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The Influence of Digital Technology on the International Reception of Japanese Cinema

The marketability of Japanese cinema has long been a concern for both distributors and fans alike,
both in Japan and abroad. The emergence of so-called yushutsu eiga, films designated as products
intended to be received overseas, and their subsequent lack of success outside of Japan highlights
the pitfalls associated with bringing works of Japanese cinema to an international audience. The
occasional procurement of Japanese films by western distributors did little to build a mass market
following for the industrys output, while at the same time preventing the cognoscenti from gaining
access to the filmographies of directors and stars they admired the most. The turn of the century
saw analogue technologies being superseded by the increasingly low-cost digital technologies,
resulting in greater accessibility to the means of film production, as well as a broader network of
channels of distribution and reception, one which obviated the involvement of studios in ensuring
that film texts reached as wide an audience as the film maker intended. This essay examines the
ways in which the reception of works of Japanese cinema has been shaped by the advent of the DVD
format, and the ways in which the fanboy and arthouse spheres have overlapped, while at the same
time enabling distributors to reach a more mainstream audience.
Prior to the emergence of the DVD format, access to Japanese cinema, in the UK at least, was
confined to occasional late-night screenings on terrestrial television and VHS releases of a handful of
critically acclaimed classics by the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, as well as the latest
offering by Yoji Yamada or Shohei Imamura gracing the metropolitan festival circuit. By the early
1990s, viewing Japanese cinema, or at least texts intended for a purely domestic audience was still
inconceivable without access to an expensive multi-region VHS or Laserdisc player and similarly
costly media, and such a means remained the preserve of a small minority of film fans. Until the
middle of the decade, Japanese cinema remained embedded in the world cinema sections of HMV
and the like, where time-honoured classics such as The Seven Samurai and Kwaidan were gradually
joined on the shelves by releases from a company named Island World Communications, under the
Manga Video marque. Through the co-option of the term manga, Island Communications sought to
capitalise on the increasing number of consumers, particularly men aged between the years of 16
and 30 who played Japanese video games, used technological products made in Japan, and actively
sought Japanese animation as one of their main forms of entertainment, all thanks partly to the role
of print media, particularly video games magazines such as Super Play, who actively stressed and
promoted the Japanese aspect of the video games that they covered, helping to build awareness
of and access to Japanese popular culture, thanks also to occasional tie-ups with Manga Video.
The emergence of Otaku as a viable target audience in the UK has resulted in a sustained demand
for Japanese animation and film, one which has seen the establishment of specialised sections of the
DVD departments of music stores such as HMV. This emergence of a bankable niche industry
indicates the degree to which media companies can rely on the existence of film aficionados who, as
observed by Dew (62), eschew the output of the Hollywood system and instead choose to define
their self-image as movie-watchers through the pursuit of the latest output by auteurs such as
Hayao Miyazaki or Takashi Miike, or a commitment to an entire genre, such as that of the Yakuza, or
J-Horror. This pursuit of works by a specific director or those belonging to a specific genre has been
responsible, together with the paradigm shift in film production and distribution in Japan itself,
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which is covered below, for an expansion of the range of Japanese films available on DVD in the UK,
a range which offers the consumer far more specificity than the world cinema banner ever did. Yet,
as the more Japanese films are released catering to a specific audience, there remain those which
hold a broader appeal but, as Dew points out, risk becoming absorbed into the otaku/fanboy
ghetto, thus depriving the distributor of revenue and the film of a broader audience (Dew, 57).
The reception of Japanese film in the UK has traditionally been limited to the offerings of late-night
television and the film festival circuit, with the occasional video release for perennial favourites, such
as the work of Kurosawa. Domestically, the Japanese film industry has remained diverse and vibrant,
whilst gaining relatively little exposure in the UK, especially in contrast to the film industries of Hong
Kong and India. Since the early 2000s, and the release of Ringu (The Ring, 1998), Japanese cinema
has come to be associated with urban-set horror movies, typified by a more subtle brand of edge-of-
the-seat suspense than the out-and-out gore found in the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street. This
association of a new paradigm in horror movie making with the Japanese film industry itself led to a
heightened awareness of and thirst for works of horror emanating from Japan, one possessed
initially by the cult film fan. Much like the video game fanatics of the 1990s, the cult film fans are
early adopters and much like their 1990s forebears, are primarily concerned with a particular filmic
movement, such as horror. The cult film fan is also concerned with constructing an alternate cultural
narrative, one dictated by the viewer, rather than studio or distributor. Therefore, access to genre
films from Japan feeds not only the cult film fans desire for the unobtainable, unwatchable,
inaccessible(Dew, 60), but also, thanks to an exposure , one facilitated by gate-keepers such as
Tartan, to an alternate cultural context that Japanese cinema provides, the cult film fans desire for
marginality and transgression is not only sated, but also encouraged.
This encouraged desire for marginality and transgression has been exploited by media companies
ready to inform and reinforce the cult film fans self image with a sustained succession of releases
catered to satisfy his or her growing thirst for sub-cultural knowledge (Dew, 64). Such knowledge
is nurtured through the marketing of upcoming releases, which revolves around the deployment of
hype based upon a certain films more extreme elements. Such hype serves to engage the
established otaku-insider market, but also serves to attract a more general audience through the use
of the so-called dare-sell (Drew, 64), which manipulates notions of transgression and social mores,
which themselves underscore the arguments of the films detractors in the mainstream press which
again serve to satisfy the distributors need for publicity. All of which are provided for by the constant
presence of works, such as Ichi The Killer and Battle Royale, which correspond to the label Extreme.
Since the success of The Ring, This label has been sustained by a constant supply of Japanese cinema
comprising big budget epics, straight to video gangster movies and serialised manga adaptations, all
of which constitute the corpus of contemporary Japanese cinema, yet prior to the emergence of the
DVD format, many of these films would possibly not have been picked up for distribution, indicating
the degree to which the market for Japanese cinema in the UK has been expanded by the format.
In order to sustain this market, there needs to be a means for a brand, or habit (Dew, 58) to be
sustained once it has been created. Luckily, for fans of Japanese cinema and even more so for
companies such as Tartan, the works upon which they depend are available in a range of media,
such as TV, radio play, novel and manga. Takashi Shimizus Ju-On (The Grudge, 2000), for example,
was produced first as a straight-to-video V-Cinema title for the domestic Japanese market (Mc Roy,
176), and was then released as a feature film in the West under the banner of J-Horror and later
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Asia Extreme. The films success both in Japan and the West led to the release of the original TV
series in DVD format, allowing the distributors to capitalise on awareness of the original while at the
same time sustaining the hard-core fans habit. This process of distributing multiple texts to a built
in audience (Stringer, 299) has been largely facilitated by the rise of digital technology, such as digital
video post-production, the DVD format, and the internet, where a text and/ or companion texts can
be produced, circulated and received to a higher volume than would be achievable via an analogue
means. The growth in the market for J-Horror and the creation of the Asia Extreme marque has
been commensurate with the growth of the DVD format, a low-cost, at least in terms of production,
format which not only serves as a vehicle for big-budget cinema, but also as vehicle for increasingly
low budget works of film. The elevated level of filmic production in Japan which has given rise to the
J-Horror boom owes much to the proliferation of digital technology and attendant trimming of
production budgets (Marciano-Wada, 18). As a result, film makers can circumvent the studio system
and satisfy their audience with greater speed and volume.
The increasing cost of cinema tickets, the desire for subtitles, not dubbing, and a desire to break
cultural boundaries have all played a part in the growth of the DVD market for Japanese cinema in
the UK. The growth in this market and the growing diversity and sophistication of not just the
established otaku/fan boy markets but also general audiences, has been the result of the
decentralisation of film-making and consumption. In both Japan and Hollywood, the advent of the
digital age of film production and consumption has resulted in role of the studio and cinema
complex becoming upended as film-makers and viewers take advantage of the diverse means by
which a film can be produced and viewed, and a rejection of the hegemony of the studio system,
where large budgets have taken over from gripping story telling. Instead, viewers are creating their
own networks online, where a films worth is determined by fans themselves, rather than a studio-
led multi-million dollar PR campaign. This process applies itself neatly to the J-Horror boom, which
rejects the trappings of Hollywood-style pyrotechnics and blanket media coverage in favour of
atmospheric story-telling and word-of-mouth appraisal, particularly via internet chat forums wherein
ardent followers mediate the relative merits of a particular film. This subversion of the long-standing
economic calculations of studios and distributors (Wada-Marciano, 32) not only ensures that film-
makers have their projects green lighted, but viewers are less likely to be exposed to a version of a
film which has been mis-marketed or heavily edited, often to disguise its Japanese origins, a
situation which would occur often during the VHS era, thereby providing further impetus for those in
pursuit of authenticity.
The role which the DVD format plays in bringing to audience uncut original language Japanese films
is a major characteristic of its transformation of the mode of consumption of Japanese cinema
outside of Japan. The creation of an extreme marque, and the ring fencing of an otaku market has
given rise to the emergence of the completist, the fan who aims to consume the entire ouevre of a
particular genre or director, and who seeks out films in their most complete form, often with the aid
of DVD extras. It is these extras which have empowered the hard-core fan market, imbuing its
adherents with the illusion of insider knowledge. With the aid of this knowledge, the aficionado
takes the role of producer, as well as consumer (Wada-Marciano, 65), resulting in a fantasy of
production (Wada-Marciano, 65), one achieved through a rigid and studious devotion to their
favourite genre or director, facilitated by the broadened manner in which film texts can be
disseminated through the medium of DVD. The main crucible for the reception of Japanese cinema
dispersed via a digital means is of course the home, to which the modularity of DVD viewing is well
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suited, corresponding with a more interrupted pattern of spectatorship (Wada-Marciano, 21) that
typifies the lifestyle of todays consumers, and one which contrasts heavily with the traditional role
played by the cinema as the focal point of the reception of film texts.
The role of the art-house circuit, whereby those living in large cities could watch works of
Japanese cinema that had already played the international festival circuit, and the role that the art-
house aficionado have both played in shaping the manner of the reception of Japanese cinema is
worthy of examination. Prior to the introduction of the DVD format, the art-house played a major
role in bringing Japanese film texts to the publics attention, although the niche nature of this
particular market ensured that appreciation of Japanese cinema remained the preserve of a select
few. Despite which, Japanese cinema has retained a perennial presence on the festival circuit, and in
the hearts and minds of highbrow film fans (Dew, 59). Building on this extant audience, Tartan Asia
and Optimum have sought to expand their market by catering for two disparate groups, the fan-boy
and the art-house fan, both different audiences with different tastes. As the Asian Cinema brand
has begun to take off, Japanese cinema in particular has left the auspices of the art-house banner to
maintain its own marketing space. However, despite the emergence of the otaku/fan-boy as a viable
market, the art-house crowd continue to provide a mainstay of reception of works of Japanese
cinema. Yet, intriguingly, The over-lapping of these two niche markets has resulted in films, such as
Onibaba, a former art-house favourite, being marketed as J-Horror, despite its cursory resemblance
to that particular genre, while on the other hand films such as those of Takashi Miike remain
warmly-received by the art-house set (Dew, 57), in spite of the often gonzo tendencies to which
many of his films lean, highlighting the marketability of Japanese cinema in the digital age.
The aggregation of two opposing audiences in order to sell digital content characterises the manner
in which companies such as Tartan Asia have capitalised on the growth of the DVD market, both in
Japan and the UK, allowing these companies to acquire the rights to a greater number of films than
would have been deemed marketable twenty years ago. This pattern of acquisition, marketing and
reception has been sustained by the high degree to which texts are produced and dispersed in the
Japanese market, which itself is a result of the shift from analogue to digital. The marketability of
Japanese cinema in the digital age has also resulted in a heightened international appreciation and
awareness of the works of genres and directors that constitute the corpus of Japanese cinema, and
furthermore, has encouraged and fed an insatiable appetite for product on the part of the industrys
most ardent devotees, while simultaneously offering the more casual viewer the opportunity to view
a wide array of works spanning the last 50 years or more of Japanese cinema.







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References

Dew, Oliver. Asia Extreme: Japanese cinema and British hype.
New Cinema 5.1 (2007): 53-73. Print

McRoy, Jay.Case Study: Cinematic Hybridity in Shimizu Takashis Juon:
The Grudge. Japanese Horror Cinema. Ed. Jay McRoy. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
175-80. Print.
Stringer, Julian. The Original and the Copy: Nakata Hideos Ring (1989).
Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Alastair Phillips and Julian
Stringer. New York. Routledge, 2007. 296-307. Print.
Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo. J-horror: new medias impact on
contemporary Japanese horror cinema. Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian
Cinema. Ed. Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-
Marciano. Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press, 2009. 15-37. Print.