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Japan's Empire of Cool
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Dec 28, 2003 01:02 PM
from the anime-is-just-part-of-the-picture dept.
from the anime-is-just-part-of-the-picture dept.
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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Don't we get this exact same article... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anime And The Tech Lifestyle [slashdot.org]
Movie Review: Princess Mononoke [slashdot.org]
An Extensive History of Anime [slashdot.org]
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
Parent
Not just the same but even more so... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [jpopmusic.com], the prime examples of which are Glay [glay.per.sg], KinKi Kids [geocities.com], Puffy [japantoday.com] (known in the US as Puffy AmiYumi so as to avoid confusion with a certain hiphop impresario), Hamasaki Ayumi [hamasaki-republic.org], the New York born Utada Hikaru [toshiba-emi.co.jp] and Morning Musume [morningmusumeonline.com], 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 [cosplay.com] and Shaolin Soccer [apple.com].
Parent
The U.S. is a major exporter of culture as well (Score:5, Informative)
There's one thing that Japan has over the United States when it comes to the export of culture, though; that's Hentai. :)
Re:The U.S. is a major exporter of culture as well (Score:2)
Perhaps we will import intresting stuff from Iraq soon...
Or find a special place... for instance in Germany holiday in Bitterfeld is on the rise. Bitterfeld, the ugliest city of Eastern Germany. That's cool.
Hollywood means boring culture industry targeted to an international audience. I prefer Nigerian films.
Re:The U.S. is a major exporter of culture as well (Score:2)
Perhaps we will import intresting stuff from Iraq soon...
Or find a special place... for instance in Germany holiday in Bitterfeld is on the rise. Bitterfeld, the ugliest city of Eastern Germany. That's cool.
Hollywood means boring culture industry targeted to an international audience. I prefer Nigerian films.
Quite frankly, I am not familiar with Bitterfield and I think that any imports
Re:The U.S. is a major exporter of culture as well (Score:5, Interesting)
We had the industrial revolution. Most of the economy went to the manufacture and distribution of manufactured goods. Food became a small percentage of the total economic output.
Now we are very very good at manufacturing stuff. Everything is so cheap now. TVs are cheap. Computers are cheap. Not long ago it was a big deal to buy these mass produced toys. Now they are impulse buy. For a while Japan led the world in this manufacturing revolution.
Are we getting to a point where manufactured goods are not so imporant anymore. Perhaps manufactured goods are becoming a smaller part of the world economy. "Cultural" products are becoming more important and now onece again we are competing with the Japanise.
Parent
No way! (Score:5, Funny)
Here's proof! [mac.com]
Cultural Imperialism (Score:4, Funny)
oh, screw it.
Re:Cultural Imperialism (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Cultural Imperialism (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Culture! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Culture! (Score:5, Funny)
Shurtis! We got all kinds of barbeque sauce down here! Mesquite, honeybarbeque, spicy jalapeno, so why not bukkake too? Have to go check the store shelves for that one though. Haven't tried it personally...
Parent
Cultural Symbols vs. Culture (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, reality is highly individualized and rarely is a culture made up solely of a selective portion of its symbols.
Re:Cultural Symbols vs. Culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus resulting in the overthrow of the stable "military" Shogunate that had maintained Japan as a land of peace, domestically and internationally, for 250 years or so, to be replaced by militarists who armed Japan and went on an empire by conquest rampage.
A rampage rather overtly based on the western model of such, no less.
You are correct about Japanese racism though. This is a nation that can claim to have no racial issues due to their single race when millions of Japanese born people of Korean descent can't obtain citizen ship and the aboriginal populace is treated as if it doesn't exist, except maybe as a tourist exhibit.
However, through most of their history they have overtly acknowledged that real culture came from the mainland, much as once the English may have held themselves superiour and yet looked to France, Italy and even the German provinces for real culture.
It's a peculiar schizophrenia, but not entirely beyond the realm of understanding.
On the other hand while we have hungered for Japanese goods for the past 200 years or so we too use them as Americans, without becoming Japanese in the process, even while we study Karate and go to Zendos to test our Koan understanding.
We have our own peculiar ways of being schizophrenic, it's just harder for us to see because for us it's normal.
So for the Japanese, or any other culture for that matter.
KFG
Parent
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty simple, same reason you find racism in certain parts of the States and in ethnic neighborhoods in cities. In monocultures, there's nobody around to point out that you're being a racist when everyone thinks the same.
I'm Japanese, growing up in the burbs of NYC, I was stereotyped and the subject of racist remarks my entire childhood. It wasn't until I moved away to more metro areas that I found more acceptance. So racism still runs strong in the States, make no mistake about it.
"National Pride" is ok, we see a lot of pride parades here in NYC. But just start to say something bad about another race, everyone jumps all over you for being a racist. You can't say anything about another culture without being condemned as a racist. We're forced to be politcally correct or face a civil lawsuit. That's a long ways away from being an integrated "melting pot" society as we'd like to believe.
Japan isn't much different in terms of racism; the only difference is that there aren't people forcing them to watch everything they say, so they don't think about it. Yeah, many will openly discriminate and don't think twice about it, I hear about it from my caucasian friends who live in Japan. It's really that they haven't been forced to accept other cultures, socially or legally.
What Japan really needs is Al Sharpton to stir things up, make them more aware of how racist the society is. Not sure if even he can do it, but it'd be a good start.
Parent
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:3, Informative)
Granted, I'm sure that some of them are just racism, but not al
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm...the only places I know with signs like that are brothels (due to the much higher incidence of AIDS in foreigners than in Japanese) and in baths up in Hokkaido that have had numerous run-ins with drunken Russian sailors who refuse to clean themselves up before getting in the communal tub. I'm not sure either has to do with racism directly, any more than blood transfusions from Brits be
Re:Yeah, that's interesting until you consider... (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife is Japanese and when we go back to her parents house, I feel more at home in Japan than I do here in Los Angeles, CA. And I'm a white guy with blond hair!
But some of the foreigner's I worked with did feel out of place and had a few problems. But to b
Japanese Music ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, Japan... (Score:3, Funny)
Tentacle sex, anyone?
It's a good fusion of science and entertainment (Score:2, Funny)
Ruroni Kenshin... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ruroni Kenshin... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not everything, but usually anything based on a successful manga that hasn't been drawn out too long is pretty good. (too long meaning Dragonball Z, or later episodes of Inu Yasha, which I stopped watching around episode 75 or so, and now it's up to 135) Sturgeon's Law still applies, but there is some filtering before it gets to a DVD on the shelf in Best Buy. Even when downloading fansubs, there is filtering when series don't get fansubbed.
The important di
Re:Ruroni Kenshin... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's also worth noting that no, not all Japanese anime makes you think. There is plenty of it that is mindless violence and sex. La Blue Girl and M. D. Geist are a couple of classic ones.
I talked to an exchange student from Japan... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 problem with US Comics (Score:2)
Re:I talked to an exchange student from Japan... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a shame that 5 out of those 6 shelves are all Dragon Ball...
Parent
It's because they're different (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Im only here for the anime (Score:2)
Japan is a major importer of culture (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Japan is a major importer of culture (Score:4, Informative)
The Japanese language did not come from China. Japanese and Chinese are unrelated languages. Japanese borrowed many Chinese words and the Chinese writing system, starting prior to the Tang dynasty, but the core of the language was not borrowed from China. It is also worth mentioning that there was not all that much direct contact with China. To a large extent the borrowing of "continental" culture was via Korea.
Parent
Re:Japan is a major importer of culture (Score:5, Informative)
That's why I said via Korea rather than from Korea. It is true that there was some direct contact with Tang China, but the heavy influx of Chinese culture, including the writing system and Buddhism, clearly came via Korea, much of it prior to the Tang. Chinese writing was probably introduced (in the sense of scholars teaching the Japanese to read and write - objects with Chinese writing on them reached Japan earlier) at the beginning of the fifth century, that is, around 400 C.E., two hundred years before the foundation of the Tang Dynasty.
This is not true. Tokyo does indeed mean "Eastern Capital", but it is not the ancient capital of Japan. During the Tang Dynasty, the capital of Japan was at Nara, near Kyoto. Later it moved to Kyoto. In those days, Tokyo was known as Yedo (now pronounced Edo in Japanese as a result of the loss of /y/ before /e/) and was considered the boondocks. Edo became the de facto capital when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan (effectively after the battle of Sekigahara in 1602, formally in 1615) and did not become the official capital until 1868. It is called "Eastern Capital" in contradistinction to Kyoto.
Parent
Re:Japan is a major importer of culture (Score:3, Interesting)
This is incorrect. While the Japanese certainly imported the Chinese writing system, there are no known or suspected linguistic links between Japanese and Chinese (indeed, given that Japanese is a multisyllabic, agglutinative language, and the Chinese languages are monosyllabic and highly tonal, it is hard to see how they could be more different). Most linguists classify Japanese as a language isolate (one with no known relatives), although some suspect it
Can't believed they failed to mention that... (Score:4, Informative)
Highly likely the manga they're talking about Ghost in the Shell (recent coverage [slashdot.org])
Is Japan Really Cool ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I know you didn't read the article (Score:2, Interesting)
Name a Famous Japanese Person (Score:3, Interesting)
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 bac
Heard in a Japanese Boardroom 15 years ago (Score:2, Troll)
"Boss, you are a genius!"
Japan Rocks (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Mou Ichido ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
J-Pop = American meme (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
Re:War What Is It Good For? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 pr
Re:Just maybe... (Score:4, Funny)
Phase 1: Learn romanji
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Kanji!
Parent
Re:Just maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Storylines are alien (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Darwin, applied to culture (Score:3, Interesting)
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