Japanese Popular

Culture II:
Introduction Lecture

Mahon MURPHY
murphy@law.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Office: Law Main Building East Wing 404
Yoshida Main Campus
Cover of Wired Magazine
November 2007
Japanese popular culture topic of
study at university level across the
world

We will study Japanese popular

culture from a Historical perspective

The goal of this class is to discover The Cultural Affairs Agency recently moved from
how Japanese popular culture Tokyo to Kyoto (27 March 2023)

developed into its modern form

Our Goals

1. Gain an understanding of the history of popular

culture

2. Recognize the political importance of popular culture

3. Read and analyze academic texts in English

How to achieve our Goals

1. Prepare for class: Weekly reading assignments

2. Share in Class: In Class discussion

3. Think Critically: What do we already know? How will this

course change our thinking?
What is Popular Culture?
1. What is Culture?
• Culture: a general process of intellectual,
spiritual and aesthetic development.

• Philosophy
• Art
• Religion

• Culture is ideological as it supports the

interests of dominant groups. [Karl
Marx]
2. What is Culture?
• A particular way of life for a people, a
period, or a group.

• Literacy
• Holidays
• Sport
• Religious Festivals

• Rituals and customs connects us to the

social order. [Louis Althusser]
3. What is Culture?
• Works or practices of intellectual and especially
artistic activities.

• Poetry
• Novels
• Opera
• Fine Art

Texts can be in harmony with or challenge society.

Texts attempt to make the cultural (humanly made)
seem natural (existing). [Roland Barthes]
 What is Popular Culture?

• Who creates and controls popular culture?

• Who benefits from popular culture?
• What messages does popular culture communicate?
• How do consumers react to the messages?
• How is popular culture distributed?
Aesthetic and Sociological

• Aesthetic: separates popular

culture from other forms of
culture.
• High Brow Vs Low Brow

• Sociological: popular culture is

produced and consumed by
non-elites.
Portrait of the actor Ichikawa Ebizo V by
Utagawa Kunisada (1863)
What is Popular Culture?

• Cultural spectacles: literature, plays, movies – intended for a

large audience,
• Uses technologies of mass reproduction and dissemination.
• Regarded as inferior to other culture based on ideas of
aesthetic value.
• Mechanism for social control and ideological indoctrination?
The Post-War Period
2. Chocolate and Tobacco: Horizontal Westernization in the 1940s. Course Schedule
3. King of the Monsters: Godzilla and Japan’s Atomic Age
4. Pro-Wrestling as a mass event: the rise of TV culture

Japan Back in the World

5. The 1964 Olympics: Rejoining the Family of Nations
6. Beatlemania hits Japan: Music and Revolution
7. Visualizing Popular Culture: The Manga Boom

Hi-Tech Popular Culture

8. Pachinko: A truly Japanese Popular Culture?
9. Nintendo takes over America: Video Games in the 1980s
10. Backlash: Anti-Japanese Movements in the USA

Japanese Popular Culture becomes Global Popular Culture

11. Dreaming of Sushi: Global Washoku
12. Anime and its International Impact
13. A 21st Century Popular Culture Super Power: Cool Japan
2008 Doraemon named Anime
Ambassador: Foreign Minister Komura
Masahiko looks delighted!
Group Discussion
The Rise of Pop-Culture Diplomacy

• Pop-Culture diplomacy begins in the Meiji Period

• 1920/30s use of pop-culture to promote an empire
• 1950/60s economic development post-war
• 1980s use of media culture for cultural diplomacy
• 1990s a high point for Japanese popular culture in East Asia
• 21st Century ‘Cool Japan’ policy
Soft Power: Nation Branding
• 21st Century: ‘Cool Japan’
• Nation Branding: Nations now
operating like companies
• Not unique to Japan: example:
Korea and the success of K-Pop
Soft Power and Cool Japan
• Koizumi Junichiro’s
government 2001-2006
• Advancement of cultural
policy
• 2013 The Council for the
Promotion of Cool Japan
• 50 Billion Yen budget
• Economic benefit of
exporting media culture
Prime Minister Koizumi showing of his Elvis
impression at Graceland with George W Bush
Aso Taro speech 2006
‘I think we can safely say that any kind
of cultural diplomacy that fails to take
advantage of pop culture is not really
worthy of being called cultural
diplomacy’.

‘what we need to do now is to attract

people of the world to Japanese
Aso Taro at the Kyoto culture, whether modern or that
International Manga Museum
handed down from antiquity.’
Cool Japan
• 19 March 2008, Doraemon
named Anime Ambassador
• MOFA also sponsors World
Cosplay Summit since
2006
• Boost Nation’s image
through the promotion of
Japanese Popular Culture

Foreign Minister Komura Masahiko looks delighted!

The Cool Japan Message

• Cool Japan aims to promote

Japan’s ‘Uniqueness’
• A racialized discourse on
national culture
• No space for the culturally
marginalized within the Japan
Brand
• A bi-polarized conception of
‘Japanese’ and ‘Foreigner’
We need to Challenge the Message

• Challenge the Cool Japan Narrative

• Japanese Popular Culture is not Unique
• Popular culture reflects a global exchange of ideas
• Challenge stereotypes of Japanese identity as presented to
us by those who want to promote popular culture
Recommended General Reading

• Nancy Stalker, Japan History and Culture from Classical to

Cool (University of California Press, 2018).

• Matt Alt, Pure Invention: How Japan’s Popular Culture

Conquered the World (Crown, 2020).
Getting Grades
Class Participation 20%

Class Assignments 40%

End of Term Exam 40%

Participation in Class 20%
• You must prepare for each class
• You must participate in group discussion!

• No Participation = No Attendance
Assignments 40%
• Weekly Assignments mainly questions on our readings.

• Uploaded to PandA every week

• Readings for each week are available in Resources

• You must hand in at least 4 assignments to pass!

Exam: End of term Paper 40%
Write 3 Short literature reviews

500 words x 3 = 1500 words

• One text you choose from our library

• Two texts from our weekly readings
CONTACT ME:
• Mahon Murphy
• murphy@law.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Please visit my Office at:

Yoshida Main Campus Law Main Building East Wing No. 404
Conclusion

• Popular culture is not only about hobbies and free time activities,
• It is deeply ideological and shapes how our society thinks and
functions
• Control of popular culture is a powerful political tool

• However!
Who controls the production of popular culture?
Next Week: Reading The Post War Occupation

• John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World

War II: Chapter 4: Cultures of Defeat (2000)

• Weekly readings are in the Resources section of our PandA

page.