'Cool Japan' - culture as a global export

While Bhutan has tried to measure progress through the concept of Gross National Happiness, Japan has been banking on its Gross National Cool index. Vaughan Yarwood takes a look at how Japan has gained in global cultural status despite a continued decline in its economic indicators.

For the past year three female ‘ambassadors of cute’ (kawaii taishi) have been doing the rounds internationally, parading Japanese pop culture everywhere from France to Brazil and from Spain to Thailand in an effort to win friends and influence people.

This new twist on cultural diplomacy was the invention of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which decided that the three young women, Shizuka Fujioka, a stylish schoolgirl, vocalist Yu Kimura and Misako Aoki, a Lolita-esque fashion model, would be effective in cultivating goodwill toward Japan.

The ministry took its cue from the growing international fascination with anime (Japanese animation) and cosplay — a type of performance art (costume roleplay) that the Japanese have elevated to a national pastime.

Not everyone has been enthusiastic about the initiative, however. Kaori Maruya, a politician from New Komeito, cautioned the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee to “be careful about unwarranted criticism against overseas tours by ‘pretty ambassadors’ wearing very short skirts”. In reply, the ministry’s Public Diplomacy Department head, Kenjiro Monji, promised that it would try to effectively implement the project “by taking the local situations into account”. (Photo: GothLoli fashion)

The idea that Japan could be ‘cool’ first gained traction in 2002 with the publication in Foreign Policy magazine of an article by California-based writer Douglas McGray. In it McGray argued that despite a decade-long recession, an end to full employment and a decline in GDP, by 2001 Japan had found a way to reinvent itself as a superpower.

In an article titled ‘Japan’s Gross National Cool’, he claimed that “instead of collapsing beneath its political and economic misfortunes, Japan’s global cultural influence has only grown. In fact, from pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence now than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower”.

McGray suggested that years of recession may have boosted Japan’s “national cool” by discrediting its rigid social hierarchy and creating opportunities for young entrepreneurs.

“It may also have loosened the grip a big-business career track had over so much of Japan’s workforce, who now face fewer social stigmas for experimenting with art, music, or any number of similar, risky endeavours”, he wrote.

Former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi was one of the first to recognise the possibilities of ‘Cool Japan’, praising the role of anime in promoting Japanese culture internationally during his inaugural address to the Diet (Parliament) in 2003.

Koizumi’s successor, Shinzo Abe, continued the trend in 2006, promising in his first policy speech to “formulate ‘The Japanese Cultural Industry Strategy’, which will enhance the competitiveness of areas that represent the good traits and uniqueness of Japan... and present them to the world”.

In part, the growth of Japanese popular culture domestically is the result of demographic and lifestyle changes. The Japanese population is ageing, and that along with broadening lifestyle options and the evolution of more flexible employment practices has transformed Japanese attitudes to leisure and expressions of cultural life. Young people are living at home longer and marrying later, which increases their already considerable disposable income. The spread of part-time work is allowing more Japanese women to accumulate disposable income and is creating additional leisure time for other workers who choose (or are obliged) to reduce their level of employment.

This, combined with what the Asia Times has called “Japan’s long and rich cultural tradition of innovation and refinement of cultural inputs from other nations”, has directed increasing attention toward the country’s cultural production. (Photo: Iwakunizushi)

Japan even has a television show devoted to dissecting the pop culture phenomenon. Cool Japan Hakkutsu: Kakkoii Nippon! (Discovering Cool Japan) exists to find out what aspects of Japan foreigners find most appealing. There are surprises. Along with ‘cute’ fashion, manga, iced coffee (the Japanese invented it) and sushi are gadgets such as ‘washlet’ toilets — automated bidets with heated seats — and traditional experiences such as cherry blossom viewing.

“People may initially be drawn to Japan by their interest in pop culture, but once they’re here, their daily experiences bring them into contact with Japanese culture and spirituality at a deeper level”, the show’s executive producer Kazuhiko Tsutsumi has said.

Perhaps spurred by such sentiments, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has adopted the ‘Cool Japan’ mantra, including ‘cultural industries’ among five areas of potential growth, and has even opened a ‘Cool Japan office’ with a 15-strong staff.

Nevertheless, critics suggest that politicians are using the idea of Cool Japan as a convenient excuse for inaction. Writing in The Japan Times at the height of Koizumi’s championing of pop culture, Roger Pulvers compared the modern phenomenon with the export of Japanese culture during the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

“Our current Heisei Era has seen a similar outpouring, though in a much more pop and ethnically neutral form. Politicians and bureaucrats in Japan, who have done little or nothing to contribute to this phenomenon, are anxious to capitalise on its effects”, he wrote. “But it is doubtful this time whether the world sees the present pop boom as intrinsically Japanese. And the bandwagon, in any case, has long ago left home. This makes the aspirations of government officials all the more blatantly opportunistic and intrinsically vacuous”.

Professor Koichi Iwabuchi of Waseda University’s School of International Liberal Studies sees a more disturbing trend. In a presentation at The University of Auckland in July 2010 he warned that the use of culture to advance national economic and political interests internationally, overlooked the fact that this was being done in the context of uneven globalisation. One consequence, he said, was that “transnational, multicultural and postcolonial issues are disconnected from the public discussion of ‘culture’ and its utilisation for the common good”.

‘Brand nationalism’, in other words, has the effect of silencing dissenting voices.

Getting runs on the board

Japanese video game designer and producer Shigera Miyamoto and artist Takashi Murakami, who appropriates digital media and pop culture themes for his work, have both appeared in Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, as has Hayao Miyazaki who gained international attention for his Oscar-winning 2003 animated film Spirited Away.

Japanese-style comic books are another indicator of cultural uptake. They have enjoyed strong sales growth in the United States in recent years — up from US$60 million in 2002 to US$200 million in 2006. The manga industry in Japan supports some 4,000 comic artists and 20,000 assistants. One subset of manga, its girls’ genre, has become highly popular throughout Asia and is now making inroads in Europe and North America.

Games consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii have also proved enduringly popular internationally, with 6.5 million Wii consoles selling in the United States alone in 2008 according to the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO).

According to Roger Pulvers of The Japan Times, in 2006 more than 60 per cent of all television anime broadcasts were of Japanese origin. The art form has been around for much longer, however. Osamu Tezuka’s groundbreaking Astro Boy (‘Tetsuwan Atomu’) and Kimba the White Lion (‘Janguru Taitei’) — both derived from manga — were first televised in the 1960s.