Still chasing reconciliation: the 2002 Japan–Korea co-productions of the television drama Friends and the opera Chun Hiang

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the late 1990s, Japan and South Korea declared a new partnership toward reconciliation, which coincided with their relieved political tensions. In particular, South Korea’s lifting of the ban on Japanese cultural products signified a new era, one of cultural interaction following a prolonged period of interruption. Along with the influx of Japanese popular culture into South Korea in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the television drama Friends [Produced by Doi Nobuhirō and Han Cheol-su, aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC)] and the opera Chun Hiang [Composed by Takagi Tōroku] provided venues through which to facilitate mutual interactions between the Japanese and the Koreans, especially in Japan. By examining the narrative elements and production processes of these two cultural productions, produced in 2002, this article explores the ways in which the Japanese and the Koreans envisioned a cultural shift toward reconciliation in the late 1990s and early 2000s.