[1] Martinez also notes in her introduction that five of the ten have backgrounds in anthropology, and Doug Slaymaker, writing for Monumenta Nipponica, felt that the work as a whole takes a viewpoint with a particular emphasis on that field as a result.

[7] Tanaka Keiko examines the similarities in language between women's magazines and educational textbooks, and Paul Harvey writes on the themes of progressivism and traditionalism in Japanese television dramas.

[8] Mark Schilling felt that Martinez allowed the contributing authors a relatively high degree of freedom when choosing their points of study; he wrote in his Japan Quarterly [Wikidata] review that the section titles that had been chosen were so broad that they become "all but meaningless".

[14] Ian Condry wrote in American Ethnologist that Napier's chapter was "one of the book's most provocative" in its examination of shōjo archetypes and its argument that the genre provides a contrasting option with traditional depictions of femininity in Western culture.

[15] While Schilling wrote positively of the work as a whole, he sharply criticized the first chapter written by Yamaguchi, pointing out several inaccuracies and contradictions with extant literature or sumo traditions.