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Japan's Empire of Cool
The Wicked Priest writes "The Washington Post is reporting that culture is among Japan's leading exports." Talks about Anime, Manga, Music, Video Games and so forth. Interesting reading.
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...every year? I think it's the result of reporters on vacation at the end of the year, doing a cut-and-paste on the date, and hoping the editor doesn't catch the dupe.
There's one thing that Japan has over the United States when it comes to the export of culture, though; that's Hentai. :)
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troll blacklist. Please mo
Japan totally gets all it's cool from the United States, and our beloved Governor of California!
Here's proof!
Execute? [Y/N] _
I, for one, welcome our new Japanese overl-
oh, screw it.
We durn got all our culture right down here in Texas! We got more culture than a Petri dish!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think it's important to note that cultural symbols are not akin to culture itself. Japan can export all the anime it likes but that isn't representative of it's entire culture nor will it affect other cultures enough to make them resemble Japanese culture in something other than a superficial way. For example, Japanese corporate structure and the loyalty given to your company (a structural phenomenon) is unlikely to get passed along through its cultural symbols. Just like American structural phenomenon are unlikely to get passed along through our blockbuster movie exports.
In the end, reality is highly individualized and rarely is a culture made up solely of a selective portion of its symbols.
That since Japan opened itself up to the west it's been a maniac for other cultures. With the exception of the years before and during ww2, Japan has long been a rabid consumer for American culture, along with european culture.
Just take a walk throughout Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ueno or Akihabara. You'll find a massive number of japanese teenagers (and adults) wearing shirts with "engrish" on them. Music is often sprinkled with a hearty dose of engrish as well. Try watching their TV programs sometime, you'll find plenty of american culture. Of course, they like to take it and modify it to their own means and that's exactly what Japan has been doing forever.
This brings up an interesting question: Why are the Japanese so keen to take, modify and integrate other cultures to suit their needs, yet they're still incredibly racist of other cultures? If you doubt their racism, ask why they still have stores and places of business that advertise "Japanese Only"? Of course, for Americans it is a bit hard to understand the concept of being a distinct civilization since we've long been a melting pot, a nation made up of other nations.
But I'm getting off the point. This article is nothing new. The reason why collectables are so expensive overseas is that it's so damned expensive in Japan! Whenever you feel like complaining about the price of dvds, remember that they charge around 40-60$ per dvd, and usually it has half as much as a dvd here in America.
"They told me it was impossible. I replied with maniacal laughter." http://www.mydailyrant.com/
I haven't been paying attention to the Billboard top 100 recently, but are there some Japanese rock bands that i don't know about ?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
They make some of the coolest stuff in the world. At the same time, they also make some of the weirdest.
;)
Tentacle sex, anyone?
The Unfolding Project
We all know that the Japanese places heavy emphasis on education and scholarly conduct. Therefore, it surprises no one that even their entertainment (anime, pr0n) is infused with advanced studies of marine biology (tentacles)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Obviously. Japanese manga, anime, etc are really good. I make it a point to watch Ruroni Kenshin every Saturday on Cartoon Network (OT, but does anyone have the English version of the song "Freckles" that they play in the opening title? I can't find it anywhere...)
The thing I like about Japanese anime is that it makes you think. It's not blind violence or meaningless love. Everything has a well crafted story behind it. Just yesterday I was in Barnes and Noble, and was going to read "love hina" but got sidetracked by the new Star Wars book, The Unifying Force.
The greatest thing though, it's a two way street. We get stuff like Ruroni Kenshin, Pokemon, etc, and the Japanese get McDonalds, Coke, etc.
Although the one interesting bit of Japanese culture that's taking over like crazy is manga. If you look at Border's or Barnes, you'll see five or six shelves of Manga, and American comics have been pushed into one small shelf at the end. It's apparently the "in" thing for youngsters, much like Fear Street books were the "in" thing back when I was in school.
Food for thought...
The significance of anime
/.'s search function? It always times out on me for the past two weeks or so, and I have to keep resorting to using Google search (which is not really a hardship, since Google beats out /.'s search function easily, but still, I'd like to at least access it.)
Anime And The Tech Lifestyle
Movie Review: Princess Mononoke
An Extensive History of Anime
This story is not exactly a dupe, but much of it is discussed in these earlier topics.
OT, but has anyone had any success in loading
I think basically what the West is beginning to realise is that Japan is an entire culture which, while being easily as technologically advanced as America (and in many ways more so), is totally different from America. It's new, it's unusual, it's different, and a lot of it is stuff that Westerners have never even contemplated before, let alone seen.
Kids are insane over Dragonball Z because super-kung-fu-firing-fireballs-from-fingertips-fly ing-about-kicking-people-through-mountains genre just doesn't exist in America. Sure, it's an appalling series on many levels, but it brings something new to the table and for them, that (combined with its testosterone content) makes it worth watching.
qntm.org
No offence to any Japanese people, but Japan is actually a major importer of culture. Their strength lays in taking in good things from other people, and improve on them, making them better. Other than anime, the modern Japanese absorbed a lot from western countries.
In the ancient time, most of its cultural customs came from China around the Tang dynasty. Examples include Kimono, Buddhism (which in turn came from India), original style of Samurai sword (the difference been in the straight edge of the blade instead of curved), the ancient form of Japanese language itself, and so on. The things about Japan is while they took on these things as their own and retained them as time went forth, China continoued to change through out various dynasties.
Highly likely the manga they're talking about Ghost in the Shell (recent coverage)
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
How many hot girls do you know that love manga, anime and videogames ?
And please, no anecdotes about "my wife does!"...I'm talking in the general case. Walk into a bar on the Upper West Side talking about Castle in the Sky to the 6'0 Brazilian supermodel and she'll stare at you blankly while planning her escape.
Japan has a niche with a certain segment (nerdy people) but their culture doesn't have broad appeal to the masses. Sure, videogames pull in a lot of money but they're typically bought by young men.
The readers of this site will love the article because it will affirm something they want to believe in, but it doesn't really make it true.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
"Screw manufacturing, lets instead focus on blobs with cute smiles and half-naked cartoon characters."
"Boss, you are a genius!"
Table-ized A.I.
Because it's Slashdot, but that isn't really what it's about it. It's more about Japan taking American (and other cultures), adapting it for Asians, and then shipping it back out to the rest of Asia. For example, they cut their jeans differently for their different body shapes, thus making their jeans popular in places like South Korea. Japan is essentially a cultural filter from Non-Asia to Asia.
While I can't deny that the US occupation of Japan provided a massive exposure of American culture to Japanese people, Japan was already engaged in the importation of Western culture on a large-scale prior to World War II. When the Meiji Emperor (ruled 1868-1912) decided to modernize Japan, Japanese people began to learn very actively about the West. This activity centered on science and technology, where Germany, as the industrial and scientific leader became the focus of attention. Physicians trained prior to the end of WWII, for example, used textbooks written in German and frequently went to Germany to study. Into the 1960s, patient charts in some Japanese hospitals were written in German. Modernizers also adopted or proposed the adoption of many other aspects of European culture. One seriously proposed that the Japanese language be abandoned, to be replaced by French!
A curious forerunner was the developement, during the Tokugawa period (1615-1868), when Japan was largely cut off from foreign contact, of rangaku "Dutch Studies" (from Oranda "Holland" and Sino-Japanese gaku "study, -ology"). The Dutch were allowed to maintain a trading post on Dejima, then an island in Nagasaki harbor, so Japanese scholars interested in things Western focussed on the Dutch. Probably the most important thing to emerge from rangaku was knowledge of European medicine, particularly anatomy.
The US Occupation probably had much more impact on popular culture, but at a more academic and technological level, the importation of Western culture had already taken place.
Over the past few years all things Asian have been building up popularity here in L.A. As witnessed by the growth of such new magazines as "Giant Robot". Perhaps we're moving towards Blade Runner world.
I for one am all for it. The Asian design since from Hong Kong and Japan is quite good, and it's time for them to stop regurgitating western culture and come into there own. There also seems to be a ground swell of radical art coming out of Japan. I read this as retaliation against a conformist culture. It's very exciting, I think we are in for ride the equivalent of America in the 60s.
fireI like Japan. It rocks. The food's good, people are respectful of each other, and you can buy beer in vending machines. However, I feel compelled to tell you all that I hate anime. Lots of Japanese people hate it as well. (Similarly, many Americans hate Hollywood films, network television, etc.)
I feel that American anime fanboys like anime mostly because it is different. To be a fan of anime makes them feel special (because ordinary American people are not very familiar with anime apart from Pokemon et al.)
Lastly, what I hate even more than anime are anime-themed RPGs. Thank you for letting me vent. No offense intended.
For those people who can't be bothered to read the article, one of the main points was that:
A record 3 million people around the world are now studying the Japanese language, compared with only 127,000 in 1997, according to the Japan Foundation and Tokyo's Marubeni Research Institute.
So, in other words, there is a measurable increase in the cultural cachet of Japan, it's not just a static, ongoing event. And it's not just about manga and anime, but food (sushi restaurants are now ubiquitous in any large city), and jrock/jpop, the prime examples of which are Glay, KinKi Kids, Puffy (known in the US as Puffy AmiYumi so as to avoid confusion with a certain hiphop impresario), Hamasaki Ayumi, the New York born Utada Hikaru and Morning Musume, a group of currently 15 girls that form the most well known part of a pop empire.
Furthermore, even anime seems to be taking up an ever larger bite of the US Cartoon Network's schedule and the traditional Saturday Morning/after-school children's fare. It's even made a few recent ventures into wide release cinema in the US.
However, one could argue, I think persuasively, that's Japan's cultural upswing is part of a larger trend in the Asia-fication of Western culture. What started with egg foo yung and chop suey has now branched out to shabu-shabu and kimchi. What began with Speed Racer and Godzilla has developed into Princess Mononoke, cosplay and Shaolin Soccer.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
This isn't completely new. Remember the Impressionists? They were quite into their "japonaise" (I forgot the exact term...). There are quite a few paintings of European women dressed in kimono, and collecting trinkets from Japan was all the rage, not just among the artsy crowd. I think the reasons are still similar.
Now, however, I think a lot of their exports (anime/manga/video esp) have loads of Western influence anyway. Aside from Inu-Yasha and Rurouni Kenshin (the latter of which is set in the Meiji - a major Westernizing period - anyway), I can't think of very many mainstream titles that involve something purely Japanese. But it's blended with their own culture, which is still different enough to be new and interesting for others.
The floggings will stop when morale improves.
The rise of J-Pop documented in the article is really the success of American pop. Just as black rock & roll took over American pop culture when played by whites, American pop culture (boy bands, fast food, comic books, slutty schoolgirls, top 40 music with unintelligible lyrics) is bigger in Asia with an Asian face.
This is a really encouraging phenomenon. Global culture flows bring us all together, giving us something in common. When we want to dance with each other, watch each other's movies, eat each other's food, we want to live together and talk about it. Only Hollywood sees the culture market as nationalistically competitive, because in Hollywood, culture is property is power, not to be shared, except at a self-perpetuating price. When people spread culture among ourselves, rather than from the centralized minaret of Hollywood, their power disappears. C'mon everybody, get down tonight!
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make install -not war
Notice the streets of bagdad and afganistan are being westernised? Wanna know why they don't like that and why alqueda calls america the great satan? If you've read some of the stuff bin laden has written about the USA you'll agree with (some of) his ideology, not his methodology. He says the USA is spreading lies and deciet, which it does do and has been doing although it's people don't agree with this one bit. I noticed a picture up on BBC of afganistan children being given presents from santa this year, and if you understand the psychology of christmas you'll be frightened from that. Christmas such of a fucked up holiday it isn't even funny, as is easter. We celebrate these holidays not because we're supposed to or because it satisfies some deep religous meaning like Hanukkah , we celebrate them because corperations, the goverment, and christian churches wanted them to be celebrated that way. Notice how crazy it's gotten?
Notice the best buy catologe that comes in the mail every year with the star of david on the tree replaced with the star of best buy and the entire tree decorated with consumer electronics? Notice how all the packaging mysteriously has christmas branding on them? How Saint Nick appears in every window and every store front advertising one thing or another?
In our culture, we eat poisoned food, use poisoned stuff (cosmetics, soaps, playstations, cell phones) and buy crap we don't need fulfill some lifestyle obsession gone wrong that is even more poisonous so that crazy people at the top of the ladder can feel powerful. Japanese culture is even more poisonous imo, they tend to mimic ours and run with it as far and as fast as possible. Infact, our number 1 export to japan after ww2 was our poisonous culture.
Our number 1 export to the rest of the world is poisonous culture, and to whoever resists that without force enough to fight it off, we'll kill the parents and teach the kids our ways like we're doing in afganistan. Afterall, there's a reason we warehouse our old off into care homes near the ends of their life; so the ones that know what's wrong can't teach their kids and grandkids what's realy wrong.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
"I should learn more Japanese than "Dozo, ichi biru! Hai! Domo arigato" and the names of assorted foodstuffs."
Phase 1: Learn romanji
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Kanji!
They still impose heavy tarrifs on American goods.
You should see how much a Mustang GT goes for!
Even though you may speak the language you will never be excepted. You are forever a Gaijin.
We have been exposed to Japanese culture/anime since the 60's, Speed Racer is a classic example.
I aggree with some of the posts above. America is a leader in cultural entertainment.
The Japanesse and the Koreans improve on exsisting ideas, American cars for example.
We(USA) can't make cars worth a shit anymore.
How is it that a country with no natural resources is able to make cars cheaper and better than America who have all the natural resources at our doorstep.
What is good and what is evil? This very topic is explored by some of the deeper anime series and movies out there (IE, not pokemon or pokemon-clones). In many good shows, nobody carries a sign announcing their intentions either way. Take Princess Mononoke, for instance: Are the industrialists who are destroying the forests and the native peoples' way of life evil? Are the natives who are fighting back evil? And then there are the shows that don't operate on the same concepts of conflict that American shows do, such as Haibane Renmei or Niea Under 7, both of which illustrate caste systems and racism in interesting ways.
But this thought-provoking nature is what draws me to these shows. Take the time to watch a "good" show (hint: if its on tv, its aimed at the mass market and is typically not so good. Watch a few episodes yourself, and if its got more flashing lights than an ambulance, its mass market kiddy fare). After you've seen it yourself and feel you're comfortable with the subject, watch it with your children and open the floor for discussion.
If your children are later-middle-school or high-school aged, you should pick up His and Her Circumstances, a romantic comedy/drama that shows that peer pressure and worrying about one's appearance is pretty constant anywhere in the world. If you want your children to become tree-hugging vegans, there's also Arjuna (seriously. Don't watch this if you are the least bit squeamish or offended by environmentalists). Rurouni Kenshin might satisfy your a desire for action, while starring a hero who believes above all else that killing is wrong and who goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid doing so to his enemies (not to say that killing and blood and gore does not happen... the enemies, and even his friends don't share the same morality).
Remember above all else, life is rated PG. If parents weren't required, children would simply pop into existance on their own. Take some time with your children to let them know you disapprove of the shows they are watching, take some time to explain why. Decide if you believe your children are mature enough to seperate what they see on tv from reality, and if they don't, offer some alternatives, whether they be different shows, or reading a book, or heck, go out and throw a frisbee or a ball or something.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
... PUROFITO!!!
Want to know why American culture is so popular? Survival of the fittest. Many other cultures are stagnant and unchanging, but American culture embraces change. Thus, by default, it is much more interesting than most other cultures.
Japanese culture is another big mover. Do I feel threatened or jealous about its recent popularity? Naw. Embrace and extend, that's our motto. We take the best parts of other cultures, integrate and expand on it, and then export it right back at them. Mind you, everyone else is welcome (nay, encouraged) to do the same.
Our culture is no more "poisonous" than anybody else's. It's just more awesome.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
It's unfortunate that this guy is racking up some Troll and Flamebait mods since he's making a good point, albeit a bit inelegantly. There's a now-infamous poll that was given to Americans in 1995 which asked "Name a Famous Japanese Person". The results? #1: (Chinese martial artist) Bruce Lee. #2: (American-born) Yoko Ono. #3: Godzilla. I'm not kidding! I wish a good link to give you but if you're interested a bit of goolging will help you find people referring to this study.
Okay, so that was back in 1995. Ancient history, right? Give me a break. I bet if you give this question to 'the man on the street' again you'd get pretty much the same result. Obviously Japanese has made some incredible contributions to world culture. But until the day you can show the average American a photo of some famous Japanese celebrity and they can instantly recognize them, we should probably use a word other than "empire" to describe their impact in America.
GMD
watch this
2. Hiragana and Katakana
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I know I'm going to get beat on by some geeks but...
Japanees popular culture reeks of the same kind of cheap, campy sensations of cheap Vegas tourist attractions. Just go off to a Japanees website that wasn't made with Western web surfers in mind and you'll see what I mean.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.