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Shibuya Station, Tokyo: Every day, dusk gives
way to a riot of color lighting up whole façades of high-rise
buildings filled with department stores, funky boutiques, hair
salons, noodle shops, theme-dècor bars, and restaurants.
School kids, young adults, and plain-suited "salary men" (office
workers) spill out of trains and buses, meet up with friends and
fan out into the urban playground of the Japanese capital. For
sheer urban energy, there is nothing like Shibuya anywhere in the
world.
New York's Times Square is a mere Christmas-tree bulb compared
with the cascades of neon and gigantic video screens that illuminate
this and other dynamic sections of Tokyo. Among them: Shinjuku,
with the endless enticements of its nighttime entertainment district,
and Roppongi, with its chic shops and legions of trend-chasing
fashionistas. Hot zones like these, as well as scores of stores,
galleries, and gathering spots spread out around the city, define
the cutting edge of an ultra-hip Japan whose outpouring of unique
pop-culture products--manga (comic books), anime (animated cartoons),
Mujirushi Ryohin design products, outrageous street fashions--are
being scooped up by enthusiastic admirers around the world.
Back after more than a decade of recession that hit when its fabled
bubble economy burst at the start of the 1990s, Japan Inc. has
revamped some of the monolithic corporations that have long been
the bulwarks of its capitalist system. Sony, Mitsubishi, Nissan,
Toyota, and instant-soup makers Nissin and Maruchan have ridden
the wave of globalization with remarkable success in an era of
multinational marketing. Even so, many Japanese brands had gone
global with determination and skill long before globalization had
a name.
Today, though, in a development the architects of Japan's post-World
War II "economic miracle" probably never could have imagined,
this export-dependent home of the world's second-largest economy
has become known to a new generation of overseas consumers not
so much for durable goods such as automobiles and electric appliances,
but rather, like Hollywood, for its "soft" offerings:
video games, Hello Kitty trinkets, Pokèmon figurines, Yu-Gi-Oh!
trading cards, and more. To their admirers, these products are
irresistible, each an instant collector's item. For Japan's economy,
they have become vitally important exports.
Sanrio Company Ltd., for example, sells nearly $1 billion worth
of Hello Kitty and other cute-character fancy goods each year;
15 percent of its profits are generated outside Japan. Excitement
about Japanese pop-culture products--or "J-pop," as they
are collectively known--can become a mania. In July, more than
40,000 fans turned out for the fifteenth annual Anime Expo, in
Anaheim, California, sponsored by the Society for the Promotion
of Japanese Animation, a nonprofit organization based there. Many
showed up dressed as their favorite manga or anime characters;
among the trade fair's diverse offerings: a seminar about collectible,
ball-jointed, anime-inspired figurines and a beginners' workshop
called "J-pop Culture 101."
Historically, for American consumers, the encounter with Japanese
pop-culture products as we know them dates back to the post-World
War II era. A major pop icon of those times whose fame crossed
the Pacific was Gojira ("Godzilla" in the American market),
the dinosaur-like monster with atomic powers who, as the story
goes, was awakened from its prehistoric hibernation by U.S. nuclear
testing in the South Pacific after the war. The giant creature
made its debut in a 1954 Japanese feature film in which it laid
waste to Tokyo. Gojira later appeared on American screens in adapted
movie versions that dazzled--and terrified--theater-goers with
innovative special effects. For Japanese viewers, though, the beast's
rampaging image provided an eerie catharsis; in the immediate postwar
era, they related the on-screen havoc to the devastation their
country had recently suffered, culminating in the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Duke cultural-anthropology professor Anne Allison, who has examined
the historical conditions in which certain J-pop merchandise has
developed over the last half-century, has pointed out that the
Gojira story and films were "conjured out of historical events
that were deeply real and painfully remembered" in Japan after
the war. In her new book, Millennial Monsters:
Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (University of California Press), she revisits
the World War II era to begin tracking the evolution of a variety
of Japanese-made playthings and entertainment figures, their links
to movies and mass media, and the marketing plans their creators
formulated for them.
Citing the rich sense of fantasy and mythmaking that were essential
elements of Gojira/Godzilla as a character, a story, and a movie
franchise in Japan and the U.S., Allison looks back at that not-so-adorable
monster and also at Japanese-created entertainments such as Go
Rangers, the 1970s children's television series that later became
popular as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in foreign markets. The
Power Rangers were a team of ordinary teenage boys and girls who
became extraordinary cyberwarriors with notable spiritual qualities.
For its time, Allison explains, the process of personal transformation
the Power Rangers represented was something fresh in children's
TV fare. For young viewers--who went on to consume a multitude
of toys that were marketed in conjunction with the series--the
Power Rangers' heroism was "not only more collective" (a
decidedly Japanese social trait), "but also ... more democratic," Allison
notes. With these newfangled characters, she adds, the empowerment
of superheroes became "open to everyone, even women."
Uniquely Japanese-flavored fantasy could also be seen in Neon
Genesis Evangelion, a 1995-96 TV series that spawned several films. Evangelion creator-producer Hideaki Anno's emotionally complex tales concerned
the saving of a future Tokyo from deadly monsters by biomechanical
superheroes. Thanks, in part, to the buzz J-pop fans generated
on the Internet, Evangelion found a foreign audience much more
quickly than Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Now, with the success
of such entertainment products outside their home market, Allison
writes, the "production of kids' culture" is moving away
from its long-standing, main-source market and culture, namely
those of the United States. In effect, this production trend already
has "decentered" and "recentered" the international
market for such entertainment material.
Is there, as Allison points out, a uniquely Japanese aesthetic,
mixed with some kind of "mass mythmaking," that somehow
manages to captivate audiences "with an emotional power that
registers as 'true' while still remaining a fantasy"? If so,
it certainly was evident during the Tamagotchi "virtual pets" fad
of the late 1990s. Shaped like an egg, Tamagotchi was an electronic
gizmo that quickly became popular with children and young working
women. Designed to fit in a user's hand, the device had a little
screen and buttons that allowed an owner to "feed" or "play" with
it, as though it were a living organism. Tamagotchi's owners could
watch their "pets" develop into different characters
during their "lifetimes," as long as they gave them plenty
of attention, like good parents.
Similarly, the use of many products--clothes, cars, fragrances,
fast food--allows consumers to derive or project a sense of personal
identity. However, Japan's most enticing pop-culture creations
today not only allow consumers to imbue them with their own emotion,
but also to feel themselves part of the "stories" these
products may suggest or explicitly express.
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