Japan’s Popular Culture: participation and consumptionThe basis of participation
Mass consumption versus individual expression
Mediums of homogenization
Alternative culture
Japan’s Popular Culture: participation and consumption
The basis of participation
Mass consumption versus individual expression
Mediums of homogenization
Alternative culture
Bounce Ko Gals What forms of individual expression do you see?
How would you categorize them in terms of participation and consumption?
What groups do you see?
How are they structured and what rules do they have?
Any sign of alternative cultures or sub-cultures?
What is this director saying about Japanese society?
Japan’s Popular Culture: participation and consumption Consider the capacity for individual expression within a mass culture society.
Japan’s Popular Culture participation and consumption
The Basis of Participation
Shumi (tastes or hobbies)
Appreciation
Practice
Traditional & modern education systems
Mass consumption versus individual expression
From labor saving machines to consumption as expression
The burdens of reciprocity
Time pressures of modern life
Emptiness of economic struggle
Escape to Manga, Pachinko, Karaoke
Top Ten Leisure Activities in Japan (Uso!)
Centralized mediums of homogenization
Education
Television
Newspapers and other publications
Industrialization of the arts
National organization in general
Hamasaki Ayumi
Empress of J-Pop
Alternative culture
Otaku, Lolitas, and other manga children
Street fashion, theatre, music
Environmental groups and communities
Political activism
Homosexual and bisexual communities
Deviant groups
New religions
21st Century Alternatives
Freeters: 15 to 34; part-time or temporary employment; live as parasite singles with parents; difficult to start a family and career later in life; moratorium, dream-pursuing, and no alternative types; approx. 2 million.
NEETS: “NOT currently engaged in EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION or TRAINING,” dropped out the work force and with little desire to join; 850,000.
Otaku: obsessive fans, usually male, preoccupied with manga, anime and computer games; subculture, shunning mass-market anime films or commercially successful characters, but great influence on mass culture; fan service, dating simulation, role playing; 1.7 million.
Hikikomori: young men who isolates themselves from society and family in a single room for at period exceeding six months to decades; live in fantasy world of manga, anime, and computer games; reasons—social pressure to conform, lack of own tatemae and honne, affluence, amae between mother and son, recession, education system; 50,000 to 1 million.
Coplay: dressing as characters from manga, anime, and video games; also television shows, movies, or Jpop music bands.
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