The preface to the volume discusses what it means to think about media theory in the context of Japan. Emphasizing the many valences and crisscrossing passageways the “in” Japan indicates, this chapter sees the project of the volume as pointing beyond the idea of a national boundary to “an inside-out as much as an outside-in.” This spatial dynamic plays out on the background of media and their theorization from different times, as well as of the different temporalities with which they are respectively charged. It is an encounter that is both necessarily overdue and timely.