unofficial distribution had functioned as a ‘prerequisite service’ for the licensing of anime materials in the US. In other words, the anime market in the US was not cultivated by any Japanese production companies even though anime industry had been mainly targeting the US as a potential export market. Nakano (2002, p. 247) and Hu (2005, p. 184) also reported that the spread of J-dramas (Japanese dramas) was initiated by Asian youths, widely in the form of pirated VCDs (video compact discs) and lately through the Internet. The unauthorised distribution expanded because of its advantage over legal distribution in terms of choice, cost and time. J-drama fans empowered themselves to challenge existing distribution channels with the assistance of new technologies. It appears that these phenomena present a view of globalisation from a different angle. They are not about the cultural imperialism of Japan or ‘Japanisation’. They suggest a more comprehensive examination of the global flow of popular cultural products or their contents. This globalisation is not a one-way process from the sender to the receiver or from the centre to the periphery. The above studies of Japanese popular culture indicate that the different interests of the people inside or outside the original production can influence the circulation of the cultural products worldwide. The Internet and self-copied media files emerged as new medium of J-drama as well as anime even in Malaysia. These unauthorised distributions led to uncontrolled consumption of Japanese popular cultural contents. The Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications reported that broadband penetration was only at 18 percent in September 2008. However, according to a survey conducted by the Nielsen Company at that time, 53 percent of the Malaysian respondents downloaded or streamed full-length movies, movie clips, TV shows, music videos or video games from the Internet over a month (Lourdes, 2009, p. 24). It seems that if someone has a computer or the latest cell phone with wireless connectivity, it is not necessary to have a high- speed broadband connection to obtain media files since these files can be easily passed around. According to Hu (2005), various visual contents, such as TV programmes and films, began to be circulated for free following the innovation of a peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer protocol. Nakano (2002, pp. 231–233) pointed out that Japanese popular cultural products were accepted by the younger