Abstract

The cultural exports of Japanese anime and manga have faced both praise and scorn in the Chinese market. Although the Chinese state generally regards these cultural artefacts as a negative influence, the adoption of visual techniques and concepts associated with Japanese popular culture has become common in China, particularly on the internet. This article seeks to understand the implications of the ‘glocalisation’ of Japanese anime and manga in China. It discusses how Japanese popular culture is perceived by the Chinese Communist Party and by the general public, and how the Chinese state has invested in its own domestic comics and animation industries in an attempt to curb the cultural flow from Japan. Through examining a satirical Chinese virtual character who is heavily influenced by Japanese graphic techniques and concepts, this article demonstrates that governments are not the final arbiters in matters of cultural influence and illuminates the complex nature of transnational cultural flows between China and Japan.

Highlights

  • Popular culture is arguably one of Japan’s most successful and influential exports

  • The Chinese state generally regards these cultural artefacts as a negative influence, the adoption of visual techniques and concepts associated with Japanese popular culture has become common in China, on the internet

  • It discusses how Japanese popular culture is perceived by the Chinese Communist Party and by the general public, and how the Chinese state has invested in its own domestic comics and animation industries in an attempt to curb the cultural flow from Japan

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Summary

Introduction

Popular culture is arguably one of Japan’s most successful and influential exports. Japanese comics and animations—known as manga and anime, respectively—attract many consumers worldwide. One way of illustrating this phenomenon is to examine the Japanese concept of moe (pronounced ‘moh-eh’) in China, using the Chinese grassroots-created Green Dam Girl character as an example. Through analysis of this character and an associated derivative work, this article challenges ‘top-down’ understandings of cultural dissemination that overemphasise the role of the state. It implemented protectionist policies and promoted the production and consumption of its own domestic comics and animation products. Through this process the Chinese government played an instrumental role in the ‘glocalisation’ of Japanese popular culture within Chinese comics and animations; that is, a complex localising of globalised culture, which Robertson describes as ‘the simultaneity—the co-presence—of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies’.13

Japanese popular culture in China
Green Dam Girl
Conclusion
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