Nagasaki Joe

Found this interesting article (blog) about Japan’s challenge to U.S. pop culture hegemony. It describes how the militaries of both countries were vital to the development of animation as an industrial process through its use in WWII propaganda films.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...058023424.html

Some choice quotes from the article:


“Only one country comes close to disrupting U.S. hegemony in global popular culture: Japan. But why them? Because popular culture isn’t a subjective art form, but an industrial export Japan’s military funded for WWII propaganda to defeat Disney.”


“Only wartime governments were willing to invest so much in animation. No private customer was. But this funding built the industry.”


“Japan’s pop culture is influential globally because of industrial policy going back to WWII – not [only] because it’s kawaii.”

mjm

Interesting. I would toss out for discussion the idea that I see being the case and that is that Japanese original pop culture offerings are based on fantasy and escaping to the limitless environments that offers whereas much of the US offerings are based on realities of urban settings and current societal issues in the US.

freecia

I tend to view pop culture from a lens of Soft Power and remember the "Is Japan Cool" mid-2010's ad blitz as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan

I do find the pop culture aspect interesting since I watch a variety of Asian dramas including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Thai. Some have more obvious government involvement or promotion of certain political/social ideals in their storylines though a lot of movies and media also have Chinese investments, including US movies. https://www.ft.com/content/6958a7c0-...3-df613b998ff7 Netflix invested $2.5 billion USD into Korean dramas and shows in 2023 for 2023- 2027 which is relevant during the currently ongoing 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Some popular Thai Yaoi/BL dramas have more than a few international (often Asian) fan meetings/shows/concerts which tends to account for a sizable portion of actor total compensation- a deliberate export. Thai dramas tend to use more of a single agency & production studio model similar to old MGM style.

"China will fail due to ideological incompatibility." Perhaps around animation, but China and HK historically produced a lot of the Wuxia and Martial Arts films. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wasn't a new genre for me and Michelle Yeoh was as familiar as Jackie Chan in my household prior to Bond. Chinese Xianxia drama series are also getting increasingly popular and the budget (and talent pool) needed for costumes, sets, makeup, and SFX is considerable. Plus many period dramas can't use product placement (in-drama advertising) to offset costs like modern dramas do. It makes sense to me that they'll try to gain some international viewers with licensed streaming platforms like Youku, iQiyi, WeTv/Tencent, and Viki. People also make clips of dramas, compilations, remixes for TikTok, YouTube, etc which helps drive international viewership.

I also pointed out the irony of JP Rakuten Viki's success as one of the larger current international Korean Dramas streaming sites to my partner (after Netflix, though Amazon seems to have bought rights to a few majors Korean dramas after seeing Netflix numbers boost). Korea exports the shows but hasn't successfully exported a streaming service. ETA- I forgot about Kocowa which is a joint venture with 3 major S. Korean networks & SK Telecom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kocowa which has more variety shows but doesn't seem purchase/get the streaming license for many of their currently airing network dramas.

LapLap

Doesn’t mention Doraemon, Heidi, Marco, Mazinger Z or any of the other Japanese cartoons that became part of popular culture in Spain (and a few other Southern European countries, like the Mukashi Banashi series in Greece) in the 1970s and 1980s.
By the time Studio Ghibli began releasing movies a receptive audience in these countries was already well established.

I feel a bit sorry for all the children who don’t get to grow up with Doraemon stories.

Nagasaki Joe

It was interesting to learn from the article that even animation was targeted as a strategic technology worthy of being supported by Japan’s industrial policy (along with semiconductors and supercomputers) with the intent of surpassing the U.S. in that area.

Regarding anime as entertainment, unlike Shintaro Ishihara (the former mayor of Tokyo), who adores Japanese anime and vigorously disses all foreign anime (Disney in particular) when given the chance, I’m by no means a fan of it, whether it's from Japan or the U.S., but my wife watches it all the time, so I can’t avoid it. That said, I did grow up watching Japan’s first anime export, Astro Boy, (along with many U.S. cartoons) in the early 60s on U.S. TV without knowing until many years later that it was Japanese-made. Still, I find most Japanese animation of today to be the most incredibly loud and noisy programming on TV (excluding, of course, Nihon Mukashi Banashi and some anime comedies, which I do like) with the male lead frequently going into lengthy apoplectic fits and hurricane-like tirades shouting from the top of his lungs and making as much noise as humanly possible. I often have to tell my wife to turn down the volume as I curse Japan’s industrial policy for disturbing my peace. An action movie with loud explosions, machine-gun fire, and bomb blasts is tame in comparison.

AlwaysAisle

Interesting article about Japanese pop culture in the U.S. I think there were so many different things associated with how Japanese pop culture came into the U.S., I do not think it is just one thing that led to this.

I do think the article's mention of the movie Momotaro in 1943 needs further information. During WWII in Japan pretty much military controlled everything and people did not have a choice of what movies they could watch. I do think in 1943 people in Japan did not have a choice, but they were instructed to go see the movie Momotaro, and there were consequences for not following the "instructions" and "recommendations" during WWII in Japan.

I read that pizza became popular in the U.S. after WWII, the U.S. soldiers in Europe were introduced to pizza which lead to the popularity of pizza in the U.S. During the Korean War and Vietnam War, Japan was an R&R destination for the U.S. soldiers. PanAm operated military R&R charter flights from/to Japan and PanAm served Kobe beef sukiyaki on military R&R charter flights from/to Japan. I read that this led to the introduction of sukiyaki in the U.S.

I do agree that there are a lot of Japanese anime/manga which would not have worked in the U.S., also. I do not think the Japanese manga Kyojin-no-hoshi (巨人の星) in the '60s and '70s would make it in the U.S. I think there are as many examples of Japanese anime/manga failed in the U.S. also.

I think today's Japanese pop culture in the U.S. started somewhere in the '80s. Till then I do not think typical American teenagers had not much interest in Japanese pop culture. But I recall around the '80s celebrities in the U.S. started to mention Japanese pop culture including Japanese teen fashion which lead to Japanese pop culture being accepted by American youngsters. I also feel as about the same time sushi was introduced by mass media in the U.S. In the '80s, in TV dramas or movies, people dressed up at L.A. restaurants having sushi with wine. I lived in Dallas, TX for a short period during the '70s. The meat country of the U.S., I remember a lot of people in Dallas did not eat fish, period, back in the '70s. But how many sushi restaurants are there in Dallas today?

Also, the acceptance of Japanese automobiles and Japanese electronics in the U.S. I think there are a lot of different things happening at different times all having an effect on Japanese pop culture in the U.S. today.

Pickles

I grew up on マグマ大使 (Monstruos del Espacio), スカイヤーズ5 (El Agente S5), and コメットさん (Señorita Cometa). Every elementary school gang had a member nicknamed Polka or Takeshi.

Nagasaki Joe

Ditto. I remember her fierce steely gaze and hard-core fighting style from Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung movies of the mid-80s and later that followed in the wake of Bruce Lee’s success (whose first four films I watched in Boston's Chinatown in the early 70s). And now, she wins the Academy Award…Cynthia Rothrock and Zhang Ziyi, eat your heart out!
Those of my generation (Boomers) who came to Japan in the early to mid-70s were not drawn here by Japan’s pop culture or anime (which did not yet enjoy a huge foreign fan base) but mainly by its traditional arts and culture coupled with the country’s modernization. But I think you’re right that a confluence of factors that you mentioned coalesced in the 80s to usher in the Japan Boom (a precursor to “Cool Japan”). Samurai movies from the 1960s had already gained a cult following in the U.S. by the 70s and the use of the word “Zen” was widespread with the publishing of countless books titled “Zen in the Art of (fill in the blank)” or “The Zen of (fill in the blank)” without any real understanding of Zen's meaning. The TV miniseries “Shogun” (based on the best-selling James Clavell novel) was released by NBC in 1980 to very high ratings (second only to “Roots”). The Japan Boom was accompanied by a Ninja craze that followed the release of Ninja movies and novels in the U.S., which I think helped popularize other aspects of Japanese culture. As for Anime, I don’t think it attained a critical mass in terms of a large foreign following until perhaps the late 80s.

Pickles

I think this soft power projection probably goes further back. My mother became fascinated by Japan as a teenager in 1957 after watching Marlon Brando in "Sayonara." Not sure the fascination had to do more with a teenage Marlon Brando obsession or with the country itself, but my mother visited Japan dozens of times starting in 1964. Timing has it that I was probably conceived in Japan, but that's probably TMI.

AlwaysAisle

I think the 1964 Tokyo Olympics also took a part in introducing Japanese pop culture to the rest of the world. In the U.S. Sukiyaki sung by Kyu Sakamoto (the song was released in the original, and sung completely 100% in Japanese) hit Billboard Hot 100, and spent three weeks at the no. 1 position in 1963.

When I lived in L.A. a local TV station did a piece about Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki. In the U.S., this song originally played at the radio station in Bakersfield, CA. In the early '60s, there were sizable first-generation Japanese immigrants who spoke Japanese as a native language in Bakersfield, they were in the golden years of their life. DJ at a local Bakersfield radio station came across the record of Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki and decided to play it on the radio due to the large Japanese immigrant population in Bakersfield. The song became popular among Japanese immigrants at Bakersfield and the radio station played Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki frequently. Then a record company executive in the nearby city of Los Angeles heard Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki, one thing lead to another and the record label decided to release Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki nationally.

A sad ending to this story is that Kyu Sakamoto was onboard JL 123, 747-100SR flying HND-ITM on August 12, 1985. Kyu Sakamoto passed away in this accident,

LapLap

Just as cardigans are called rebecas in Spain after the cardigans worn by Joan Fontaine in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”, flip flop sandals were called sayonaras after that movie. Must have hit a cultural nerve back then.

AlwaysAisle

Talking about movies/TV dubbed in local language. The US TV detective drama Hart to Hart (1979-1984 in the US) was aired in Japan in 1981 and became hit show in Japan also. For female main character played by Stefanie Powers, in Japan they hired a voice actress with high pitch stereo typical blond girl voice to dubbed Stefanie Powers' voice. After the hit of the show in Japan, Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner visited Japan for media events. When people in Japan heard Stefanie Powers with low husky voice, it was like "What the &*^$?!"

LapLap

The way Lionel Standar as Max pronounced “It was murder” at the start of the show would send my mother into a fit of giggles every time. Sounds exactly like the Valencian/Catalan word for “unko”.

Reminds me of the story of how MrLapLap’s grandfather as told to accept a guest in his taxi by a representative of a hotel in Tokyo, he protested that he couldn’t accept dogs understanding that something like a German Shepherd was going to arrive. Turned out to be Cybill Shepherd. Another “What the &*^$?!” moment.

malloc

This is true, and I would argue it did not really take off until the emergence of high speed internet in the 2000's. Prior to this you were dependent on companies importing and localizing the animation.

joejones

When I was in high school in Florida in the 90s, there were already considerable numbers of American teenagers watching anime on VHS and VCD, often dubbed from someone else's copy. It was spread through informal social networks. You would know someone who knew someone who had a few episodes, and you would go to someone's house for a watch party. But it was still very popular back then. Streaming just made it more accessible and less social.