Japan’s Popular Culture: participation and consumption

1. Japan’s Popular Culture:participation and consumption • The basis of participation • Mass consumption versus individual expression • Mediums of homogenization • Alternative culture

2. 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?

3. Japan’s Popular Culture:participation and consumption • Consider the capacity for individual expression within a mass culture society.

4. Japan’s Popular Cultureparticipation and consumption

7. The Basis of Participation • Shumi (tastes or hobbies) • Appreciation • Practice • Traditional & modern education systems

12. 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

16. Top Ten Leisure Activities in Japan (Uso!)

17. Centralized mediums of homogenization • Education • Television • Newspapers and other publications • Industrialization of the arts • National organization in general

18. Hamasaki Ayumi Empress of J-Pop

19. 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

20. 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.

21. Market Impact of the less fanatic Otaku HK$ 92,919,300,000

22. Market Impact of the real fanatic Otaku Field Population (*1) Market Scale (*2) Comics 350,000 ¥ 83 billion Animation 110,000 ¥ 20 billion Idols (*3) 280,000 ¥ 61 billion Games 160,000 ¥ 21 billion PC assembly 190,000 ¥ 36 billion Audio-visual 60,000 ¥ 12 billion equipment Mobile IT 70,000 ¥ 8 billion equipment Autos 140,000 ¥ 54 billion Travel 250,000 ¥ 81 billion Fashion 40,000 ¥ 13 billion Cameras 50,000 ¥ 18 billion Railways 20,000 ¥ 4 billion Total 1.72 million ¥ 411 billion HK 27,123,400,00

23. Five Types of Otaku, from Six Criteria

24. Marketing to Otaku: the 3Cs • Collection : Promote continuous consumption by adding elements of collecting to products and services • Creativity : Introduce products that could be converted or for which there is room for reconstruction. Strengthen consumer attachment to a product by providing an outlet for creativity in consumer activities of the user. • Community : Promote consumer activities by providing a place to exchange/transmit information and demonstrate their own creative activities.

25. Summing up • Can Japanese women express themselves and assert their equal rights in what has been a male dominated society. • Does the education system in enable equal opportunity and individual expression. • Does religion plays a significant role in shaping behavior and enriching life in Japan. • Is their room for individual expression within Japan’s mass culture society.