Abstract
Over the past two decades, there has been growing research in film-induced tourism. Much of this research is focused on how film influences tourist destination choices. There has been less emphasis, however, on the nature and types of movies that may induce this attraction to such locations. By examining Kubo and the Two Strings (Knight, 2016), a stop-motion animation produced by Laika Studios, this paper aims to apply film studies to explore current understandings of film-induced tourism. This paper argues that Kubo is itself a form of film-induced tourism by positioning the viewer as a virtual cultural tourist whose cinematic experience may be likened to a veritable media pilgrimage through Japanese culture, history and aesthetics. The movie introduces the viewer into an imagined world that borrows from origami, Nō theatre, shamisen music, obon rituals and Japanese symbolism, philosophy and mythology. The resulting pastiche is a constructed diorama that is as transnational and postmodern as it is authentic and indigenous.
Highlights
In their seminal work, Riley, Baker and Doren (1998) firmly established the relationship between the box-office performance of particular movies and the increase in tourist footfall at iconic attractions featured in these movies
This paper argues that Kubo offers its viewers a veritable media pilgrimage through Japanese history, culture, and aesthetics, in an article entitled Japan’s Gross National Cool, Douglas McGray observes that ‘from pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower’ (2002: 47)
Building on the work of Seaton and Yamamura, this paper proposes a sixth type of cultural tourism: the virtual cultural tourist
Summary
ISSUE 1 – Between Texts and Images: Mutual Images of Japan and Europe ISSUE 2 – Japanese Pop Cultures in Europe Today: Economic Challenges, Mediated Notions, Future Opportunities ISSUE 3 – Visuality and Fictionality of Japan and Europe in a Cross-Cultural Framework ISSUE 4 – Japan and Asia: Representations of Selfness and Otherness ISSUE 5 – Politics, arts and pop culture of Japan in local and global contexts ISSUE 6 – Mediatised Images of Japan in Europe: Through the Media Kaleidoscope ISSUE 7 – Layers of aesthetics and ethics in Japanese pop culture ISSUE 8 – Artists, aesthetics, and artworks from, and in conversation with, Japan part 1 (of 2) ISSUE 9 – Artists, aesthetics, and artworks from, and in conversation with, Japan part 2 (of 2). The illustrations and photographs, in particular, are reproduced in low digital resolution and constitute specific and partial details of the original images They perform a merely suggestive function and fall in every respect within the fair use allowed by current international laws. SCIENTIFIC BOARD Marco BELLANO, Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padova (Italy); JeanMarie BOUISSOU, International Research Centre, European Training Programme Japan, Sciences Po CERI (France); Christian GALAN, Centre of Japanese Studies (CEJ), INALCO, Paris (France); Marcello GHILARDI, Department of Philosophy, University of Padova (Italy); Paolo LA MARCA, Department of Humanities, University of Catania (Italy); Pascal LEFÈVRE, LUCA School of Arts, Campus Sint-Lukas Brussels (Belgium); Boris LOPATINSKY, Centre de recherche en études philologiques, littéraires et textuelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium); Ewa MACHOTKA, Department of Asian, Middle.
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