Japanization: A few thoughts about Japan’s global influence

The contemporary world can be referred to as a global network. But what does “Globalization” actually mean? Indian film director Anmol Vellani holds that national values could never influence globalization. It is an economic phenomenon which maintains its own culture and ideology, a culture and lifestyle of consumerism. The project of globalization can only succeed in this certain way (cf. Vellani 2006: 15) and creates “unprecedented connectivity between people from different parts of the world (Vellani 2006: 16).”

One could argue that Japan is obviously influenced by the States. If you get one step closer you will observe that this may only be true to a certain degree. Many western trends have reached the Far East but the Japanese society was always able to incorporate these influences into their own styles and versions. Moreover Japanese exports are more important than imports in terms of national identity (cf. Holden 2006: 119) and local forms of food, music, films and other cultural elements are also cornerstones of Japan’s inside-out globalization (Allen/Sakamoto 2006: 2).

(Using American-Halloween as another Japanese-Cosplay occassion. Here you can see the One Piece crew.)

Every educated human being should be familiar with the term “Americanization”, but have you ever heard of “Japanization”? It is only fair to use this term for a country which is still an economic leader. The impact may not be as obvious as the one from the US, but it exists. When I think of Japan, many brands come to my mind: Toyota, Nintendo, Sony, Hello Kitty, Panasonic, and, and, and. Also some Japanese acclaimed themselves outside of Japan such as the international esteemed directors Akira Kurosawa or Hayao Miyazaki. Maybe their names have little recognition value for a random audience but their art definitely has. Thanks to their success more and more Japanese movies are translated, synchronized and subtitled than vice versa. Recently several foreign representations of Japanese Culture in Non-Asian countries are thriving. Companies are buying and selling Japanese products (cf. Vellani 2006: 16). The imports and collaborations have been very successful especially in the popular culture segment (cf. Holden 2006: 117 and Allen/Sakamoto 2006: 1).

(Especially the tech. industry has a high national economic and also export value.)

I was able to observe a downright boom of Manga, Anime, Video Games and Cosplay in German speaking countries since many years now. To go a little bit more in detail: I was influenced by Japanese Pop-Culture before even knowing anything about Japan and before knowing what the term Pop-Culture means. Thanks to RTL II [i], Anime and Manga with Japanese origins [ii] became famous. Furthermore, the frequent audience informed themselves about the Program and its origins on the internet. Thousands of websites and fan pages dedicated to Anime and Manga were created; the German equivalent to the Japanese Otaku scene was born. The afternoon program is now its own channel-in-channel called Pokito TV, mainly airing Anime series. I observed a real wave of Otaku-development, because RTL II was seriously criticized from Anime-fans all over Europe for bad synchronization, inappropriate airtime, national editing in terms of child-welfare and rebroadcasting one season of an Anime again and again [iii].

Somehow these Anime had a big impression on me as a child. I learned from Japanese values, which are embedded in the Comics in a very simple way. In first place I could for example never understand why the main team in the series Kickers (jp.: Gambare! Kikkāzu) was unable to win. Even when they finally won, they celebrated their victory as if they just got the world champion trophy. After watching it over and over again I could understand that the plot wasn’t only based on the victory theme. It was about friendship, teamwork and passion, values which are certainly important in Japanese society. This now makes even more sense to me because the series is originally based on a Shōnen [iv]. Comics which are not only produced for entertainment but also for cathartic reception (Marci-Boehncke/Just 2006: 10). These values affect non Japanese viewers as well, nevertheless the real Japan remains dislocated; the main focus of these popular products is, as already mentioned, consumerism (cf. Allen/Sakamoto 2006: 1).

(Logo from Nippon Connection, the biggest Japanese Filmfestival in Europe.)

Info:

The Mega Manga Convention 2009 is starting today in Berlin.

Clip:

A Clip from a Pokito TV episode.

Recommended Readings:

Japan Must Shake Off U.S.-Style Globalization

Japan's influence on American life

About Anime Censorship on RTL II

Literature:

Allen, Matthew/Sakamoto, Rumi (2006): Introduction – Inside-out Japan? Popular culture and globalization in the context of Japan. In: Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto (Ed.): Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan.

Holden, T.J.M. (2006): “Sportsports” – Cultural exports and imports in Japan’s contemporary globalization career. In: Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto (Ed.): Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan.

Marci-Boehncke, Gudrun/Just, Dominik (2006): Höher, schneller und weiter – Mediale Leistungsideale am Beispiel japanischer Sport-Animes. Found on mediaculture.

Vellani, Anmol (2006): Speech about Globalization and Culture. In: Globalization and Asian Values. Asia Culture Forum Kyoto 2006 Report.

Endnotes:

[i] RTL II is a private German TV-channel and part of the RTL-Group
[ii] The first aired Anime shows in German-speaking television were based on European literature like Heidi, Maja or Pinocchio
[iii] The persons in charge had severe problems with getting the full sending authorization. For example Dragonball, even though one of the most successful Anime in Europe, suffered from unrealistic plot twists caused from fictive translation and some episodes of Dragonball GT have never been broadcasted
[iv] Manga which are produced for adolescent boys

Sports and Recreation in Japan

Japan is one of those countries which have created their own sports and also their own variations of Martial Arts. Kendo, Judo, Karate, Kyudo and of course Sumo are still associated with Japan. Besides these original disciplines the nation has recreated popular sports from the States and Europe, which also became quite popular. What do I mean by recreate? Baseball for example became the most watched and most played sport all over the four islands. But you can’t compare the Japanese style with its American origins. As most “borrowed” sports Baseball just seems to be the same game, but in fact it got modified with Japanese values, -customs and -spirituality (Kelly 1998: 96). In my opinion this is exactly the reason why Baseball became so popular. It’s not about the game itself, it’s about the team, its supporters and its unique fan-culture. Hence big parts of this society are apparently somehow affiliated to at least one sport.

(Japanese High School Baseball, picture borrowed from japannewbie.com)

Discipline and loyalty mainly are part of Japanese society, part of the Japanese working spirit and also part of Japanese sport- and club activities. But how is this possible in a country that has one of the highest average concerning annual working hours per year? Within the Japanese working environment free time (offside the working place) is still uncommon, that’s why for most employees occupation is not only part of their life, it is their life; the life of the so called “corporate warriors” (Gratton & Taylor 2000: 40f). I have observed that people are able to combine their sport-passion with their employment. Big companies have their own facilities for leisure and sports. In many cases they also have clubs and teams. These observations are verifying the notion that sport is iconic of national character (Kelly 1998: 95). However, the government certainly isn’t uninvolved in this development. The government’s strategy is to support economic development with the hosting of big sport events like Olympic Games, Koshien or Ekiden Kyoso. Barry Houlihan explains that these are “opportunities to project images of modern technological and organizationally sophisticated societies and economies (Houlihan 2000: 217).”

(Part of the future Olympic City: Tokyo 2016)

The information above may still not give you an image of how different teams and clubs approach their disciplines in comparison to your own club experiences. Therefore I want to share some “case study observations” with you. Of course this is only my perspective compared with the sport customs in my hometown: I play table tennis since many years now. Some decades ago table tennis was one of the most popular sports in Japan. Recently it also got a boom in the amateur sector. I was very curious about practicing in an Asian country together with the inhabitants, because I had already read about their daily practice routines before. However, since I joined the club of Kansai Gaidai, there are still some aces which I didn’t expect to discover. I was really surprised when I asked the club leader Hitomi, if they play any competitions. Besides some exhibition tournaments together with other universities of this prefecture, they don’t train for competition. I couldn’t believe that such skillful players just practice for fun on such a high level. This would be impossible in my home country. Strictly speaking it is the other way around. We have no circles or clubs who just meet for sharing their table tennis passion. Almost every club is registered in the national table tennis association and since I remember I only train to be able to compete with the other players in my region. The game comes first and then comes the team. The Kansai Gaidai club (as probably most others do) turns it upside down. That is what fascinates me about Japanese clubs. The team members are also good friends outside of the club and they take practice- and training customs very serious.

(Kansai Gaidai Table Tennis Club)

References:

Gratton, Chris/Taylor, Peter (2000): Economics of sport and recreation

Houlihan, Barrie (2000): Politics and Sport. In: J. Coakley & E. Dunning (Ed.): Handbook of sports studies

Kelly, William W. (1998): Blood and Guts in Japanese Professional Baseball. In: Linhart & Frühstück (Ed.): The Culture of Japan as seen through its Leisure

Recommended Site:

Recreation & Sports JGuide

Recommended Reading:

Japanese Baseball

A little insight into the Japanese video game industry

Two weeks ago I visited the Tokyo Game Show, one of the three biggest video game exhibitions in the world. During this annual occasion all well known publishers and production companies present their new games and developments to the public. When I first heard of TGS as a child I never expected to attend it one day. Maybe this was the issue for my planed observation: I’m influenced by my own experiences. Besides not frequently playing video games any more, I had too great of expectations for the exhibition. In a few sentences I will attempt to explain what all this fuss was about.

The exhibition is separated into two parts: the “business days” and the “open to the public days”. Of course I participated only in one of the public days. My first thought upon entering the main hall was: how the hell will I possibly get out of here again. The booths were more than crowded. There were thousands of people waiting in lines for up to 3-4 hours just to play one game for about 5 minutes. The obscurity in this case is: the gates did not open until 10:00 am and closed at 5:00 pm. For me, just observing the visitors and this special field of pop culture the period was more than enough. But what about the visitors who waited all this time just to get a glimpse at one game, which may be for sale within the next few months? As far as I could tell, more than a half of the attendees could be referred to as Otakus [i]. I even observed people who came only to take pictures of or with the booth girls, or to show off their cosplay [ii] skills. Maybe the business days would have suited my expectations more. Actually, there were some auctions selling tickets on eBay. The advantage would have been: you don’t have to wait in the lines and you are allowed to poke the booth babes in the shoulder or forehead… Hah, that’s an experience for around 10,000 yen more, isn’t it?

(A visitor with one of the booth babes)

(Three cosplayers)

However, these are basic and very personal impressions. Cosplay, booth babes and Otakus can be usually found at most of the gaming exhibitions. There is one aspect of the TGS which is not common in western countries, but is a very profitable sector in Japan: Video Game Music. I want to go into a bit more depth about this topic. In Japan VGM developed itself as its own genre with a huge fan base. On the market you will find soundtracks, remix-CDs, live orchestral performances (many nameable symphony orchestras around the world are dedicating some or even entire concerts to video game themes), sheet music for fans to play along, etc. On You Tube, for example, we can observe that VGM is not only directly linked to the video game industry anymore, but also maintains its own fascination. Give it a try by typing “Video Game Music” in the search field of your browser page. You will get countless hits of fans playing their favorite songs or just sharing the originals. What makes this comparatively new genre so special? I think its diversification. Because of the rapid hardware developments in the gaming industry the music had to match these ever changing standards. In fact we can reminisce of almost 30 years of video game music from 8-Bit sounds to prerecorded and digitally mastered orchestra scores. Nowadays, retro sounds are just as famous as special symphonic arrangements, because the time-difference just between the birth of the genre and now only sounds large. This is what makes Japan, the mother of the most successful gaming company on earth, the best place for such a trend. Many age groups and tastes are addressed. But what exactly made VGM so popular around the world? I think it simply reminds gamers of the feelings they have encountered while playing. In a sense it’s not only nostalgic. If you still frequently play games or have in the past, you can tell that a game wouldn’t feel complete without a proper soundtrack. Gaming is an interactive process and so is the music inside the game. The strength lies in its ability to convey meanings that are incommunicable via words (iii) Even the famous video game composer Tommy Tallarico reflects about VGM as an active experience and I think he is probably right, when he says:

"It's for this reason that I've always said that if Beethoven were alive today, he'd be a video game composer." [iv]

(Masses waiting in front of the Square Enix Music store)

Endnotes

[i] Volker Grassmuck defines "Otaku" as a shy and solitary person, who mono-manically tries to master his field of interest at any cost.

[ii] Shortcut for "Costume Play"

[iii] cf.: Vorderer, Peter/Bryant Jennings (2006): Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences, p. 244.

[iv] The Evolution of Video Game Music