The Great Shift in Japanese Pop Culture - Part Five
In the final installment of the series (Parts One, Two, Three, Four), we look at the export possibilities for Japanese culture when the “most popular” goods and works are increasingly being made by and for marginal subcultures without obvious analogs overseas.
Part Five: The Difficulty of Exporting Marginal Subcultures
Marketing guru Kawaguchi Morinosuke’s recent book Geeky Girly Innovation: A Japanese Subculturist’s Guide to Technology and Design posits that corporate Japan needs to take more guidance from otaku and gyaru. There is an important point to this — these are now the most influential and powerful groups in Japanese pop culture and should not be ignored out of snobbery. And maybe their obsessive spirit has applicable lessons for industry management. Yet we should not be naive about this either in a wider context: the products actually made within these subcultures are increasingly losing their resonance overseas.
Until now, you could divide Japan’s successful consumer exports into three groups:
(1) technological/industrial goods like cars and electronics
(2) kids’ products like video games, toys, comic books, and pens/stationary
(3) sophisticated cultural goods like fashion brands, indie music, and literature.
Other than automobiles, Japan has lost its edge on high-tech goods. Korean rival Samsung has almost singlehandedly taken over the space once monopolized by Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Sharp. And with the decreasing number of children, greater competition from the U.S. on video games, and a general move away from gadget culture, Japan is also struggling to export kids’ products. Meanwhile most of Japan’s successful cutting-edge culture exports — Pizzicato Five, Cornelius, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Shonen Knife, The Boredoms A Bathing Ape, Comme des Garçons, Hiromix, Murakami Takashi — came from a scene that has ceased to be high-profile in Japan.
This last category, while minor in terms of actual sales, did a lot of the legwork for boosting the Japan “brand” in the 1990s, especially among the cultural elite in the U.S. and Europe. The reason is simple: the artistic works spoke the language of upper middle-class aesthetes overseas. Furthermore these artists made an easy match with the West because they played with iterations of ideas originally created in The West: avant-garde art and fashion, street culture as defined by US/UK, punk rock, lounge music, etc. In general, the successful products and artistic works had something “universal” (i.e., “Western”) at their core, which made them more easily exportable. Overall Japanese culture found warm reception where the consuming groups in the West were similar to the Japanese creators in class position and values. We take for granted that Miyamoto Shigeru’s art-school tastes appealed subconsciously to the richer American youth who bought up the NES in droves during the mid-1980s.
What we have not seen, however, are good consumer comparisons overseas to the psychologically tortured Japanese subcultures like contemporary otaku or the yankii/gyaru. Mass market anime like Naruto and Gundam are relatively easy to export as they were built for “normal” youth. That cannot be said about moe titles that are meant to satisfy older men obsessed with two-dimensional elementary school girls. Similarly, no gyaru clothing brand has more retail stores overseas than the avant-garde Comme des Garçons, despite gyaru clothing’s huge business in Japan and CDG’s highly-limited audience. At least from what we have seen from the big subcultural moments in the last decade, the culture of Japan’s marginal pluralities is almost unexportable.
Let’s look again at AKB48 on YouTube — a global site where anyone can watch videos from anywhere else around the world. Based on the public viewership data for “Heavy Rotation” and other AKB48 videos, the vast majority of views for AKB48 come from the group’s domestic fan base. In other words, no other country than Japan contributes to AKB48’s multi-million view count despite the fact that the videos are available worldwide and AKB48 is the overwhelmingly dominant group in Japanese pop at the moment. AKB48’s seemingly-massive popularity in Japan make them the number one favorite for J-Pop exportation. Yet no one non-Japanese is watching their videos — even in light of a “Japan Cool” wave and the popularity of YouTube all around the world. Compare AKB48’s videos to the insight map for “The Boys” by Girls Generation (SNSD) in Korea, who have had massive success in Japan and whose YouTube stats show a very wide global audience.
In most countries with growing economies, educated upper-middle class consumers still spearhead the consumer market. They have the most disposable income and the most interest in cultural exchange. And those consumers, whether it’s Taiwan or the U.K., are the ones most likely to be willing to follow and purchase foreign cultural items.
Currently, however, the most conspicuous Japanese culture of otaku and yankii represents value sets with little connection to affluent consumers elsewhere. Most men around the world are not wracked by such deep status insecurity that they want to live in a world where chesty two-dimensional 12 year-old girls grovel at their feet and call them big brother. The average university student in Paris is likely to read Murakami Haruki and may listen to a Japanese DJ but not wear silky long cocktail dresses or fake eyelashes from a brand created by a 23 year-old former divorcee hostess with two kids. Overseas consumers remain affluent, educated, and open to Japanese culture, but Japan’s pop culture complex — by increasingly catering to marginal groups (or ignoring global tastes, which is another problem altogether) — is less likely to create products relevant for them.
This is not to say that the emergence of otaku and yankii culture is insignificant for Japan. This wave has finally given material and cultural expression to pockets of society that had a hard time voicing their experience in the past. The rich Tokyo elite enjoyed a disproportionately high influence over national culture for decades, and now the two marginal groups have taken the elite’s place in dominating the direction of pop. When it comes to “fairness” and democracy, this is the least elitist that Japanese culture has ever been. But we have replaced one kind of distortion with another, and we still should not confuse these subcultures’ tastes with being truly “mainstream.”
One of Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter’s teachings is that companies that are competitive overseas come from domestic markets where they have local competition and must learn to please demanding local consumers. The more advanced the consumers, the more advantage a company has in eventually exporting its products when other consumers catch up. Apple’s success with the iPod came from the product’s direct targeting of tech-savvy American college students and former college students who had massive libraries of mp3s stuck on computers and wanted to take them out on the streets. Girls Generation worked to best other idol groups in Korea through highly skilled dancing, singing, and a song library purchased from European producers.
Japan’s consumer market meanwhile is becoming increasingly dominated by technological and cultural laggards. The peak “Japan Cool” came at a time in the 1990s when the average Japanese was intentionally or inadvertently consuming highly sophisticated culture, and the pressures to please them gave Japanese companies the training to be globally competitive. Cultural producers tried to one-up each other in coolness.
Japanese companies now face a true crisis: Appealing to the most powerful consumers in Japan will lead them away from tastes and values that can be easily exported overseas. AKB48 may be opening vanity branches in Taiwan and Jakarta, but will the world inherently be interested in an idol group meant to please a small group of men’s reactionary attitudes towards women and desire for songs that ignore the last twenty years of musical change? And as we’ve seen with the success of K-Pop in Japan, companies cannot automatically protect the domestic market against invasion. When the mainstream consumers do see something they like, that reflects their values in a way that otaku and gyaru content does not, they pounce. But until they reawaken as a consistent consumer force or rebuild cultural online to be less centered around product purchase, we are likely to stay within the current situation — where marginal subcultures rule the school.
December 6, 2011 at 6:56 am
Take away Gundam and FMA, almost every show there is meant for an otaku. The shows in that list are meant for insider (otaku/fujoshi). Casual buyers are not gonna pick those up except for GUndam of coz.
And your list is flawed and missing some info.
K-ON is by far the best selling anime post 2000.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-11-06/k-on-by-the-numbers/sales-of-phenomenon-outlined
Take note of the numbers that non-dvd merchandising earns. A cool 192 Million USD.
Thats why anime companies make otaku-fanservice shows. It earns them money via merchandising (if any gets back to the studio)
And in the case of K-ON, fanservice can take the form of emotional attachment instead of sexuality.
And this is for Marx,
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38958/Survey_Cements_Japans_Growing_Acceptence_Of_Western_Games.php
It has begun…… good timing on the article, Mr Marx.
December 6, 2011 at 7:56 am
@ Gag Halfrunt said: Meanwhile, it just happens that Cube Entertainment (BEAST, 4minute) are taking the plunge and bringing their idols to London tomorrow.
Gag – thank you so much for the heads up on this. I hadn’t heard about it, but I managed to get a ticket (for less than half price!) and have just come back from the concert. 4minute were excellent – the others not so much to my taste. The crowd was very enthusiastic.
To get back on topic, visiting this concert exposed one more difficulty why some Asian acts will find it unattractive to travel longhaul.
With three bands and dancers, there must easily have been thirty people onstage – and I guess at least a dozen behind the scenes. Just transporting 40+ people to London for a 1 night gig must be fantastically expensive – and the tickets to the Cube gig were £75 (well over twice the price of a ticket to see a Western band in the same venue).
As a result of the high price and a reasonably limited following over here, the gig wasn’t more than 2/3rds full, and the guy I bought my tickets off (he’s bought over 20 at full price, hoping to sell them on) had lost a fortune re-selling for £30.
Sadly this doesn’t bode well for future Asian bands visits to London. It’s difficult to see how the larger multi-member outfits would break even.
December 7, 2011 at 10:38 pm
@zoltan
1. The list that I posted before is an “average sales per episode” best sales. K-ON has 2 season (with 3x more total episodes than Bakemonogatari) and ton of merchandises sales, that’s why it ranks the best overall sales. From what I know before, the source of this list is valid, we just saw it from different PoV :)
2. Gundam? For myself Gundam is more otaku-ish than some of the list before. Well, it once again returns to “what’s the definition of Otaku”…But what I want to convey is that the anime Industry right now is not too bad (for casual viewers), at least still the same like before.
1/3 (Gundam and FMA,according to your ‘casual’ term) from that top 15 is acceptable for general audiences. Madoka is unexpectedly popular everywhere (so they decide to promote the last episode airings with one page ads in Japan’s biggest newspaper). Angel Beats is just a drama anime, Macross is…Macross?, and Code Geass is a phenomenon in both female and male audiences, including casual I guess. Even K-ON is actually very popular with casual audience. I still don’t know why western people seems like regarding K-ON as the biggest destruction for Japanese Animation :( (CMIIW)
That leave only Haruhi and IS that actually only targeted for otaku (while Haruhi is actually watchable for casual)
And of course that list didn’t include movie and OVA. Ghibli will always be the sacred place for those who like animation and any film in general.
December 7, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Related: “Why Japanese Games are Breaking Up With the West”
http://www.1up.com/features/japanese-games-breaking-west
December 8, 2011 at 10:34 am
Very intersting articles! You are mostly right of course.
I think the only thing I would add is how the ways of ranking what is popular (oricon ect) are really in need of upadating. Until Oricon includes mp3’s and maybe even radio play in it’s rankings they lose alot of it’s legitimacy in my opinion.
But if one thing good has come of all this is that because of the internet what is popular in Japan right now doesn’t matter as much since the big agencys can’t control who gets on the internet. That is why the Morning Musume fanbase hasn’t died interntionally dispite them being culturally irrelivent in Japan.
Also I guess things that do get exsported are very niche and so can’t be mistaken as not japanese like Pokemon was in the 90’s. Because what is the point of exsporting your culture if people don’t even know it is yours?
December 8, 2011 at 3:31 pm
I just wanted to say something about the fujoshi thing….. I don’t know how popular it is within Japanese communities and the online communities…. but it has gotten very very popular in overseas English and Chinese fandoms of boy groups. No matter Japanese or Korean boy bands, if you are a fan of them, you HAVE heard of pairings. Especially for Korean boy bands where they have obvious gestures (kissing, saying things etc) I suppose they weren’t made initially for the fujoshi group but fujoshi fans are a big portion of the population and they have started to accomodate that.
On another note (since I only have access to English-speaking and chinese online communities) I have noticed that akb has quite a large following in China….. although still the same otaku- types as in Japan. Fujoshi seems quite mainstream in the younger generation (to the point where well known older ppl have commented on this social phenom) And that Japanese beauty and fashion magazines are actually the big sellers (even though ppl generally like Korean-dramas, pop culture more) And a lot of those magazine carries the gyaru aesthetic and fake lashes and all that. So maybe some of those Japanese niche cultures may not be exportable to the western masses but can still enjoy relevance in other markets in Asia.
December 9, 2011 at 12:17 pm
While the series is very interesting, you really have outdone yourself in terms of classist contempt this time. How can you specialize in Japanese pop culture while having such obvious loathing for most of the popular groups that consume and/or generate said culture? It does sound a bit masochistic.
Reading those articles, you make it sound like it all comes down to a big taste fight between, I quote, the “urban, educated, sophisticated, upper middle-class affluent consumers aesthetes” and the “non urban (the horror!), downwardly mobile (by gosh!), professionally unsuccessful (can you imagine how these people live?), psychologically tortured (no wonder… how can one *not* be with so little disposable income?)”.
To sum up your vision about class and culture: The lower class animals from the inaka are now running the Zoo and we can only hope for a new wave of sophisticated cultural elite (bravely spearheading consumption) to rescue us from the current tragedy.
December 9, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I think you are the one inserting the pejorative nuance to most of this analysis. “you make it sound like it all comes down to a big taste fight between” — it is a big taste fight! But I am not saying that it’s a “good vs. evil” type situation based on the statement that “It’s a big taste fight.”
Also good to clarify that gyaru and yankii arent’ downwardly-mobile — they are just working class. The otaku seem to be a lot like red-state republicans: they are downwardly-mobile (dropping in class rather than stable), aren’t guaranteed a middle class existence anymore and feel victimized, which at least on 2ch, they seem to easily take out on other Asians, feminists, liberal/socialist demonstrators, etc.
I also stand firm saying that someone like Cornelius is more “sophisticated” — developed to a high degree of complexity — than anything in yankii or gyaru culture. He is just making a set of aesthetic choices that require a much higher degree of knowledge about the field in which he works than someone like Hamasaki Ayumi is. Sophistication does not always guarantee higher quality, but it means that it’s being created for a specific audience, which I tried to qualify by class.
I will say, however, that this particular website does cater towards an audience that fits the above description and I in no way feel guilty about the editorial tastes suggesting Shugo Tokumaru and not flumpool.
December 9, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Sorry not to have followed up sooner.
I suppose I’m wondering how we rank all these factors you have introduced.
If we argue the primary driver for the changing pattern of demand for pop culture products is economic, then, as I mentioned earlier, we have to explain how that trend tallies with the overall rise in household consumption over the period you are looking at. You would also have to take into account the impact of persistent deflation which has had a disproportionate effect across markets.
Perhaps, instead, the main emphasis is technological. You’ve argued before that, as traditional authorities have been dethroned, new voices which can validate consumer choices have yet to appear. This presents a picture of pop culture consumers who have lost their way, rather than run out of money. It suggests that pop culture demand could kick in when new authorities emerge. Or perhaps pop culture demand is a habit consumers can lose if not sufficiently cultivated.
Then you have the demographic argument. This simply states that Japan is getting older, and Japanese lose their appetite for pop culture consumption as they age.
I don’t know if you have a preference but I think some separation is called for. For instance, we shouldn’t put falling recorded music sales in the same category as the declining value of the clothing market. In many developed countries, recorded music sales are sharply down but the music industry appears to have a greater ubiquity than ever. The same does not seem to be true in Japan.
I’m interested you describe the demand from older Japanese women for Korean dramas as an anomaly, saying “it wasn’t normal for older consumers to be buying posters, CDs, and photobooks”. I’m not so sure. Older women are well-represented in the audiences for Takarazuka, kabuki, dance and musical theatre in general. The same products are available for performers in those fields and the main buyers are older women.
You write about how niche pop culture demand in Japan has risen in influence as the centre has fallen away. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how the relevant industries are handling the mature pop culture consumer. This demographic has significant spending power, and is certainly a key market in the West. If niche demand is so influential then I wonder where this niche is making its influence felt in Japan. If it isn’t showing up, then it raises the question of why it is being ignored by businesses you believe are being forced to target niches.
You could make the case that any failure in Japan is more on the supply side, not the demand side of the equation. Take the example of the niche in Japan for US TV shows. Japanese TV networks haven’t responded by developing their own programming for this market. The production values of something like “Lost” require a big upfront investment, which wouldn’t be recouped if only fans of US TV shows tuned in. Consequently, the opportunity goes begging.
Similarly, a girl group like Kara is hardly a new experience for Japan. After all, the members of Max were all about the same age when “Give me a Shake” was number one. The question is why no such act was filling that niche when K-Pop did so. (Not that there’s anything wrong with overseas artists making an impact in a market. The UK music industry still largely owes its current form to the success of the British Invasion).
We know that other sectors have misread the domestic market. Perhaps the focus on gyaru and otaku genres, if that is really what is happening, is a similar error on the part of local media producers.
December 12, 2011 at 5:19 am
You mentioned Hatsune Miku in an earlier comment as a way of highlighting an instance of exportable otaku culture, but I have to think that the reason it has gain popularity in the States, for instance, is very different than the reason it originally became popular in Japan.
I would say that Hatsune Miku has popularity in the US simply because of the “weirdness” factor and the novelty of the technology involved; it’s something entirely divergent from what people in the US are familiar with. Then take Japan and Hatsune Miku’s popularity in otaku culture, revolving around maid/idol fetishism.
If they tried to market Hatsune Miku in the US as they might in Japan, it wouldn’t work and might even ruffle a few feathers.
December 14, 2011 at 5:03 pm
we have to explain how that trend tallies with the overall rise in household consumption over the period you are looking at.
I’d love to see this data because it doesn’t capture the fact that Japanese consumers feel poorer than ever. They may be spending as much as usual, but their choice of products bespeaks pessimism about future earnings. The “zeitgeist” in Japan shows people jumping towards cheaper products at the cost of quality — something that for decades was said to be “culturally impossible” for Japanese consumers. I don’t think technological change explains that. I don’t want to over-emphasize the economic factors, but that seems to be income-perception related.
Or perhaps pop culture demand is a habit consumers can lose if not sufficiently cultivated.
So much of it was basically an abstract social pressure to keep up with these consumer trends in order to be properly “middle class.” Once incomes started dropping, consumers just got fed up with this, forced the media to reduce their expectations, and now these pressures have all but dissipated. Now you’re just expected to get drunk on cheap highballs and eat B-grade foods with your free tote bag. In this sense, it’s a victory of the people over artificial consumer standards.
Japanese TV networks haven’t responded by developing their own programming for this market.
TV Tokyo tried that this year with quality programming on Mondays at 10pm. I don’t think they saw much rise in views.
I’m not convinced that Japan has a stable, structural consumer group that is (1) well-educated (2) high incomed (3) in demand of sophisticated culture that plays upon their liberal arts education. Obviously this is a huge market in the U.S. but doesn’t really exist in any capacity in Japan, because (1) incomes are suppressed for younger white collar workers who are at peak cultural spending (2) super long labor hours reduce the amount of time college-educated workers can spend on culture (3) no one actual studies/learns anything at Japanese colleges. You can put a Wittgenstein joke in The Simpsons and expect 1/4 of the audience to chuckle. Not sure you’d see that kind of reward in a Japanese audience. (This isn’t really calling them “dumb” — it’s just that so much well-crafted American culture relies on its audiences knowledge and narrative analytical skills that were clearly acquired in university classes.)
Japan has seen some very, very arty things sell well, but it’s (1) not structural (proved by the fact that this sector just totally evaporated in the last decade) (2) there was a lot of “media pressure” to buy into these elitist things in many cases, which I talked about in my essay earlier about Asada Akira’s book. Now that the pressure is gone, you see a collapse of that part of the market.
So I agree that cultural producers are often making things for their own interests rather than consumers (practically speaking, AKB48 is exactly what otaku want, no?) but I don’t think “smart content” like American TV is necessarily the answer.
December 15, 2011 at 1:28 pm
If I understand this right, in this discussion we’re equating sales with success in cultural exporting, is that right? When I lived in New York in the late 90s, there were a few opportunities to see Japanese musicians. Maybe once in awhile I’d hear that Kahimi Karie was playing somewhere in the Village to 20 (ultimately disappointed) people.
During the course of 2011, my friends in Brooklyn could choose from more than 100 Japanese indies bands in their neighborhood alone. Dozens of Japanese indies bands play 20-city tours now in the USA simultaneously, and play in front of thousands at SXSW and get reviewed in the New York Times. None of them are aiming to be David Marx’s sophisticated fey culture hero. But don’t they count? I would argue that some of their music is far more engaging than the Shibuya Kei music you still don’t seem able to move on from.
December 15, 2011 at 8:56 pm
After massive googling, I manage to finally found that karaoke also has went through stagnation.
http://www.japan-karaoke.com/05hakusyo/p1.html
Actual attendees peak around 1996 and the numbers have declined by 20% since then and stagnated.
Same with Karaoke parlours.
December 26, 2011 at 2:33 am
Ah.. read all 5 parts, (and now can do a bit better than name-drop a new-found indie group that reminds me of Throbbing Gristle.) Very tasty sociology! Brings up a few points and begs a few questions..
1) One of the neat things about pop culture is that it is easier to destroy, reject or change than “society”.
1.1) What are the links between buying into vs refusing/ subverting pop culture as a marker +/or analog to buying into vs
refusing / subverting (or being shut out of) larger societal models?
1.2) How much consensus does a society need, and about what? Can a diffuse concensus (and about what?) serve in place of the certainties offered by older “hysteric” models? When right wing politics is reduced to anon 2-chan rants, the messiah
is already 1 day too late. Conversely, can behavior modeled/ tested in the odd corners of fringe/ refusenik pop culture
translate to/ make the jump to larger societal behavior shifts? Will it be “political” or “the personal is political”?
1.3)It is not all loli pr0n, it just looks like that most of the time. And why the ^&$%&$^& would anyone reject 3D fun for
2D fantasy?? Why indeed!
1.4) It is not that Otaku loli pr0n doesnt travel all over the world, it is just that it is damn difficult to monetize. (Ha Ha Ha! ) I am not arguing for the content themes, just that there is an wilful abjection, an accursed share quality to the stuff. It goes out of its way to be squick!
2) That jp commercial pop culture is tied to old, closed technologies is a great theme – but technology in the hands of
fans usually means “grey” proliferation, followed by repurposing/mashup and then non-commercial self-production. Something tells me that any mention of “sharing” in Jp society is an even greater taboo than deviant otaku lust – and that it is
even more pervasive. The fantasy of Oricon is the same fantasy of Steve Jobs-space: nothing plays that does not come from
/ through us. The reality is VLC and torrent. I suspect that jp pirate consumption is massive, yet very very quiet about
its habits. I mean, in larger “grey” communities some idiot would have devised a keymaker to generate vote-your-fave AKB48 singer vote access codes by now – just for the lulz. Ketai culture is the last castle of closed system consumption. smart tablet- phones will destroy it.
2.1 If they did, would anyone in the mainstream jp media dare mention it? Once it is out in the open, the Jp media will do their predictable “x going to destroy Jp society” routine, but in the meantime, no anime will ever show an otaku seeding
torrents and trading their wares(z) Oh no, it is all obsessive purchaing, purchasing, purchasing… The great wank in
Otakudom is the fantasy of consumption.
2.3 Sales figures are ALWAYS inflated.
2.4 If I was a japanese Otaku, I would be practicing my university level english by fansubbing/ scanlating.
2.5) where would comiket be without fujoshi desire?
Heh! heh! (or should that be Ufu Fu Fu ! ??) Moar fun things to think on..
Thanks for all the good work!
December 26, 2011 at 5:23 am
Creation and open consumption are still clearly important things in Japan. They are less important for the American fandom, although that may partially be an artifact of a lack of fans.
Part of the problem is that one of the main defenses for the consumption of lolicon material in American fandom is that it is from a different culture and it therefore cannot be judged. That is a barrier to content creation. There is no similar barrier in Japan. This may also be evidence that American fans are simply not “totally hardcore” enough.
December 27, 2011 at 4:48 am
Hi Anymous… I wasnt trying to posit that lolicon “should” be an export commodity. Rather I was looking at it as a symptom of a breakdown in greater societal models of (brain lock on proper soc. term) “growing up, mating, employment, family reraring etc.
On one side of the auditorium at the school dance – lolicons, on the other side fujoshi, over in that corner Yankees, over there Gyaru. Everyone else at cram school. No jobs anywhere, comfortably screwed up political system – mostly harmless until it cant respond to emergencies, irrelevant mainstream pop culture, Whither Japan, etc.. So… is it despair time or are the kids working it out?
I used to sneer at “the personal is political” activism, but now I am wondering if it is a very important thing.. But, yup.. not much export $$$$ / cool Japan content in it.
December 28, 2011 at 12:50 pm
“Rather I was looking at it as a symptom of a breakdown in greater societal models of (brain lock on proper soc. term) “growing up, mating, employment, family reraring etc.”
It is to a large extent, but one has to remember that it’s earliest origins were in the mid 1970’s, when the big issue was the expansion of middle class Japanese society. That was the hayday of life time employment. Even today people do not experience the privations of an industrial worker or a peasant, whether this security is the product of wage labor or the welfare state is debatable. This subculture is getting stringer, but it originated in the context of great material wealth. In many respects being urban middle class and being dysfunctional might really be two sides of the same coin.
December 29, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Thank you for the very stimulating and interesting series, David! I was in Japan earlier this year, and heard fragments of the same story, but never in quite as lucid and well-argued narrative.
The fragmentation and greater weight of niche interests, that you describe as taking over manga, pop music and youth fashion in Japan, seems very similar to what happens in most media once they lose their dominant function in mass culture (literature and radio, for example, not to get too obscure). But this happens because mass culture moves into another space: cinema, television, internet…
From your analysis, the situation seems analogue: it is not that mainstream culture has diversified, it is mainstream media that have been abandoned by all but the niche yen (as your comparison of absolute figures shows).
But, for me (perhaps coming from another discipline), this begs the question: if the mainstream consumer has withdrawn from mass culture (if the mass is no longer where the mass is), then what is the majority of people doing? Where are they, in terms of lifestyle, culture, society? Especially since you emphasise the importance of consumption in popular culture. What are they consuming now? Has some sort of new austerity emerged as a trend? Or do people engage in non-commercial forms of exchange? Do people make stuff more (has there been a crafty trend, like in the Anglo countries)? I doubt that, by withdrawing from the mass cultural market, the majority of Japanese have withdrawn from all participation in cultural and social life of their society.
Would you hazard an answer?