Japan's Pop Culture

Anime was created by Japan, in the year 1917, which introduced a new, entertaining and exciting commodity for the Japanese community to experience and witness. Japan had finally experienced its very own cartoons, which would indulge the Japanese culture that every Japanese citizen is proud of and admires. However, the early years of Anime wasn't its most successful, in fact it was by far its worst. Anime could not keep up with the Western cartoons, to the extent that even the Japanese would prefer Western cartoons over Anime. This proposed a tremendous problem for Anime industries, and action needed to be taken for Anime to be on the map. The industry was facing competition from legendary shows such as Batman, Superman, and Disney's very own Mickey Mouse. The hype and passion around those Western shows was so extreme to the extent that no one can compete. But, if you can't beat them, join them. Anime started incorporating those Western features into their very own animations, the characteristics, the plot, the landscape, and the animation, basically everything that helped, was taken and mixed within the old and unwanted Japanese Animations. This caused the massive explosion of Anime popularity in the late 1960's, as Anime no longer only represented a culture that the Japanese already know, and the West aren't interested in, but has now introduced a new era of ingenuity and brilliance. So what caused Anime to change over the years, and suddenly blossom in the 1960's? How

Ethan Watters and Michael Moss express two separate pieces of literary works that display different scenarios, but express the same message. Watters sets forth a phenomenon in which an entire culture is modified for the better of industry in Japan. With this circumstance, Watters argues that the ‘total environment’ in which a demographic is set can be altered by the influence of outside sources. Moss relates a similar example, where a certain group is marketed to, and as a result, this group’s relationship with the product drastically increases. There are many differences in the two works, but both researches contain many similarities; marketing techniques, ethical views, etcetera. The main thing that is most common in both texts is type

Many Asian Americans were painted as evil villains or downright dangerous in the early 20th century (1900-1940s). Often they were stereotyped as "inscrutable" and often speaking in the broken English. During early 1900's, there were abudance of vicious images of Japanese being shown as forward and buck-toothed popped up in the media. The infamous journalist, Wallace Irwin, made mockery out of Japanese by publishing "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy". He produced various of anti-Japanese stereotypes such as switching letters "L" with "R" and continuing mocking them with broken English speech "Engrish". The White leaders spoke against the Japanese Americans regarding their alleged immorality, even they liken them to the ape-like imagery just like

Yasumasa Morimura was born in Osaka, Japan 1951; before the end of the American Occupation and during the Korean War. It was at this time in Japan that society had become increasingly modernized and influenced by western culture. Subsequently, the foreign influence of Japan’s culture affected their culture, politics and education. With a westernized curriculum, much of the education focused on occident values, ideas, and art. Despite Japan’s rich history, much of the art history that was taught had originated from western culture.

The Japanese are a very creative culture which have produced several fantastic science fiction movies such as Gojira, which was an allegory for the use of atomic bombs in war to the animated cartoons, known as anime in America, like Space Battleship Yamato which portrayed the story of all the nations of the planet Earth joining forces to defeat an alien invasion. Yamato and other anime like Mach-A-Go-Go had female characters in the shows that were both allies and sometimes love interest to the main characters, but still were depicted as strong female role models and were drawn with normal features and body types. However, as time has passed, women in anime have been more and more sexualized and this has had an effect on how young people look at Japanese culture and women in particular. In this paper, the effects of this practice will be observed.

Instead of Ehrlich’s cowboys with stereotypes and reality, there is another group of people familiar with cowboys, which is mistaken understanding as cowboys in the article- otaku. What is otaku? This word comes from Japan because it showed up in a Japanese anime and a Japanese magazine at first time.

This paper provided an opportunity to take a deeper look into the country of Japan by conducting a Global Cultural Analysis. Throughout this paper the following four research areas were explored: 1.What is the major elements and dimensions of culture in Japan? 2. How are these elements and dimensions integrated by locals conducting business in Japan? 3. How does U.S. culture and business compare with the elements and dimensions of culture integrated by the locals conducting business in Japan? 4. What are the implications for U.S. businesses that wish to conduct business with Japan?

             Japan, that strange and exotic land in the east, has a complex and interesting history that has shaped and molded its culture into a very unique society today.  Of course their customs have influenced their entertainment, especially television and movies.  In a day and age where information is free to all through the internet and reliable postal systems these television shows, movies, toys, and comics have made their way all over the world.  The reception of

As Japanese economy soared, its media products such as manga, TV shows, movies and music spread out across Asia. Especially, the young people in Asia began to embrace Japanese culture rather than the culture from the most dominant culture exporter- the United State, and this phenomenon was analyzed by Koichi Iwabuchi in his Feel Asian Modernities. His account of this intra-regionalization in Asia is cultural proximity that Japanese culture shares intimate similarities with other Asian countries and appeal to the audience to perceive this cultural flow.[ Iwabuchi, K(2004), Introduction: Cultural globalization and Asian media connections. Feeling Asian Modernities, pp 12.] In this way, American

When people think about Japanese culture the word collectivist comes to mind. This means that the Japanese usually place the need of others or a group ahead of what the individual wants. This differs from the American perspective. Americans tend to lean more to individualism, valuing and rewarding individual accomplishments and viewing what the individual wants as more important than what the group needs. In the minds of the Japanese, any behavior that makes a person stick out from the crowd is bad and is discouraged unlike Americans who encourage people to stand out and be different. So the question becomes; if collectivism is the norm and is expected, why are many writers writing about characters that seem to more of individualists? Another question that can be posed is; is there a correlation between the happiness of a character’s life and how much of a collectivist or individualist the character is? Two questions that will hopefully be answered.

This seminar took place in the Hall center and it was generally about the gay boom in Japan. The speaker Sho Ogawa talked about the 1991 Gay Renaissance” issue of a popular Japanese women’s magazine “Crea” which brought about a great rise in the representation of gay men in the japanese media phenomenon which is known as the “gay boom.” This boom affected how the Japanese media, in an amazing rush of films, nonfiction and fiction books, manga (Japanese comics), and television programs spreads information about gay male’s way of life and sexuality to hetrosexual consumers.

Many directors use their films as a means of glorifying, criticizing, or simply depicting, a particular ideological system. These ideologies are especially visible in foreign films, as the viewer is forced to assess the film from outside his or her culture and ideology, and consider the film in its proper context. Director Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese film Seven Samurai allows the viewer to understand several important aspects of Japanese culture and ideology. First, the film depicts the Japanese social class structure and its acceptance by the masses. Seven Samurai also reveals the pride of the Japanese, as well as the utilitarian, collectivist nature of their society.

For those believing that this means revering the otaku lifestyle as the next evolutionary line of Japanese society, a clarification may be need. An otaku, as westerners may have heard its usage, is a person who spend most of their time at home remaining socially inactive in favor of interacting with pop culture like anime, manga, video games and collectibles. The stereotype is very similar to the American comic book or figurine collector. Unlike its American counterpart who is defined by what they collect or play, an otaku is more of an umbrella term for all people who are uncongenially reclusive. Otaku’s original meaning that is still used in different contexts is an honorific term for someone else’s home. Thus, otaku in the derogatory

Japanese popular music and Japanese popular culture is heavily influenced by Western culture through similar characteristics such as instruments, rhythm, style, and language. When listening to J-pop songs, most people tend to think that they might have heard these songs before despite ever listening to those songs. This familiarity is due to the fact that J-pop songs derive from many aspects of the Western music style. The individuality could come from the arrangement of songs, voice of singers, differences in language, or some combination of the three. All J-pop songs have a common characteristic of individuality and familiarity signifying that they are similar to existing music, but these characteristics are also dissimilar in any ways. J-Pop is a genre that is both a unique yet familiar genre of music that many people of different cultures can enjoy.

I’m standing in line at the OMSI empirical theatre with my sister and friend, I looked down at the ticket in my hands, and I got a surge of excitement throughout my body. I knew I was going to see one of the best movies in my entire life. I knew that everyone in that line was going to as well; reason being it was a Hayao Miyazaki movie, the founder of Studio Ghibli- one of Japan’s biggest franchise. I could say I have never been acquainted with a soul who thought negatively towards these movies created by Hayao Miyazaki. He is a very thought-provoking being, someone who can make you inspired and passionate towards living and breathing. Not to mention each one of his key characters is a woman filled with independence and integrity, which so often is not, emphasized enough. Correspondingly, I looked down at my ticket a hundred times or more, the movie I was seeing was ‘Porco Rosso’. The title may seem very strange in a sense, but this movie was a piece of art, so much so, when it ended I had tears streaming down my cheeks and I walked crying out the theatre. That is how much it moved me, but this isn’t the only exclusive anime saga that has made me cried before, my sister being included in this culture as much as I am, together we watched ‘Blood +’ an anime romance. The end of that I’m sure I went through twenty boxes of tissues. Genuinely, it felt good to feel this kind of emotion- nonetheless; this kind of culture has made millions of people like me feel empathetic towards