Japanese Cultural Products Research Articles

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

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.

HISTORY OF JAPAN'S USE OF SOFT POWER TO ACHIEVE NATIONAL INTERESTS: LESSONS FOR UKRAINE

This article focuses on the phenomenon of soft power in the context of Japan. It examines the historical development of the country's soft power, the institutions and initiatives that ensure it, and the challenges that have been shaped in different historical periods. Given that today Japan is a country with one of the most effectively developed mechanisms of cultural diplomacy, it can serve as an example for states seeking to develop their own soft power institutions and fields. In particular, the author describes the relationship between Japanese soft power and the economy in its various sectors, and explains the phenomenon of the popularity of Japanese cultural products abroad. Various international rankings are used to analyse these phenomena. The research methods used include description, synthesis, generalisation, and comparison. The author also analyses the history and historical and foreign policy factors that influenced the development of Japan's soft power. Accordingly, the author describes how Japan has managed to overcome historical and geographical challenges in building soft power and how it protects its national interests. From this analysis, the author also derives recommendations for Ukraine in building its own soft power, having described and characterised its current state. Accordingly, it was found that the success factor for Japanese soft power was economic development, which allowed for the rapid expansion of various industries from gastronomy and sports to music and literature. But the most attractive thing about the Japanese cultural product is its modernity and compliance with trends, as well as the wide choice that attracts many people. In addition, Japan has made efforts to become a leader in unique policy areas such as the environment or know-how.

日本文创产品设计发展与设计策略研究

日本文创产品设计发展与设计策略研究

Reflections on the melodramatic cultural matrix in anime

The article exposes a theoretical research on Cultural Studies and Reception Studies to, later, associate it with the research themes. Supported by theories, it’s observed the relationship between production and reception in a circular way, which incites questions about identities, hybridity, globalization, resignification, interaction, mediations and cultural matrices. With the exercise, it’s perceived that the use of melodramatic narrative strategies in productions such as the anime helps the dramatic construction and raises reflections on its transnational capacity, in such a way that melodrama can be understood as a transcultural matrix, as it crosses cultures, softens borders and contributes to the access and popularity of Japanese cultural products.

Localising Japanese Popular Culture in the Philippines：Transformative Translations of Japan’s Cultural Industry

Japan’s Cool Japan Initiative has aimed to tap Japan’s cultural industry to boost the country’s soft power all over the globe. In Southeast Asia, Cool Japan has its merits in countries such as Thailand and Singapore where Japanese cultural products, ranging from restaurants to television shows, have become easily accessible. Borrowing from Koichi Iwabuchi, Cool Japan provides opportunities for the country to present their “cultural odour.” That said, when the government is no longer in control of different cultural products, this ‘cultural odour’ takes a different shape. As a country that has not been central to Cool Japan initiatives, the Philippines presents an interesting case of localisations that negotiate Japanese cultural products in the Philippines. Focusing on observations of Japan’s contents industry, particularly access to anime and manga, this paper highlights how local consumers have made efforts to transform the ‘cultural odour’ of these Japanese products. This paper focuses on digital outputs such as social media fan works and dōjinshi of popular anime shows that bravely challenge the meanings of these Japanese cultural products. I argue that these localisations present critical transformations of Japanese popular culture which has led to knowledge from deviates from normative notions of Japan.

Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema

Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema

Mathematics learning in elementary school that integrates with nation’s culture and integrity: a research trip in Japan

Japan is a country that respects the Nation’s Culture and has Integrity that can be emulated. The problem was: What was the role of Elementary School teachers in increasing of Nation’s Culture and Integrity of their students through mathematics learning? The research method was a qualitative approach. Stages of activities: (1) Guided by a Partner Lecturer from IDEC of Hiroshima University, the UNNES research team conducted a class visit to the Elementary School (ES) in Hiroshima, namely Attached ES of Hiroshima. (2) Conducting observations, interviews, documentation studies, and FGD with the Elementary School teachers, IDEC students, and Partner Lecturer. The results: (1) Teachers and students have a high sense of Integrity in learning. (2) The teacher plays a role in preserving the cultural values of the Japanese nation. (3) Provision of mathematical problems associated with ethnomatematics and Japanese cultural products. Additional results: (1) In Japan applying the Problem Based Learning of learning model. (2) Teachers and students were very polite in getting along. (3) The condition of the school looks clean, healthy, and orderly.

Creative Misreadings of “Thai BL” by a Filipino Fan Community: Dislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms Through Aspirational Consumption

Creative Misreadings of "Thai BL" by a Filipino Fan CommunityDislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms Through Aspirational Consumption Thomas Baudinette (bio) While browsing the internet one night in late December 2014, I encountered a Thai television soap opera, or lakhon, named Lovesick: The Series. As a scholar of Japanese queer popular culture who investigates boys love (hereafter BL), a genre of homoerotic media produced and consumed primarily by heterosexual women,1 I quickly recognized that Lovesick conformed to the generic tropes associated with classic Japanese BL texts.2 Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had serendipitously stumbled upon an emerging genre of popular culture known in Thailand as "series wai."3 But in 2015, as I scoured the internet to learn more about this intriguing series, I came across English-language fan spaces on Facebook where Lovesick was being discussed as representative of a phenomenon that fans called "Thai BL."4 Curious, I began to observe these English-language fansites for "Thai BL" and determined that the majority of the people participating in the space were young Filipino men and women and that most sites were curated and administrated by Filipino men who identified as gay. In fact, the Philippines has emerged as an important space for fandom of so-called Thai BL, a point recently recognized by Philippine media.5 As I observed such fan sites over several years, it became increasingly apparent that the Filipino men and women participating in this fandom viewed BL as fundamentally Thai and that they actively attempted to differentiate it from what they called "Japanese yaoi."6 For these fans, BL was positioned as a form of Thai popular culture and was therefore understood to be categorically not Japanese. Previous work exploring the transnational circulation of BL has tended to advance theory which firmly centers Japan within its analysis, exploring how "culturally Japanese" products such as BL are adapted or "glocalized" to new contexts.7 Many of these studies draw upon Koichi Iwabuchi's seminal exploration of the transnational circulation of Japanese popular culture throughout East and Southeast Asia in the late 1990s.8 Iwabuchi develops a sophisticated [End Page 101] framework for understanding how the "cultural odor" of a product—that is, a product's recognizability and desirability based in its embeddedness or centering within a specific cultural context—plays an influential role in its reception. Iwabuchi further contends that the Japanese government has played an active role in bolstering the Japanese "cultural odor" of certain popular culture products such as anime and manga by essentializing what he terms Japan's "national brand."9 Throughout his scholarship, Iwabuchi calls upon scholars to "re-center" Japan within processes of globalization and to draw upon this re-centering of Japan as a space for critical reflection on the politics of transnational cultural flow. In so doing, Iwabuchi suggests, scholars can account for the influence of national producers on the reception of Japanese cultural products outside Japan.10 Iwabuchi's theories of transnational flow are useful in understanding the processes of adaption when a Japanese cultural product such as BL leaves Japan and enters a new national space. But Iwabuchi's theories become less useful for understanding how a glocalized product further transnationalizes and potentially develops new meanings and associations through this process. Iwabuchi's insistence on "centering" analysis on the point of production (i.e., Japan) thus fails to account for situations when the so-called cultural odor of Japan is diminished or even extinguished. Furthermore, Iwabuchi's emphasis on critical reflection based in "centering" analysis on Japan may lead one to conclude that consumers who fail to recognize the "Japaneseness" of a cultural product such as BL are somehow "mistaken." While I am broadly sympathetic to Iwabuchi's scholarly project, I am concerned by his criticisms of fans whose reading practices are positioned as "misunderstanding" Japan's role in the production of the texts that they consume. Like Bertha Chin and Lori Morimoto, I am also troubled by Iwabuchi's conflation of nation and culture and his lack of engagement with the intensely affective nature of fannish consumption.11 Taking inspiration from Eve Sedgwick's call to read data through...

Dragon Ball: Body control and epic excess in manga and anime

Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball mixes the sports manga codes with references to kung fu and action movies of the 1980s and 1990s, playfully appropriating them in order to build a Bildungsroman whose epic emphasis and dynamic layout underline body discipline. The animated version of the manga tends to emphasize the effects of the return of topoi and amplifies the duration of pivotal events. The transnational reception of this fiction generates misconception and re-appropriation. The physical suffering accentuating heroic determination was perceived negatively by some of the public, who expressed concern about the influence of Japanese cultural products on youth. The Japanese hero may also have served as an alternative model in the construction of a subaltern masculinity.

Emergent Processes of Language Acquisition: Japanese Language Learning and the Consumption of Japanese Cultural Products in Thailand

Motivation for learning a second language varies among individuals: some people enjoy the process of learning languages, while others learn a second language for practical reasons. Previous fieldwork research in Thailand has shown that many consumers of Japanese cultural products are also learners of the Japanese language. This suggests that Japanese cultural products motivate consumers to start studying Japanese and to continue learning it. In this study, two hypotheses will be posed in order to reveal the relationship between the consumption of Japanese cultural products and Japanese language learning: (1) exposure to Japanese cultural products induces Japanese language learning, and (2) Japanese language learning induces the consumption of other Japanese cultural products. Through questionnaire research conducted on university students in Thailand and through ethnographic data, this study attempts to examine the hypotheses and to demonstrate a continuous cycle model of Japanese language learning and the consumption of Japanese cultural products.

Consanguinity as capital in rights assertions: Japanese-Filipino children in the Philippines

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the material dimensions of ethnic identity claims by Japanese-Filipino children in the Philippines and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating on their behalf. Most Japanese-Filipino clients of NGOs in the Philippines were raised by their Filipino families with little knowledge of their Japanese fathers and little or no lived experience of Japan. Although these children and young adults are often called “multi-cultural” by NGO workers, they frequently grow up with no connection to Japan other than an awareness of their Japanese parentage and Japanese cultural products equally accessible to most Filipinos. I argue that filiation can be leveraged to gain access to resources not only through the legal implications that are provided by biological relationships, but also through symbolically salient claims for belonging to a nation or people by virtue of descent. This consanguineal capital should primarily be understood in politically symbolic terms, mobilized in processes of claims-making and based on notions of “blood” and belonging and their frequent conflation with ethnicity.

PERCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN'S PERSPECTIVES ON JAPANESE SUPERHEROES: A STUDY ON THE WAYS CHILDREN IN SINGAPORE APPROPRIATE MEDIA CULTURES RELATED TO JAPAN

INTRODUCTION:In this new digital media age, children face significant new opportunities of encountering different cultures. Engagement with global media texts and artefacts not only involves a complex intersection of visual images and information, ideas and narratives across an array of multimodal formats, but also offers opportunities for children to be creative and knowledge producers. In other words, children are not merely consumers of media texts; they are actively engaged in a range of activities - fantasies, make believe play, drawing, writing and other forms of meaning-making - reflecting, incorporating and commenting on these media texts. Some of these activities involve the purchase of particular media products - for example branded toys or games - others such as role-play, drawing or storytelling. Children as storytellers, players and artists draw upon familiar elements from media narratives to create their own meanings.The world of Japan is one that attracts them and they are exposed to Japanese initiatives through superheroes to face the challenges posed by this new mediated global environment. Japanese cultural products can shape not only how the child thinks about herself, but how she relates to others and the Japanese society at large. Interestingly, Japan has a segment of her popular culture devoted to fantastic stories about individuals or characters with superhuman powers. These stories tell of heroes with strengths that children may identify with in the hope becoming as successful as these characters. It then becomes imperative to understand how these heroes play an important role in shaping children's media cultures. To understand this phenomenon, a study was designed to provide evidence-based insights to inform current understanding on children's media cultures in Malaysia and Singapore with regard to favourite and influential Japanese superheroes. This study gave insights on the ways Japanese Superheroes were incorporated in their growth as young people.PROJECT FRAMEWORK AND DESIGN:This study addresses the various ways in which children engage with the Japanese superhero narrative that cross media boundaries - comic books (manga), animated television shows and films (anime), video games, toys and other design products (stickers, posters, accessories, stationery). The work of (Buckingham, 2008) and (Fox, 1993) are helpful in developing our understanding of how children use superhero stories to make sense of their world and how these stories develop skills that are key to their social-cultural development. Paley (1984) argues that young children construct stories based on superheroes in order to explore inner fantasies of control and empowerment over their environment. Media culture can further be a site for exploring some of the most powerful elements of our psyches (Kress, 2003), (Muramatsu, 2002) and the discourses of superheroes can be particularly appealing for young children who are constantly involved in exploring oppositional binaries of right and wrong, good and evil, male and female ( (Dyson, 1996); (Davies, 1997).The research works by (Clerkin, 2012), (Yamato, et al., 2011) and (Martin, 2007) highlight that other than ideological values and mythic elements, research on superhero narratives also reveal three main impacts on the children's media cultures:(i) Bringing children from different countries and cultural contexts together;(ii) Allowing superhero narratives and media practices to cross borders to children's other lifestyle interests in fashion, design, music and toys products;(iii) Enhancing intellectual and creative development, helping children in their learning, specifically as creators and meaning-makers in media literacy and skills development.The superhero genre in very broad terms can be seen as narratives, encompassing stories of action and adventure in which the main protagonist uses some form of supernatural power in order to overcome one or several antagonists. …

Destination image of Japan and social reform generation of China: role of consumer products

ABSTRACTThis study attempts to investigate the destination image of Japan perceived by Social Reform Generation of China and explore the role of Japanese consumer products in image formation. Through the analysis of textual data from in-depth interviews, present study identified three categories of cognitive image of Japan. They are Diversity of Offerings, Cultural Uniqueness and Advanced Infrastructure. The study proposed a framework that conceptualizes the role of consumer products in destination image formation. Japanese tangible and cultural consumer products have direct and induced impact on three components of destination image. Theoretical and practical contribution of the study is discussed based on the framework.

From Delocalization to Performances of Japaneseness

This paper examines several trends in Japanese and Japan-related popular music that coincide with the rise and decline of "Gross National Cool," Japan's recent period of heightened foreign consumption of Japanese cultural products. Using two case studies, the music of Utada Hikaru and of Puffy, I argue this period saw Japanese artists shift from attempts to "internationalize" their music to strategies of marked performance of Japaneseness. A third case study examines the role performances of Japaneseness played in the work of the popular American artist Gwen Stefani during this period. Her image at this time involved being constantly flanked by an entourage of her "Harajuku Girls," four women whose visible Asianness served for years to articulate Stefani to the image of Cool Japan. Together, these three case studies explore some of the ways performances of Japaneseness became a strategy for success in transnational popular music between 2000 and 2010.

Cultural Proximity and Reflexivity in Interpreting Transnational Media Texts: The Case of Malaysians Consuming Japanese Popular Culture

Television programs such as animation and drama series from Japan have become common transnational products in Malaysia. Since studies on Malaysians who consume Japanese popular culture are lacking even a decade after its substantial rise in popularity, this qualitative study was designed to explore the media consumption of Japanese popular culture in Malaysia. In this article I examined how Malaysians are interpreting their favorite media texts from Japan specifically revisiting the concepts of “cultural proximity” and “reflexivity” suggested in the other studies of Japanese popular culture and the audience. I conducted in-depth interviews with 12 participants who have been consuming various Japanese popular cultural products over the years, and thematically analyzed transcribed audio-recordings of the interviews. Individual proximity in the particular life stage was found in their favorite media texts, and that was a part of their pleasure in addition to enjoying encountering foreignness, which they did not find or accept in their real lives. Transnational media texts of Japanese popular culture are suggested to be potential materials to reflect upon and discuss the individual proximity in people, social issues, or phenomenon rather than essential “culture” which is often associated with national or ethnic origin.

Conversations about culture: How Korean and Japanese cultural products, practices and perspectives are discussed to co-construct cultural understanding in talk

Abstract When learning to speak another language, expressing complex ideas about one's culture and the target culture is an important aspect of communication. This study examines the co-construction of culture through the conversational actions of the participants. Utilizing the cultural triangle of the three Ps (product, practice and perspective) proposed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) for classroom learning (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, 2006), this study examines whether this framework is useful for uncovering cultural talk in natural settings among Korean speakers of Japanese and their interlocutors. Cultural talk in this study is identified by demonstrating where participants display orientations through their conversational actions to culture. The findings move beyond the classroom to see how the participants display cultural awareness in conversations about culture and how ACTFL's products, practices and perspectives are accomplished in talk.

A regional gateway: Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong, 1990–2005

In popular culture, Hong Kong is probably the most “Japanese city” outside Japan. It is home to a wide variety of Japanese popular cultural products and a regional base to many of the Japanese music and television companies who expanded their operations in the city in the early 1990s. Hong Kong's emerging middle class, especially the younger generation, has enthusiastically accepted Japanese contemporary culture and lifestyle, making the city one of the biggest destinations for Japan's cultural exports. Based on fieldwork surveys and interviews, this paper looks at the organizational aspect of popular culture during the heydays of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong in the 1990s and early 2000s. The investigation focuses on the marketing strategies and promotional efforts used by agents of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong and the role of popular culture piracy in this process. Beyond analyzing the Japanese case, the paper introduces a new framework to examine the transnational expansion of popular cultures across markets in East and Southeast Asia, highlighting the role of companies and promoters in this process.

“Meng? It Just Means Cute”: A Chinese Online Vernacular Term in Context

“Meng? It Just Means Cute”: A Chinese Online Vernacular Term in Context

The Cultural Context and Social Representation The Japanese Schoolgirl in British Popular Culture

As an embodiment of the shoujo, a specific Japanese representation of 'girl', the schoolgirl often appears as a central character in Japanese popular culture. With the import, and widespread availability, of Japanese cultural products in the West (such as comics called manga, animated movies called anime, toys and games), the Japanese schoolgirl has gained a visibility in Western popular culture, and perceived as cute and shy. In this paper, the way the Japanese schoolgirl is represented in British popular culture is examined, and contrasted with the representation in Japan. It is concluded that cultural context influences the representation and, in agreement with the work of Saito (1996), the British representation is simplistic and distorted in comparison to that in Japan.

Accumulating Japanese Popular Culture: Media Consumption Experiences of Malaysian Young Adults

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of media consumption of Japanese popular culture among Malaysian young adults. Such a study is important in order to understand the consequence of the consumption of foreign cultural products since the development of information and communication technology has brought changes to media entertainment consumption styles, especially among the younger generation. This article discusses the ‘accumulation’ of Japanese popular culture as part of media consumption experiences. Through the interpretation of some young Malaysians’ experiences, the accumulation was found to be an important part of media consumption in developing the young Malaysians’ mindset towards specific formats, genres or products from Japan despite the differences that exist between the lifestyles of the Japanese and the Malaysians. The paper highlights that the contents of Japanese popular cultural products are crucial. Without a sophisticated depiction of ‘an essential human aspect’ to which young Malaysians could relate, Japanese popular culture would not be well-liked.