How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World: Introduction
Disclaimer: This is a review and summary of the Introduction from the book Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World by Matt Alt. The intent of this series is to retrieve the information I learned from my brain to solidify my understanding, and to also share the works of this text in a brief format with additional commentary.
Japanese pop culture is one of the most influential and ubiquitous forces on the planet. From a desolate and destroyed nation post-WWII, to a consumer electronics and auto-manufacturing powerhouse, Japan was able to rebuild itself not only as a dominant developed economy, but also a pop-culture powerhouse. Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the world explores more than just the who and what of Japanese pop culture, but also the why and the how. Alt details the historical and cultural context for the rise of things anime, manga, Hello Kitty, karaoke, video games, the Walkman, etc. Japan’s pop culture has influenced everything from businesses and entire economies, to personal lives, and to entire political movements.
Video Games Become Cinema
The 1997 debut of Final Fantasy: VII changed the way video games were thought about. Final Fantasy VII was rendered in full 3-dimensions. What we take for granted today, was innovative then. Not only was it the first game with 3-dimensional figures, it had a deeply dramatic storyline. The plot resolves around stopping a corporation from sucking the planets resources dry. Characters such as Aeris and Cloud were given deep backstories and continued their development throughout the game. FFVII was one of the first games to bring their characters to life. Alt notes that players became so attached to the characters, that when Aeris’ death in the game occurred it was dubbed “the moment when gaming culture stood still.”
The game was a hit not only in Japan, but the American mainstream. The game exposed Americans to “big-eyed, bushy-haired anime characters and their manga-style melodrama; androgynous heroes; the very idea that video games could be meditative explorations as well as thrill rides.” Sony even roled out a cinema-level investment into marketing for the game. A total $30 million was spent, which was completely unprecedented at the time. The young were targeted with ads in Marvel and DC Comics, while the adults were targeted in Rolling Stone and Playboy. They even aired commercials for the game during football games, MTV, and Saturday Night Live. FFVII would go on to sell 1 million copies in the first quarter after its September release, eventually selling thirteen million copies worldwide.
“Japonisme”
This was not the first time a segment of society had been swept by Japanese culture. Alt writes, “In the late 1800s, right at the cusp of the twentieth century, a new craze swept the world: ‘Japonisme.’” Japan had become known as a fantasy land in the late 1800s, as this was the worlds initial introduction to their art and culture. Japan had recently reopened its ports after going through an isolationist period, and the world was fascinated at how this small island of people had to develop to have such refined art and practices. Americans admired Japan’s commitment to art and literature, as “they believed their society had abandoned these values in the drive for industrial advancement.” Japan would become branded as a Western fantasyland until the nation’s defeat in World War II
The defeat was internationally humiliating, and Japan became associated with low quality products. Producers in the country would do their best to obscure the products’ Japanese origins. In 1957, US Secretary of State John Foster would tell the Japanese Prime Minister that Japan doesn’t make products Americans want. Foster would also tell a confidant that “suicide is not an illogical step for anyone concerned about Japan’s economic future.” “Made in Japan” would become a punchline in America. This would change with the 1957 release of the Sony TR-Transistor Radio taking America by storm, however, this is a topic for a future post.
Japan’s Booming Economy
Suddenly, Japan became a consumer electronics and automobile powerhouse. American citizens and politicians became outraged as Japan’s rapidly growing economy greatly threatened American economic dominance. The 1984 Democratic Presidential Candidate even proclaimed that American children would be cheated out of their jobs by Japanese computers. Three Republican Congressman would televise themselves destroying a Toshiba boom box on Capitol Hill.
Alt descibes Japanese goods as “must have inessentials,” he states “Many corresponded to nothing we knew from American culture: irresistible gadgets like the Walkman and karaoke machine. A cute kitty whose name seemed to be ‘Hello’ and who appeared on an endless array of products tailored for the schoolgirl set…. Video games, anime, and manga, catering to niches and demographics we’d never even imagined.”
As the years have gone on, Alt notes that foreign fans of Westernized-Japanese pop culture have wanted things to be “even more Japanese.” They wanted the content they were getting to as Japanese as the content the Japanese were getting. Alt notes that Japan wasn’t making products, they were making tools to navigate post-modern landscapes and civilization. These tools served as an escape from reality, a way to meditate on one’s own morals, an image of what the world could be like, and philosophical and ethical discussions that could be discussed at the university level. Japan was the leader not only in pop culture, but also in what the damaging effects of a post-capitalist society can manifest into. After urbanizing in 1/4th of the time it took America, Japan would enter stages of political upheaval, a booming economy, a financial crash, and “the exodus of youth into increasingly elaborate and virtual landscapes.”
Japanese creators would take their creations and use them to redefine what it means to be human during the modern era and rapidly changing times. Alt notes that Japanese creations have three defining characteristics: they are influential, inescapable, and inessential. Japan has had an early dedication to fantasies and toys, with an American foreign minister in 1863 noting that “Japan was a paradise for babies”
However, as Alt writes in the later chapters, this paradise would extend to more than babies and become one of major leading influences on modern society.
Follow for my review and commentary on the next chapter of Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World
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