■ New Edition of Creating a Super Free Society 5: Super Pop Strategies
Recent book "New Edition of Creating a Super Free Society: After Coronavirus is the Era of Cats." An excerpt is below.
From Chapter 3, Super Pop Strategy.”
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○ Cool Japan is a foreign word
Magical Lovely won the M1 Grand Prix 2020, the final battle of manzai. The art of tsukkomi and boke, who goes on a rampage without speaking, sparked controversy as to whether it was a comic dialogue or not. Punk that overturns the expression of interaction and chatter that this tournament, which has a history of 20 years, has nurtured from Nakagawa-ke to Milk Boy.
However, manzai has had various styles since ancient times, such as music, dance, thuds, and grumbles. Fixing it to chatty talk is a way to throw away pop and escape to traditional performing arts. Inverting and diversifying forms is a requirement of pop culture. Pop manzai dared to dominate punk expressions in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis.
Entertainers, artists, and creators had no choice but to stay at home. There is an expression that is born in a difficult era of peace and harmony. Both jazz and punk were born out of repression. “Good Times Bad Times” (Led Zeppelin)
Yoshimoto comedians called themselves a home theater and rolled out stories on their smartphones one after another. A new kind of laughter was born. Gen Hoshino's post on Instagram, "Let's dance at home," involved artists and politicians, and created a series of expressions such as videos and dances. Live music performances with avatars were also made.
In e-sports, which has become a global boom due to stay-at-home demand, top players from F1, tennis, and the NBA have participated, and efforts have been made to integrate them with real sports. The virtual Tour de France, in which athletes ride bicycles on indoor machines and compete for time, was held, showing the possibility of holding the Olympics virtually.
Coronavirus is giving birth to new expressions and new entertainment. Even now, there must be sprouts that cannot be seen, fetal movements that cannot be heard. I hope a neo-renaissance emerges.
Super free society is a dazzling entertainment society. It will be a pop and cool entertainment life. How will technology expand entertainment and pop culture? How will entertainment and pop culture survive in a super free time society?
Shonen Knife is a female band from Osaka. I was a director in the 80's. In the 90s, they replaced the Rolling Stones in a Microsoft commercial and partnered with Nirvana on their world tour. They were the most famous Japanese band in the world.
An artist who surpassed that popularity has appeared. It's Hatsune Miku. In 2012, they won first place in an international vote for the singer most wanted to sing at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Paul McCartney sang “Hey Jude” on the show, and Hatsune Miku never materialized. However, this shows that Japanese digital pop has taken root worldwide.
James Bond escorted Her Majesty the Queen from the air at the London Opening Ceremony. Mr. Bean played the synthesizer. David Beckham assists and Paul appears. Cool Britannia. Good for them. So I asked 1,000 students in London: who is worthy of being on stage at the opening ceremony of Tokyo 2020?
Unfortunately, the name of a politician is not mentioned. Unfortunately, neither artists nor athletes are mentioned. Gundam, Son Goku, and Pikachu were mentioned. I don't know if they are Japanese. But they can represent Japan. Because Japan is a land of characters. There is no longer an image of a country of harakiri and kamikaze fights. There is no image of competing companies such as Toyota, Honda, and Sony. Now it is Naruto, Death Note, One Piece, Bleach, Yugioh, Sailor Moon, Conan, Grendizer, Cowboy Bebop, Ranma. Japan is a land of pop culture.
Closing ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics. After Captain Tsubasa, Doraemon, Pac-Man, and Hello Kitty, Abe Mario appeared from a clay pipe. Manga, anime, and games used to be subject to government regulation, but now they are showing that they are national treasures on the other side of the world.
The face changed completely. At the beginning of this century, things were different.
A woman in her 20s living in a high-rise apartment in Hong Kong said, "I want to live in Japan." Why? "Because all Japanese people live in single houses." I've never lived in a single house, though? Who lives in one? "Doraemon." "Chibi Maruko-chan." Oh. "Crayon Shin-chan." Yeah. "Arale-chan."
Hey, do you know the Japanese Prime Minister? "I don’t know him." Do you know the CEOs of Sony, Toyota, or Honda? "I don't know. Only those people I know." I don't know if Doraemon and Arale are "Japanese." But it is certain that they are the face of Japan.
Men dancing with Yoko Maekawa's Cutie Honey in the background. Women in Japanese high school girl cosplay costumes. Ganguro is also Yamanba. Cosplay, headgear, visual kei, kiwamono, lolita, gothic lolita. In the manga corner, not only French translations but also original Japanese versions are lined up. Fujoshi-style flocking to anime DVDs, children trying out the latest PSP games, swords, stuffed animals and dolls, and live performances. Long lines for takoyaki. Ramen, curry, gyoza bowls, beef bowls, udon, rice balls.
This is the venue for the Japan Expo held in the suburbs of Paris in early summer. A festival of Japanese culture that combines pop culture centered on manga, anime, and games with traditional culture such as calligraphy, martial arts, tea ceremony, and origami. Started in 2001, 250,000 people visited in 2019 in 4 days.
Los Angeles "Anime Expo," 350,000 people, Barcelona "Manga Barcelona," 150,000 people, London "Hyper Japan," 130,000 people. Pop culture festivals held in various parts of Europe, America, and Asia are troubled by overcapacity at the venues. 2020 was forced to be postponed and online due to Coronavirus, but how should we judge the demand to return after Coronavirus? The Japanese department at the University of Frankfurt has only two professors, but has 500 students because of the Japanese pop culture craze. Overcapacity.
Stanford University Professor Robert Laughlin won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998. So I asked. What did you enjoy most about winning the Nobel Prize? "It's about getting Otomo’s autograph." AKIRA and Steamboy 's Katsuhiro Otomo? "I kept sending fan letters to Mr. Otomo, but they were all in vain. When I reported the Nobel Prize, he sent me a signature. The Nobel Prize is amazing." Mr. Otomo is more amazing than the Nobel Prize. I later told Mr. Otomo that Professor Laughlin had said so. Mr. Otomo didn't remember who it was.
In both the United States and Europe, Japanese manga has surpassed local comics in popularity. In Europe and the United States, where from ancient times books were written horizontally and bound on the left, there is now a cultural and historical phenomenon in which translated versions of Japanese manga that are opened with the right hand and bound on the right are lined up in bookstores.
I entered a bookstore in La Défense, a suburb of Paris. The Japanese manga section is much larger than the French manga bande dessinée section. In one corner, the alphabet "YAOI" is written. It says "Boy's Love" in lower case below. Putting aside BL, there aren't many Japanese people who know the word "yaoi." But the first Japanese word that La Défense children learn may be yaoi. Ganguro and Yamanba, which were extinct in Japan, or should have been exterminated, survive here. The power of propagation and permeation of that culture.
Angered by the Senkaku issue, the Chinese cursed him violently, calling him "Leven Guiz." Japanese netizens created a moe character "Hinmoto Oniko" and knocked the other party on their knees. During that time, when I gave a lecture at the Political Science Department of Peking University, I was bombarded with questions about Japanese anime and games from dozens of doctoral students. If you like it so much, I ask you to stop the Senkaku turmoil. What Japanese do they like? 3rd place was Hayao Miyazaki, 2nd place was Doraemon, and 1st place was Sora Aoi. They say they’re watching a pirated version. Hey, Political Science.
"People's War of Resistance against Japan Memorial Hall" in the place where the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred in 1936. The Chinese army, fighting the Japanese opponent anyway . A cruel picture is still displayed. The store was overflowing with Prince of Tennis key chains and Hello Kitty pens. What is it that you really like?
According to Takamasa Sakurai's "Chinese Girls Who Love Japan Too Much," 10,000 Chinese people will sing anime songs in Japanese at AniSummer Shanghai. It is said that Chinese girls are proud of the word otaku, as well as BL and fujoshi. It is said that the BL girl is really fine. They are quite energetic.
In 2002, Douglas McGray published his thesis, "Japan's Gross National Cool," which inspired the term "Cool Japan." Gross National Cool is a concept likened to GNP (gross national product), and it is an index of national power that can be called "fashionable cultural power." Cool Japan is a foreign word.
At the outset, he states: "Japan is reinventing superpower -- again. Instead of collapsing beneath its widely reported political and economic misfortunes, Japan's global cultural influence has quietly grown. From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and animation to cuisine, Japan looks more like a cultural superpower today than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic one."
In 2002, there was another incident that made the world recognize the power of Japanese pop. Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" won the Grand Prix (Golden Lion Award) at the Venice International Film Festival. A coming-of-age story of a girl who survives in a ubiquitous space inhabited by eight million gods. This esoteric animation was evaluated at a prestigious film festival. James Cameron's "Titanic" is the highest-grossing movie in the world, but this work has long held the number one position at the Japanese box office. Japanese pop is supported by an aesthetic audience.
New Year 2021 began with the big news that "Kimetsu no Yaiba" surpassed the box office in just two months after its release. It changed the lead for the first time in about 20 years. But after all, Japan is anime.
