Japanese Pop Culture By Jesus Lopez 04/19/18
Japanese Pop Culture Currently Japanese pop culture heavily revolves around manga, anime, and video games. In 1992 the "bubble" economy popped and Japan's rising pop culture helped boom back the economy from the export of several of its media. The exporting of video games, music, manga, and anime have grew from 5 billion yen in 1992 to 1.5 trillion yen in 2002
Japanese Video Games The first companies to get into the business were Sega, Nintendo, Taito, and Namco. After Atari released the very successful "Pong", Both Sega and Taito made clones of the popular game and released game cabinets in mostly amusement parks. This was the first instance of Japan into the gaming market. Japanese video games are known there very hard difficulty, complicated and well thought out stories, and heavily culturalistic themes. Recently in 2017, Japan has entered a "Video Game Renaissance" after many years of Japan's gaming industry struggling to appease to the market. This renaissance was due in part from many companies working together to help grow the industry again and many of the great games that were released last year.
Nintendo Nintendo is one of the largest video game companies in the market and also one of highest influences to video games to date. After The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, Nintendo was the savior of video games due to them releasing the successful home console the NES or Nintendo Entertainment System. Currently Nintendo is the highest publisher and distributor of video games and home consoles alongside with Sony and its PlayStation consoles.
Manga Manga can be dated back to the 12th and 13th century with the first credited manga called the Choju-giga that was believed to be made by Toba Sojo a monk at the time. Osamu Tezuka was coined the nickname of "Father of Manga" with the creation of the famous manga "Astro Boy". In 1968 Weekly Shonen Jump released its first issue and helped to circulate many of its famous manga around the country. Digital Manga has brought up the manga market by 28% in the recent years. 40% of books and magazines sales are manga
Anime Japanese animation was first created in the early 1900's. The oldest known anime is Katsudo Shashin which was presumably made in 1907. Animation at this time was made with chalk and then moved to paper cutouts. In 1956 the iconic Toei Amination Studio was founded and released the first full length anime film in color called Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent) in 1958. 1960's was the start of televised anime with anime adaption of Astro Boy. After George Lucas successful space opera Star Wars, Many companies brought in the space opera genre with such iconic anime like Space Cowboy and Mobile Suit Gundam. 1980's was considered "The Golden Age" of anime due to many great anime being released like Dragon Ball and Akira. Studio Ghbili was also founded in The Golden Era.
Anime Cont. The anime A.L.I.C.E was the first anime to be fully created on a computer. Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli released the most successful movie in Japanese history which was "Spirited Away" which also won a Oscar for best Animated Film the same year. Most anime are manga adaptations. Western animators have been influenced by anime with creations like Samurai Jack, Teen Titans, and Avatar The Last Airbender. Currently anime is 70% of sales of DVD's in the country.
Japanese Idol groups rose to stardom in the early 1980's Around the 1990's Idol groups started to disappear due to the rise of J-pop music. Idols still existed but it wasn t till AKB48 came to the scene and the Idol group scene rose back to popularity. Idols are marketed for their cuteness and are often marketed to be role models. Huge idol groups like AKB48 have elections that fans vote their favorite group members and based on ranking they make their own singles within the group. Girls that want to be future Idols are encouraged to start early because fans usually lose interest on girls that are age 20 and up. Idols / Idol Groups
Otaku Otaku are individuals who heavily partake in Japans pop culture. In the early years of Japanese pop culture Otaku were socially stigmatized but in later years it was dropped due to its growing popularity in the country. Japanese Government encourages and supports the Otaku subculture by even creating programs to help artists grow their talent. Many conventions like AX around the world help bring the subculture together to talk about the latest manga and anime and also celebrate the subculture.
Kawaii Culture Kawaii culture is Japans insatiable attraction to cute fashion, cute merchandise, food, anything that could be made cute. The company Sanrio mostly sells cute animal characters such like the famous character Hello Kitty. The Harajuku district in Tokyo is known for its community of girls dressed in Lolita fashion. The fashion is influenced by old victorian and gothic children's clothes.
Summary Japanese Pop culture is very influential to me and many others. I personally love their video games and music. The history of the pop culture is interesting due to the fact it can be dated back many years. I hope Japans pop culture will keep progressing strongly in my life time.
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