Don't be put off by the overly busy — and, yes, overly kawaii — cover of "Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential."

It may not look like it, but it is an exemplary work of pop scholarship, one in which the authors are able to call on a wide and sound knowledge of art, film, sociology and Japan, as well as good old shoe-leather journalism, to help us understand "how," as the subtitle puts it, "teenage girls made a nation cool."

That a serious (but never stodgy) book about Japanese schoolgirls came to be written at all is testament to the impact that these young women have on their society and, to a small but increasing extent, on the world outside Japan.