Néomarxisme — “the pop sociology of pop” & “a post-blog” — launched in October 2004 as the personal media space for Tokyo-based writer and musician W. David Marx (Marxy). The site went into hiatus upon Marx’s establishment of Néojaponisme in August 2007, but in its almost three years of existence, Néomarxisme featured nearly 800 essays and pieces of original content. The following archive organizes the best material from this vast reserve of information into appropriate categories.
Arts and Crafts
Recycling Clichés: Rakugo vs. Stella (3.2.06) – Comedy forms and functions
Pakuri (Artistic thievery)
The Pakuri Debate: Noda vs. Aida (4.30.05) – Art director borrows from fine artist
Noda Nagi’s Pakuri Problem Part Two (6.6.05) – Mizuma Art Gallery sues Noda
Again, the crime of pakuri is not a Western conceit (6.6.06) – Artist Wada Yoshihiko busted
2-Ch Foils Manga Pakuri (10.19.05) – Manga artist Suetsugu Yuki busted
Pakuri Goes West-East (5.10.07) – New Order rips Miyamoto Ryuji
Do-Nuts: Halcali Pakuri (7.7.05) – Artist clones
Otsuka Ai Pakuri! (7.17.05) – J-pop rips off J-pop
Culture, Race, and Anthropology
Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy (2.11.07) – Useful binary for cultural comparison
Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy Pt. II – Music (2.16.07) – This idea applied to Japanese music
The Competing Orthopraxies of Three-Button Suits in Japan (5.12.06) – Applied to suits
All We Do Here is Sleep, Work, and Eat (1.8.06) – Why the Japanese love slumber
Sturm und Traing (11.7.05) – Trains must run on time
Golden Week: Ultra-Rational Order Causes Massive Demand for Low Supply (5.2.07) – The horror of ordered holidays
Pew, Pt. II (11.9.05) – Japanese attitudes about happiness and the future compared to the world
Economics and Development
Fables of the Reconstruction (2.12.07) – Review of Miwa and Ramseyer’s The Fables of the Keiretsu
The Friend Tax (3.18.06) – Hidden costs of socializing in Japan
Tokyo Midtown and Throwaway Mega-Development (3.22.07) – The never-ending mega-development
OECD Economic Survey on Japan (6.1.05) – What the OECD says about Japanese economic growth
The Economist: Japan Has to Improve, right? (10.8.05) – Economic pessimism
Summers in the Pool (7.21.05) – No pools in Japan
Down with the Construction Industry! (12.5.05) – Overaggressive apartment development
Education
English, Pt. III (3.15.05) – Gaba ad on Japanese dreams of English acquisition
Punk Rock (7.19.05) – Flat tire = “punk”
The “Myth” of Japanese Universities (6.22.05) – Japanese tertiary education
The Republic of (Un)Educated Elites (11.6.06) – Education and Japanese bureaucrats
A Refreshed Hierarchy for the Japanese Hypermeritocracy (10.17.06) – Japanese college rankings
Employment
Japanese Employment, the Adventure (3.27.06) – Japanese recruitment system
Work/Life Balance – Coming Never to Japan (3.6.07) – Social meaning of work in Japan
No Chances in the Early Days of the “Second-Chance Society” (11.22.06) – Limited chances at real recruitment
Fashion and Luxury
I Know What Boys Like (8.29.06) – Ebi-chan and the motives behind young female fashion
LoVe (6.16.05) – The Japanese obsession with Louis Vuitton
From First Class to Coach: Beginnings of Taste Deflation in Japanese Fashion (9.26.06) – Coach’s rise as "accessible luxury"
Luxury Rot (5.7.07) – Luxury brands in Japanese suburban junk shops
The Wrench in the Fashion Cycle (10.13.06) – Fashion ceases to move forward
My Favorite Band is Dinosaur Jr. T-shirts (9.24.05) – Suddenly, Dinosaur T-shirts cover Tokyo
Shukan Post on Nigo’s "Vast Tax Evasion Scheme"! (5.18.05)
Do You Hate Uniqlo? Then Buy a Magazine All About the Brand! (4.23.05) – Uniqlo’s special issue of Relax
Booze, Babes, and Bawling (9.28.06) – A review of "adult hip-hop" select shop Liquor, Women, & Tears
Gross National Cool
The Success and Limits of Japanese Gross National Cool (1.12.07)
Gross National Cool: A Japanese Response (6.4.05) – Kawamata Keiko’s Paper on GNC Market Decline
Japan Boom Trickle Down (2.26.05) – Flow of “Japan Cool” in the West
Snarky Reactions to the Internet, Part One Million (5.6.07) – Questioning Business Week take on GNC
Nitpicking the Mainstream Media (10.2.06) – Questioning The Guardian‘s Take on GNC
Harajuku/Omotesando: Radically Cool or just Totally Awesome? (4.24.06) – The Uncool of Tokyo’s Fashion Areas
A Boy Named Sudoku (9.23.05) – the Sudoku trend
Puffy Amiyumi as Neo-Bubblegum (9.9.05)
Shibuya is the New Roppongi (5.8.05) – Hipster foreigners head to Japan and the “Gaijin Complex”
Nagao Tomoaki in the New York Times (12.22.04) – Nigo scores in the U.S.A.
Absolut Metropolis (8.13.05) – A "Japan Cool" ad campaign
NY Times on Harajuku Girls… Again. (6.20.05) – Harajuku girls maybe not so "creative"
Internet, Games, and Technology
My Donkey Kong Naming Theory (1.26.07)
The So-Called "Densha Otoko" (7.10.05) – He is not real.
Densha-Otoko, Pt. II (7.12.05)
Densha Otoko, Pt. III (7.23.05)
Densha Otoko: Finally Interviewed! (12.21.06) – "Interview" with non-existent
person in Wired.
PS3 Launch
Homeless in PS3 Lines: A Non-Japanese Media Conspiracy? (11.15.06)
PS3 Lines as Metaphors for Japan/America (11.20.06)
Launching Volleys at the Evil Reseller Contingent (11.14.06) – PS3s on
Yahoo! Japan Auction
The Second Digital Divide in Japanese Society (3.1.07) – Kids don’t use PCs
Friendster vs. Mixi, U.S. vs. Japan (2.11.05) – Japanese love cat pictures/anonymity
Kikko-san and the Current Rumor Mill (3.3.06) – Internet gossip sites and the Livedoor "suicide"
Weekly Playboy: Say No to "Deai-kei" Sites (6.2.05) – Those online babes do not exist
Erog Sum (5.30.05) – Fake "erotic blogs" sweep Japan
Japanese Blogging: A Recap (5.27.05) – Quantity does not equal quality in the Japanese blog world
Movies on Demand (3.21.05) – Japan misses out on TiVo revolution
Japanese Language
The Japanese-Koguryoic Language Family (1.19.07) – New theory of Japanese language origins
Cuteness vs. Fluency (2.26.07) – Leah Dizon is not secretly Japanese, but fluency is not cute anyway
Kanji Causes Manga: Why? (12.13.06) – Taking down an old theory about kanji and visual aptitude
International as Language Mashup (10.10.06) – Drink boxes and romanization
The Imperial Calendar Makes Concessions to the Western Alphabet (7.19.06)
You gotta have 倭！ (7.13.06) – The original kanji "wa" for Japanese meant dwarf?
Miihaa (6.5.07) – Origin and change for the word "miihaa"
Nation, State, and Identity
Japan: Major or Minor Country? (12.8.06) – the Eternal Debate
Pompous Particularism vs. Pompous Universalism (7.3.06) – Pomposity of self-proclaimed uniqueness
Athletic Underdogs and Nation States (3.29.07) – Ace wo Nerae!, Punch Out!!, and the tiny protagonist
The America that Mistranslates Japan (12.7.05) – Memoirs of a Geisha and the Japanese backlash
Gundam: Warriors of Universalism (4.15.05) – Deconstructing the war messages in Gundam
Hip Hoppin’ Ben Franklin and Kyrgyzstani Textiles in a World of Curry: Aichi Expo 2005 (4.21.05)
A Sudden Influx of Foreign Labor (2.14.06) – Asian convenience store clerks
Markets, Consumers, and Consumer Culture
Hyper-Speed Product Proliferation? Blame Distribution. (6.27.06) – Why Japanese convenience stores have so many products and so much turnover
Sunk Costs and Karaoke Videos (4.2.07) – A hypothetical dialog on karaoke video production
The Leftover Plurality (3.24.05) – Atomization leaves a big whole in the middle
Happōshu Culture (11.28.04) – Japanese consumers go down market en masse
A Half-Pint of "その他の雑酒２," please (4.13.05) – A sub-happōshu for the very broke
Truth in Advertising (1.15.05) – Japan is all old people now
The Dasai Market Thesis (9.7.04) – There is no longer a viable market for "cool" products in Japan
The Soft Appeal (8.16.05) – Marketing towards youth in a feel good way
The Soft Appeal, Con’t (8.23.05) – Bands lose anti-social edge
The End of Cultural Arbitrage: the West (6.11.04) – Information kills cool export/import
The Commercial Mystery of Bitch Skateboards (4.25.07) – Bitch Skateboards was big with the kids in the mid-90s
All Behold the Monolithic Beauty of the Mobile Ad Monopoly (12.4.06) – One company does the ads for all three mobile phone carriers in Japan
It is no longer fun to wait in line. (11.13.06) – The Japanese art of gyōretsu
The Kent Girls Have Hit the Town (5.11.07) – Cigarette girl army
Wake Up to the Same Coffee at Your Friendly Gigolo (9.8.06) – Coffee legitimizes the "host" profession in ads
Otaku: The Last Nerds Left Standing (8.31.06) – Japanese society loses cool obsessive types and otaku take over
Does the Long Tail Apply to Japan? (8.11.06) – Not much on the fringes, no value in back catalog
Proof! (1.12.06) – Ads using celebrity endorsement
Hanryū (10.11.05) – Korean culture big in Japan, ultimately regressive
Murakami Takashi Sells Out! (6.19.05) – Murakami Takashi does Yuzu artwork, can’t say no
Hollywood Stays Home (9.27.05) – Hollywood actors shill less junk in Japan
Bad Tuning (7.1.05) – Japanese distributors give bad Japanese titles to foreign movies
Travel Japan: It’s… Not Bad! (2.6.05) – Tokyo’s lackluster tourist sites
Media
General
Deductive Argument on Advertorial (7.6.20) – Why tie-up advertorial leads to a lack of criticism
Japanese Consumers Want Manuals (6.26.05)
The Japanese Media: A Recap (5.10.05) – Lack of critical review
Authority through Selective Democracy (11.18.04) – Why those "street snap" magazines are not "democratic"
Street Snaps: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? (6.6.07) – How fashion magazines shoot and select street snaps
No Dig Dug (11.15.06) – The lack of investigative journalism on obvious topics
Den Hideo on the Japanese Media (5.11.05) – Quote from an old-school Japanese liberal
Japan Times: Soka Gakkai Connection or What? (11.10.06) – Just asking…
Take Anything You Want (10.24.06) – Ironic zaniness from the late 1980s.
Pirates are bad. Now enjoy this movie about Pirates. (8.26.06) – Mixed messages at the movies.
Namennayo! – On Pirates and Cats (7.16.05) – Yankii kittens say no content piracy.
Import/Export (7.26.06) – Neil Strauss’ The Game and Paris Hilton’s One Night in Paris in Japanese
Magazines
Japanese Magazine Stats (8.8.06) – The decline and fall of Japanese mags
I Can CanCam (5.29.05) – The #1 mag for young women
CanCam Scorecard for June 2007 (4.24.07) – Counting pics of models
Japanese Girls Love Marketing Reports (9.22.06) – CanCam provides marketing data
Cyzo! サイゾー！(7.4.05) – Japan’s classiest muckraking magazine
Oricon Music Charts Sues Freelancer Over Quoted Comment in Article (1.17.07)
New Cyzo: Censoring Star Wars Reviews in Japan (7.22.05)
A Correction on Japanese Film Criticism (7.26.05)
Too Hot for Japan – Cyzo on taboos
Relax on Peace (10.20.05) – Can you have a non-political pacifism?
Terminal Decline… of a Certain Subculture (Which Had its Many Foreign Fans) (6.15.06) – R.I.P. Relax
On the New Japanese Tokion (9.18.05) – Glocal Tokyo
No-Sword on Erokoto (10.4.06) – Sexist environmental porn
Zino: Because We Needed Another Leon (5.14.07) – Trendy old men mags
LOHAS are NERDS (and probably poor) (12.19.07) – A sarcastic perspective on LOHAS in Japan
Japan, So Narrowly Defined (5.15.07) – Weekly Playboy on "Japanese Idols" vs. "World Sexy"
We. (1.10.07) – Spa! magazine think we all keep going to brothels
Updates on Sex, Violence, and Backhand Deals (2.7.07) Sumo, Foreign Crime File, Low teen idols
On that OTAK Otaku Certification Exam… (8.17.05) – Elfics quizes the nerds on their otaku-ness
TV
Lackluster Video: The Continuing Enigma of Japanese Television (11.28.06) – Why does Japanese TV look so cheap?
Japanese TV: Passing the Savings onto the Top (11.2.06) – High salaries and low quality in Japanese TV
One Update and Two Questions about Japanese TV (1.31.07)
Everything Bad is Good for You in Selected Media Markets (10.28.05) – Applying Steven Johnson to Japan
Don’t Try the Natto Diet (1.20.07) – Japanese TV fakes health/dietary information
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? (8.4.06) – Kameda Koji boxing travesty
Further Kameda Conspiracy Theories from Encyclopedia Brown (8.7.06)
Japanese TV, Part II – Sonim vs. Orlando Bloom (11.5.05) – A real interview I saw between stars
Winter Olympic Backlash (2.22.06) – Japan not happy about Winter Olympics 2006
Gaijin Talent Ranking (8.19.05) – Who is your favorite inconsequential foreign star in Japan?
Music
Idol Decline (10.24.06) – How Koda Kumi is not up for the task of biggest idol in Japan
The Year in (J)Pop 2004 (1.15.05) – What happened in J-Pop for 2004
Politics and Control
Paranoia (2.18.05)
Who Needs Truth? Use Your Imagination (11.5.04) – Alex Kerr and information control
The Kurile Island Dispute and the World of Women’s Fashion (6.3.05) – Ads on territorial disputes in women’s fashion magazines
Populist Democratic Argument Against Japanese War Guilt (5.24.06)
Livedoor, Con’t. (1.24.06) – State crackdown on Horie
Sex and Violence (4.20.05) – Weekly Pureboi‘s jingo-porn
Hunters and the Hunted (6.5.06) – Weekly Pureboi imagines Neo-Nazis hunting for Japanese
Was Japan a CIA-Backed One-Party State? (2.12.06) – Chalmers Johnson view of Japanese post-war politics
Prelude to new Radio MXUT: Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law (2.22.06) – A dumb law
Freakonomics on Sumo Wrestling (9.8.05) – Stats proved that sumo is rigged
Left Alone (2.31.05) – Bad documentary on Japanese New Left
Abe
Abe and the Politics of Being Korean (9.4.06) – He’s not Korean, but his Moonie friends are
ダーリンは愛国人 (7.11.06) – Preview of PM Abe
Family Tree (8.21.06) – Abe and Aso are in the same elite clan
Uyoku
Two Things About Working in Akasaka (4.6.06) – The mob and the right-wing outside my doorstep
Right-Wing Parad(is)e (6.12.06) – Soundtruck parade
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but the Nationalist soundtrucks often roll by my office (6.23.06)
Happy Anti-Russia Day (8.9.06) – Uyoku holiday in August
Uyoku – "p0wned!" by p0lice (4.11.07) – Protests against Chinese Premier
808 State (4.12.07) – Pics of protest against Chinese Premier
Organized Crime
Post-Modern Anxiety Appearing in Odd Places (5.18.07) – Yakuza killing politicians and Leah Dizon’s secret Japaneseness
The Story of the Black Corporation (4.18.07) – A parable
Sex and Love
The Onyanko Club (3.16.05) – "The Pussy Club" idol collective from the 80s
The Onyanko Club, Pt. II (3.17.05) – Translated lyrics to "Otto Chikan"
The Onyanko Club, Pt. III (3.18.05) – Translated lyrics to "O-yoshi ni natte ne TEACHER"
What to do about Saaya Irie? (5.17.06) – the "Low Teen Idol" Boom
Your Little Sister (1.29.07) – the pre-teen semi-porn market
Selling Commodities to Demanding Markets (11.2.06) – C-ute look like hostesses
Little Grown-Ups (2.17.07) – 60s teen idols sounds very old
Attraction to Adult Women: a Hot Trend for Upper-Middle Class Men (4.17.07) – Brutus starts the backlash
Saaya Irie Gets NHK Sponsorship (3.25.07) – Low-teen idols go national
Magazine Rack (6.13.05) – the story of breast obsession in Japan
The Japanification of Leah Dizon (2.15.07) – Japanese makeover of import model Leah Dizon
Former Foreign Hostess Tells All to Neomarxisme (5.9.07) – Satire on foreign hostess media mania
Socioeconomics
Income (In)equality in Japan (12.13.04)
The Rise of Social Class in Japan, Pt. I (1.16.06)
The Rise of Social Class in Japan, Pt. 1.5 (1.30.06)
Japan Discovers Poor People… and They’re Awesome! (12.12.05) – AERA supports both the upper and lower classes!
How Did Japanese Analysts Make Money Before the Rise of Poor People? (9.12.06) – Atsushi Miura
Two-tier division in Japanese labor force (1.24.05)
Dignity of a Nation Analysis Sidebar 1: Income Inequality and Lifetime Employment (7.31.06)
Les Maisons des Nouveaux Riches (4.3.05) – Rich people’s ugly houses in Setagaya-ku
Class and Creativity (10.24.05) – Tokion Japan’s Creativity Now conference and kogal class
Rich Kids (12.12.06) – Murakami Haruki and many other Japanese creatives came from money
Destroying Harajuku from the Inside-Out (2.27.06) – Omotesando Hills and playgrounds of the rich
Youth Culture
Delinquent Subcultures vs. Consumer Lifestyles (4.8.05) – Primer on Japanese youth fashion
The Misanthropology of Late-Stage Kogal (1.23.07) – Why everyone really hates the ganguro
A No-Tenkō Japanese Youth (5.13.05) – Japanese youth are not properly "converting" to adulthood
Takenoko-zoku Cool (11.25.04) – Japan re-discovers its own old subcultures
Popeye ’79 on American College Life (8.9.05) – Japanese teens used to idolize Americans
Massing, Demographics, and the Beginnings of Japanese Pop Culture (6.4.07)
How Long? (7.30.05) – Swastika t-shirts in Harajuku
瘋癲族 (2.13.05) – Japan’s version of hippies, the Futenzoku
Kids These Days! (3.3.05) – Academic adults take on Japanese kids
MORE COMING SOON….
