Japan's Lost Generation

Q & A Series PT III: Religious Influences on Internet Suicide Pacts and the Hikikomori

Recently, I was asked a series of questions by a person researching the phenomenon of suicide in Japanese society. I'd like to share that discussion over the next several blog entries for the benefit of others. I'll call the individual 'E' in this blog.

Michael Dziesinski

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E's Question:

Do you see any religious influences, or a lack thereof in this phenomenon (hikikomori and suicide)?

My Answer:

The ‘komori’ part of the word ‘hikikomori’ is taken from the verb ‘komoru’ which means ‘to retire’, ‘to go into retreat’, and is a reference to the old practice by Buddhist monks of going into retreat to find their inner selves.

Psychologist Saito Tamaki coined this word for acute social withdraw about seven years ago, so any linkage there with actual Buddhist practice is dubious at best.

To be honest, in my years of living in Japan and even meeting and interacting with Buddhist and Shinto clergy, I never got the sense of overt religious influence in Japanese life on a spiritual level for most people.

Oh, there was a few that I did meet with whom I was absolutely stunned by their religiosity, Mount Koya comes to mind (Koya images), but on the whole, the personal impression I get is that religion in the western sense of the term does not apply to Japanese daily life. ‘Religious influence’ in Japanese life seems to operate at a purely functional level— Shinto ceremonies for births and weddings (more), Buddhist for funerals and memorials, and festivals throughout the year that are remembrances of the ‘old days’ as much as commercial events.

On the other hand, it would not be fair to conclude that the lack of ‘strong faith’ is cause for these social problems. In some ways, the social cohesion of the group, amae, on/giri and various other aspects of Japanese culture would appear to make unnecessary the need for the unifying sense of community and self-defining role that religion serves in the west.

Being ostracized in Japanese society (it even has a specific term in Japanese, Mura Hachibu) and rejected by the group in events such as bullying or the media stigma for a behavior, is when the crisis for identity manifests when you are 'outside' the 80% of mainstream Japanese culture.

Until that time, most Japanese people are comfortably nested in a definition of self-identity based upon the interrelationships with those in-groups and out-groups around them.

Q & A Series PT II: Internet Suicide Pacts and the Hikikomori

Recently, I was asked a series of questions by a person researching the phenomenon of suicide in Japanese society. I'd like to share that discussion over the next several blog entries for the benefit of others. I'll call the individual 'E' in this blog.

Michael Dziesinski

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E's Question:
I just had a few questions for you on the topic, since you seem to be the expert. How do you think this pertains to suicide in general, and more specifically the 'internet suicide pacts'?

My Answer:
Well, one obvious similarity between the hikikomori topic and Internet suicide pacts is the treatment by the media.

The general approach by the Japanese media is one of sensationalizing the issue in what seems to be part of an underlying agenda of the establishment/elites towards any behavior pattern that could be deemed outside of the acceptable mainstream. That is, deviant behavior from the long defined and accepted norm is labeled as non-mainstream and so to be shunned.

The media presents issues such as parasite singles, hikikomori, freeta, and suicide pacts in such an extreme black and white manner using the most alarming examples, that the consuming public naturally attaches a stigma to those who behave in such a way. The public ostracizes the deviant behavior, forcing those offenders outside of social acceptance; akin, metaphorically, to cutting off a growing cancer in society to keep the main body healthy. This pattern of ostracism to prevent social change seems to have historical precedence.

The problem with this pattern of ‘media defines issue/public reacts’ is that the original societal problem that caused these Japanese people to become hikikomori, to refuse to work, to live overseas, to commit suicide is never seriously addressed within public discourse. The end effect is symptomized and even medicalized by the institutions, but the inherent catalysts for these behaviors don’t seem to be actively recognized by Japan’s social institutions.

My guess is that to do so, to undertake such an evaluation of Japan’s existing social institutions, would reveal that they are long overdue for an overhaul to bring them into the 21st century. These people falling through the cracks are dissatisfied with their role in Japanese society and are reacting in varying ways to the stresses of a social construct they feel trapped in without any release:

Weber’s Iron Cage

Foucault’s Panopticon

Giddens’ Juggernaut

Whatever you call it, the fact is that Japanese society, without the economic miracle and life employment of the 1980s and 1990s, presents serious problems for those young people reaching adulthood in the coming years:

What will their self-identity be based upon?

Where will their country be on the world stage in the future?

What is it to be ‘Japanese’?

Q & A Series PT I: Gender & Hikikomori new research paper posted on my Blog

Recently, I was asked a series of questions by a person researching the phenomenon of suicide in Japanese society. I'd like to share that discussion over the next several blog entries for the benefit of others. I'll call the individual 'E' in this blog.

Michael Dziesinski

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E's Question:

I just finished reading your paper, which I found quite interesting by the way. I'll be quoting some of your passages, so I again I need to express my gratitude for your work.

My Answer:

Well thank you again. Glad to be of help.

Just bear in mind that the paper was written a couple years ago and is, in effect, a literature review for my Master’s Thesis. I have hinted at some of my findings from my field research on hikikomori in my blog, but I must admit that until I get my thesis published, there are a few things I am keeping close to my vest in the interest of keeping my research unique; nothing likely to impact your topic, mostly unique field data and some working theories.

I will be posting a newer paper I wrote last semester that investigates the gender aspect of hikikomori in the next few days. You might find some of the initial intro material similar but the second half of the paper looks at the hikikomori issue in the wider context of the freeta and parasite single phenomenon also concurrently going on in Japan.

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As per this conversation, if you look at the right column of this blog, Japan's Lost Generation under Research Files you will see a new paper added. Or you click here: Hikikomori as a Genedered Issue to get it.

Anti-Japanese Sentiments in China continues with a drilling dispute

Well, it looks like the national tension between Japan and China is not dying down. The tensions caused by the original textbook debate has maintained it's momentum in China and is being furthered by a dispute over gas drilling rights between the two countries.

According to this excellent analysis in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Acrimony grows in East Asia”

— the bigger issue here may be China, in part, flexing its newfound economic muscle in the region. Also according to the article, China is ᡢecoming further emboldened because the communist nation is finding that Japan's traditional allies like the United States do not want to get involved in the China-Japan dispute and are only issuing travel advisories for it's own citizens traveling in China.

Also complicating matters is that the United States is pushing Japan to take a more active defensive role in the region as the U.S. plans to pull its 30,000 troops out of Okinawa and only leave a small contingent near Tokyo.

Are we seeing a shift in political-economic power in East Asia?

China does appear to be trying to make some diplomatic effort to dampen the anti-japanese rallies, as reported by the BBC:

China warns against Japan Rallies

As I said before, I'm interested in this crisis between Japan and its neighbors as far as it will effect Japan in the coming years— I hold NO OPINION on the issue proper, just the effects it will leave in it's wake.

Framed in those terms, the question is: what role does Japan's younger generation have to look forward to for their own country of Japan and so their self-identity, if there is a drastic shift in political-economic power towards China in the coming decades?

How will the next generation of Japanese deal with those outside Asia seeing China as a near-hegemonic force in Asia, while China continues a policy of suppression of Japanese interest based upon issues from the past?

I'm guessing that we may well see hints to the possible future dynamics in East Asia based upon whether or not the friction between China and Japan calms down or builds to a fever pitch in the coming days.

Image copyright Getty Images.

Follow-up to post on Anti-Japanese sentiments

It appears that the anti-Japanese sentiments in China has given Japan's Ambassador cause to call on the Chinese government to protect Japanese citizens currently in China. It does seem the issue is intensifying:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/10/china.japan.protest.media/

And because some seem to think I'm oversimplifying the issue, here is an editorial from the Japan Times on political and economic aspects of the anti-japanese sentiment and why its 'dangerous to hold Japan back' in the future using Japan's actions in the past as a 'club':

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050411tp.htm

As I said in the last post, I'm gathering the news here and providing analysis, I'm not trying to sell you on any point of view, so personal attacks are not welcome.

All I'm asking is to consider how this geopolitical mess will impact the next generation of adults in Japan who will be running the show in the next few decades.

Obviously this is a hot issue which is why I'm getting some of the feedback I am, but I would prefer NOT to wade into the political area, but keep it an academic inquiry.

Anti-Japanese Sentiments Heat Up in China and Korea

I wonder at times what type of relationship Japan's young generation will have with Japan's Asian neighbors when those young people reach the age where they are setting policy decisions as Japan's leaders.

Though nearly two generations have passed since the events of WWII, China and Korea still harbors resentment towards Japan for its aggressions in WWII reflected in the current events of today; Some memories die hard and are passed from parent to child. Complicating matters is the fact that China is quickly becoming the economic hedgemon of Asia, overshadowing “Japan Inc.'s” economic miracle in the 1990's.

How will Japan's new working class of the 21st century deal with a rising tide of anti-Japanese sentiment in Asia?

And do they even know the reasons why China and Korea are so hostile to Japan?

Just to illustrate how much China and Korea STILL hold intense national animosity towards Japan today from the actions of Imperial Japan in the 1930s, three issues have flared up in the past few weeks sparking intense anti-Japanese resentment in those two countries.

I normally wouldn't comment on this sort of thing in my blog, but the Japanese textbook issue does pertain to the current young generation in Japan. My purpose here is to just bring the reader up to speed on the issue of anti-Japanese sentiment flaring up in Asia, not really take one side or the other in the disputes. I would only like to consider the effect it is having on Japan's Lost Generation.

The Japan Middle School Textbook Issue

The newest rekindled debate arose when a new edition of textbooks for Japanese school nationwide were approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education this week. The accusations from China and Korea are that the Japanese publisher of the Japanese middle school textbooks are guilty of 'whitewashing' Japan's role in WWII as an aggressor nation: the textbooks barely mentions the Nanking Massacre, Comfort Women, or the annexation of Korea.

The idea being that young Japanese have no knowledge of their country’s true historical involvement in those WWII events (and so are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their grandfather's generation). The thinking put forth by the articles below by Chinese and Korean sources are that these textbooks are ultranationalist and right wing in their presentation. These textbooks, cleansed of ugly historical events, will shape the way young Japanese view the world not by what they say, so much as what the textbooks don't say to the young reader by omission.

The fear in China and Korea is that the cleansed textbooks may create a jingoistic generation of Japanese who might once again try to establish militaristic Japan in hegemonic role in Asia.

The most heated response from the Japan side is that the textbook writers don’t want young Japanese growing up to feel depressed or ashamed of their country:

http://english.people.com.cn/200504/06/eng20050406_179790.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4415147.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4416593.stm
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5660053&cKey=1112763920000
http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=1&story_id=32764


China moves to block a greater role for Japan in the UN

The second and related issue spurring ant-Japanese sentiment is China's bid to stop Japan's inclusion in the UN Security Council. With anti-Japanese riots and the boycotting of Japanese goods in China in recent days due to the textbook issue, China finds it hard to satisfy the nationalist fervor at home against the Japanese while trying to come across as globalist in the eyes of the UN. Japanese products like Asahi Beer have been pulled from the shelves in China and protesters assemble outside of Japanese embassies:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GD07Ad06.html
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/04/05/chinese_campaign_to_block_japan_from_un/
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200504%5CFOR20050405b.html
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503300041.html

The Korean/Japanese territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima

The third issue is the heated territorial dispute over a small chunk of rocks that Japan calls Takeshima and Korea calls Dokdo in the Sea of Japan that both Japan and South Korea claim to be their national territory. To understand the bitterness of this dispute you need to understand the history between Japan and Korea in the 20th century. The articles that follow offer a much more detailed description of the history behind this, but suffice to say the annexation of Korea 1910-1945 by Imperial Japan left behind many bad feelings on both sides.

And this issue has heated up beyond civilian action to the point that both governments have taken overt steps to prove they have rightful claim to these islands. The Japanese Self Defense Forces have apparently flown over the islands and there exists plans by the South Korean military to fire on anyone who nears the islands.

Again, the new Japanese middle-school textbooks tie into this issue as well, as the textbooks claim that the disputed islands belong in fact to Japan.

This dispute sparked a wave of violent protests across South Korea in Mid-March and the textbook issue this week has only intensified the issue. Anti-Japanese protests in Seoul have even reportedly involved an old Korean women cutting her pinky off, people stabbing themselves to death, or setting themselves on fire outside the Japanese embassies in Korea in protest:

The most interesting link—
http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=86689

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/03/18/200503180025.asp
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/30/japan-southkorea050330.html
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=050000&biid=2005040704878
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504060021.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050406-06432300-bc-skorea-japan-analysis.xml
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aY5airJkwb4A&refer=asia
http://english.people.com.cn/200504/06/eng20050406_179725.html
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/04/07/200504070013.asp
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/03/18/200503180025.asp
http://english.people.com.cn/200504/06/eng20050406_179725.html
http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?cnd=4/6/2005&section_id=5&newsid=17895&spcl=no

Image Sources:
Image 1: People's Daily Online
Image 2: Kim Dong-hoon / The Korea Herald
Image 3: CBC News

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 6

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

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Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 6:
In your research, one of your graph shows that 20% of the sufferers are 30 or more. Did they become recluses at that age or did they choose the seclusion much earlier, as teenagers?

Hikikomori in their late twenties or thirties most likely became withdrawn in their high school years and because the hikikomori issue has only come to be recently recognized in Japanese society, these individuals languished in their rooms for years or even decades. So I conjecture that the hikikomori phenomenon is one of the young, ranging from junior high school to the first years of college, when the expectations and pressures of society upon the role of a person as they enter society at large is most acutely felt.

Another thing, I don’t know if hikikomori ‘chose’ seclusion as much as the pressures of parents, school and society more or less DRIVE them to isolation to maintain a sense of identity (remember that most hikikomori are only socially inept, not mentally ill).

I hope you can answer these few questions, so I could have a more acute idea of the phenomenon. Thank you for considering my request. I hope you’ll have a nice day, V. G.

I hope my answers helped.

Best,

Michael Dziesinski

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 5

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 5:
Can you tell me why the phenomenon mostly concern teenagers and adults from 20 to 30? Why can’t it also concern older people? Can a person who is more than 30 become a recluse?

Actually, it does affect older people from time to time such as a salaryman who has lost his job or some such, but the majority who become hikikomori seem to be young people who are trying to rectify their direct personal experiences in society with the built-in hypocrisy that is inherent in a functional adult society.

The Japanese call it tatemae/honne, outside face/inner desires, but I would also say that George Herbert Mead’s essay ‘The Self’ is a more detailed assessment of the problem with hikikomori. Using Mead’s theoretical framework, hikikomori are unable to successfully integrate the individual and deeply personal desires of “I” with the more pluralistic “Me” that is defined by its role in society existent inside the mind of every individual.

Young people have not yet solidified these two halves of consciousness and won’t until they reach full maturity after many natural setbacks and disappointments that life metes out as the ‘reality’ of society settles in.

By contrast, working adults, dealing with the contradictions of daily life, have a hardened shell and are able to cope with the stresses that Mead’s two conceptions of ‘self‘ place on an individual. Therefore, undue stress on a young person can fracture these two ‘selves’, as an attempt is made to find ‘one truth’ to society; one which can never be found. The “I” remains and seeks separation from a ‘Me’ that causes anguish.

One solution is isolation, however suicide may be another extreme example which falls in line with Emile Durkheim’s theories in his 1897 work SUICIDE on the effects of upheavals in society on the individual. The ten year economic malaise in Japan and the end of lifetime employment for incoming 21st century company employees may be one reason many youth are questioning their lot in life and choosing social withdraw or suicide over the alternative of years of schooling with no reward at the end and no answers by society at large.

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 4

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 4:
Do you know whether hikikomori can reach out of their isolation by themselves, without professional help, or not? And if they can, how do they do?

Usually, this does not happen as long as the hikikomori remains in the environment that brought on the onset of the withdrawal: An unforgiving school system, parents who are too soft in their discipline, middle income families who can afford to ‘allow’ their child to go into isolation, a society that stigmatizes any perceived sickness so the family feels the pressure to hide their ‘sick’ member from the community.

Change these factors and pull the youth out of the environment in a measured way and they can begin to recover from the stagnation that isolation has wrought. However, not much can be expected if the child is left in the smothering shadow of an overly acquiescent mother, which is often the case with male hikikomori (look up ‘amae’).

While they can’t often reach out themselves due to the environment, ‘professional help’, IE psychologists or doctors, aren’t necessarily needed: some of the most effective support groups for hikikomori are volunteer or private schools as they don’t try to medicate hikikomori, but treat the malady like the social problem that it appears to be. Remove a hikikomori from his isolated environment, socialize him through peer interaction, and most respond favorably.

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 3

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 3:
Do you think hikikomori suffer from their isolation?

I believe that it is pain dealing with society that drives them into their isolation in the first place and because that pain is never dealt with, it festers inside them as they avoid it, ignore it, deny it, and hide from it.

That anguish builds over the time of their isolation and with no solutions to their social problem, they ‘over analyze’ the their problem in their heads as ‘what if?’ scenarios:

‘What if I had done this differently?’
‘What if I didn't let that group bully me?’

However, since they are in complete isolation, they are never able to act on their ‘solutions’ as they are still gripped by fear of the outside and the consequences of those very same ‘what if?“ questions they constantly ask themselves. The thing to bear in mind is in my research, the majority of hikikomori are NOT mentally ill, but are suffering from social anxiety or trauma. They are completely lucid and mentally acute; now imagine that you, a healthy and sane person, is put in isolation in a prison or mental institution: their rooms act in much the same way, as an isolation chamber where they are only left with their thoughts on how they came to be in the room alone. In such a state, you are going to become angry, frustrated, go into denial and yet retain cogent self awareness of your own situation as you are sane and lucid.

So yes, hikikomori suffer from their isolation as only a self-aware individual can.

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 2

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

I apologize for this late response. I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 2:
Do the withdrawn communicate with the society through the internet?

Some do. But it is not a frequent occurrence. It has changed recently, but I suspect that is because of what I think is a ‘copycat’ phenomenon: young people fed up with their lives emulate true hikikomori but continue to communicate with the outside world on some level. Though at some point, these people become ‘true hikikomori’ inadvertently when the social stigma of the condition settles in.

However, true withdrawal is complete social isolation to the point that the person begins to become developmentally and socially stunted in his/her personal growth as they lack any human interaction. After several months or years, such withdrawn people stagnate mentally, though I would argue that this is not a mental illness as I have observed withdrawn people, who after several years of hikikomori behavior, soak up new interactions and learning like a sponge. Once out of the isolated environment and with guided help, they normalize quite quickly— within six months to a year.

Q & A about Hikikomori Part 1

I was contacted via email by someone interested in the topic of hikikomori and posed me several excellent questions. I thought I’d post the questions and my answers to the blog as the answers might prove useful to others looking into the hikikomori issue. I’ll be posting the questions and answers over several blog entries.

Michael Dziesinski

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi M. Dziesinski, I am writing an essay on hikikomori, and as you worked on the subject, I would like to ask you a few questions about that:

My apologies. My spam filter must have caught your previous emails. I also apologize for this late response. I hope you will find these answers helpful (and that I got them to you in time).

Question 1:
I know that both of hikikomori and otaku can read manga or play video games all day. But what’s the different between the two of them? Can’t the otaku be qualified as a hikikomori?

Not really.

First, otaku are people who are extreme fans who immerse themselves into their hobby to the point of alienating people, but they must maintain networks of communication with other ‘otaku’ in order to feed their habit. While ordering products on the web is becoming more common in Japan, otaku still must venture outside to support their interest in a particular hobby; they have to go out and interact with other people and they thrive on others knowing about their interest.

Second, while the behavior of otaku and hikikomori reading manga and playing video games on the surface may seem similar, their motivations are very different.

From my own direct experience in my field research, hikikomori read manga and play video games in part as activities which allow them to AVOID interaction with people and the possible shame and scorn they anticipate receiving in such interactions. It doesn’t matter if it’s a manga, a TV show, or a videogame- the purpose they do these activities is to take their mind off and mask the real problem in their lives; the pain of human interaction. I had one female hikikomori tell me that after several months she became bored with these activities and began to simply stare blankly at the wall for hours. Others might carve words in their room’s walls like “why?” or “who am I?” The point being, that unlike otaku, such activities are not an end unto themselves for hikikomori.

The new Apple Mac mini and the iPod Shuffle and the Japanese Youth Market

Yesterday Apple Computer announced two new products at the San Francisco MacWord show.

They are the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle.

When I lived in Japan, I noticed that next to Sony consumer products, Apple has had a pretty respectable share of the consumer youth market in Japan.

This last year, in 2004, when I did my homestay in Kobe, I had brought my brand new 15GB iPod (at the time) with me as a way to kill the boredom of the long train commutes. The distinctive white remote and earbuds of the iPod always seemed to catch peoples attention.

Over the months of my homestay, I began to see more and more of those white iPod earbuds on Japanese commuters during my train ride. The new owners ranged from the junior high school age to even young salarymen. When the iPod mini was announced, even smaller than the standard iPod, you couldn't get in a train car without seeing at least one set of iPod ear buds (not including me of course).

The clean aesthetic design of Apple products, as well as the extreme portability of the iPod product line, seem to go over really big with Japanese electronics consumers.

If you look at the small size of the iPod shuffle and Mac mini as well as the really clean and simple designs, they fit the Japanese market to a T.

The price point is another consideration: With a $99 dollar iPod shuffle, that's going to put it around 10,000 yen in Japan; pocket change for the affluent Japanese youth market.

I can see young Japanese consumers buying three or four iPod shuffles and customizing them in the same ways that they do to their keitai, cell phones, as a means of personalization in Japan over the last few years.

They might do something as simple as have J-pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki's entire album collection on one iPod shuffle, and a collection of Glay's greatest hits on another iPod shuffle.

More likely, you'll start to see Hello Kitty stickers, sparkly stars, keitai straps, and purikura, print club pictures of the young person's friends and 'signficant other' adorning the iPod shuffle.

The lanyard that is included with the iPod shuffle is another stylistic choice that almost seems included specifically for the Japanese market. Cellphones seen hanging from lanyards in Japan are ubiquitous.

Check out this website in Japan that sells lanyards and straps for keitai to see what I mean. It wouldn't take much to start attaching these to an iPod Shuffle.

Going out on a limb here, but I think that both the iPod shuffle and Mac Mini are going to be really 'big in Japan'.

Here is the Apple Japan website.

Watch the MacWorld keynote here.

Note that all images are copyright Apple Computer.

Anime & Society Series Part Eight

Wrapping it up with a few case studies.

Case study: Full Metal Alchemist

I find it interesting that though Sony marketed Full Metal Alchemist (FMA) to young teens in Japan, the story line and plot oft times leads to very dark places in the human psyche, this horror overtone has presented problems for distribution in America—just how much blood and gore will have to be cut out of this anime series in order to air it in the US? The solution appears that it has been relegated to Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network in the United States.

The premise of FMA is this: instead of a reality based upon the foundations of our own world's science and technology which develops increasingly advanced machinery such as airplanes and computers as time passes, the 'science' of the world of Full Metal Alchemist is that of Alchemy. Alchemy arose in the middle ages and over the centuries has been developed and refined to become the mainstream 'technology' of the FMA 'world' which appears set in a parallel timeline to ours circa 1910. Rudimentary technology does exist such as basic radios, steam driven trains, combustion cars, machine guns, and such but the power and utility of Alchemy trumps this more 'basic technology' of machines. The FMA world is one of conflict and suffering in a state of constant wars using conventional soldiers with basic armaments and uniforms reminiscent of the Austrian Army of WWI. In addition, there are elite troops, 'State Alchemists', who wield Alchemy in ways resembling today's 'weapons of mass destruction', with some of the most powerful State Alchemists able to wipe out whole city blocks.

Alchemy in FMA follows observable rules such as cause and effect, but one of the most important rules is that of 'equal exchange': To create something, you must sacrifice something of equal value. However, 'life alchemy', bringing people back from the dead, is one of the most forbidden disciplines of alchemy and is the focus of the entire FMA series— how do you measure the alchemical value of a human soul? Sure you can gather together all of the raw minerals and metals that comprise the human body in the proper proportions, but how do you quantify that immeasurable essence that is the human spirit? Once the 'life essence' departs, how can Alchemy retrieve it, and what price is paid for the effort?

A young boy barely into his teens, Edward Elric, and his younger brother, Alphonse Elric, show an early aptitude for Alchemy. When their mother dies, the brothers rashly attempt to resurrect her with 'life alchemy' that they only understand at a most basic level. This attempt to delve into this forbidden Alchemy opens a Pandora’s Box that kicks off the series. In that incident, a warped and soulless 'thing' is created that later forms into a homunculus; one of several named after the seven deadly sins in the series, and which serve to hound Ed and AL throughout the series' run. In FMA, homunculi are soulless humans—sins given shape and purpose—living examples of the hubris of Alchemists.

Also during the attempt to resurrect their mother, the younger brother Alphonse is sucked bodily into the resulting vortex that opens. The older brother, Edward, uses alchemy to save his brother by affixing Al’s soul to an inanimate suit of armor. In line with the alchemical rule of equal exchange, the gate in the vortex causes Ed’s arm and leg disintegrate leaving him with bleeding stumps in what is one of the more gory scenes of FMA. So here we have the two main characters of Full Metal Alchemist: the younger is a discorporate soul bonded to a suit of armor, raising the question on what it is to be 'human'. The older is, by our standards, a handicapped individual lacking an arm and a leg paid as a cost for the 'life alchemy' used to save his brother's soul from the vortex.

There is a strange advanced prosthetics technology in the FMA world called ‘automail’ which seems a combination of advanced quasi-robotic prosthetics encased in what appears to be medieval plate mail. Ed, a cripple, regains reasonable mobility through this ‘automail’ and later, through the application of alchemy, turns it into an advantage. However, there are several occasions where his automail is damaged and we are reminded that he is always struggling with his handicap, itself a constant reminder of his foolish foray into 'life Alchemy'.

As mentioned before, the country the FMA story is set in resembles WWI era Austria and Germany though with a government ruled by a military dictatorship. Ed becomes a ‘dog of war’, a state alchemist, in order to find a cure for his younger brother and his own lost limbs by using the vast resources on alchemy held by the military. Of course, by joining the military, the Elric brothers are drawn into the larger conflict going on throughout the world and we, as viewers, get a glimpse at the bleak state of affairs across the countryside that exist for all except the ruling military elite. The FMA world is not one of black and white, but gray where even the most noble characters of the anime have committed grave sins in the past which invariably come back to haunt them during the series' run.


A real cheerful start for a 'target audience' of young teens—not quite G.I. Joe or Transformers is it?

And this is a growing trend in anime which is still entertaining but uses the vehicle of fantasy or science fiction to get across a more serious underlying message that the Japanese writer feels is in need of discussion and thought. And if the dark undertones of FMA are lost upon the average viewer, I believe that subconscious absorption is still taking place while people are being 'entertained'. These type of anime, started with works such as Evangelion, increasingly feature an anti-hero as the protagonist, a change which arguably reflects the changes going on in Japanese society today.

Many young children model themselves on 'heroes' and imagine as they grow up 'flying through the air' or doing some 'great deed' in their play, indeed much of the 'child play' of such children are enactments of these 'hero fantasies'. Unlike a superman or green lantern found in the US pop culture, the 'heroes' of FMA, Evangelion, and other such anime do not have lives that I'd like to trade places with in a million years. Though these protagonists wield 'power' of some sort and do heroic deeds, their worlds are grim and the lives of the main characters are filled with pain and tragedy. Of course, the trend of the anti-hero in American entertainment is nothing new and has been strong for several decades, but it is interesting to see these much more realistic and gritty 'heroes' emerging in Japanese entertainment; 'Heroes' with complex lives and no clear line of 'good' or 'bad'. Such anime are wonderful opportunities as they provide insight into the ethical and moral dilemmas facing Japanese within their own culture today.

What kept me riveted to the FMA anime series were the philosophical and ethical struggles with the price alchemy and the military took upon the character's lives. When the theme of the military is used in anime, often it is presented as a complex and conflicted topic which echoes of the current discourse in Japan. We see the dreadful might of the military, but we also see what it's abuses can do to 'civilians'. Apparent throughout the FMA series is the deep militarization of its society and the lasting damage that unending conflict causes to the FMA culture. In addition, I respect the series because it didn't pander down to the lowest common denominator; FMA never 'pulled any punches' in its original Japanese version, in addition to adult content, there were some really graphic scenes of gore and violence, though justified I think for the purpose of the story.

Consider that this was airing at 7:00PM in Japan on national TV when I lived there. Can you see the uproar in America if this was aired on a primetime non-cable TV channel? Especially now?

Images are copyright their owners.

Next: a Case study of Gantz

Anime & Society Series Part Seven

'A growing darkness in some Japanese anime may reflect a changing global consumer based world society.’

I’d like to think I am a discriminating consumer of anime. In the last two decades I have viewed anime, I went from the typical newcomer who watched anything I could get my hands on (and it was much, much scarcer at the time), to today where —unless the anime has some appeal on a story level— then I give it pass.

Which brings me to the point of this multi-post analysis of anime and Japanese society. Recent mainstream anime in Japan such as Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Bleach, and Gantz are notable in their choice of using the storytelling device to portray dysfunctional/atypical families and social groups rather than the perceived monolithic ‘norm’ in Japan. The subject matter of these anime is also much grimmer than average…and this appears a trend in anime.

As I said previously in this series, writers bring their life experiences to the table when creating fiction. Could the loss of direction, the lack of a generational ‘goal’ for the current youth in Japan unlike their salaryman fathers and grandfathers to rebuild the nation after WWII, be bleeding through into their modern entertainment as well? After all, for entertainment to be successful in a mass market it has to resonate, to connect at some level with the viewer. Anime and manga creators are ‘reaching’ their audience, and to do that, they must reflect some aspect of what their viewers are experiencing in their own lives. So again, if you want to understand what is going on in Japan today with the young generation and by extension where Japan will be going in the future, the forms of entertainment, young Japanese glom to provide a prime window into their lives.

I will be looking at other diversions such as cell phones and gadgets in future posts. However, this blog will not turn out into Engadget (as much fun as that might be), but by analyzing these artifacts of culture we can begin to see the disconnect from interpersonal relationships many Japanese are undergoing by using the man-machine interface as a substitute for social contact.

The bigger question for me in regards to anime is this: with the growing mainstream popularity of Japanese anime to U.S. audiences, there has to be a common denominator between the two societies. Is Japanese society becoming more like American society or rather, is the younger generation of American society, the primary consumers of anime in America, living lifestyles parallel to their Japanese counterparts?

There is a third possibility: From a globalist perspective, has the growing interconnectedness of the world market acted as a great socio-cultural leveler by offering the same products everywhere? Has the consumer materialism we are bombarded with from birth stripped away a strong sense local cultural identity that was once transmitted by parents and family? Is our sense of identity now created by absorption of the movies we watch, the adverts we see? What really are differences in worldwide youth communities when information is ancient when it is a day old and commercial products can be at your doorstep in 48 hours?

Is the reason anime appeals to many youth worldwide today because anime is simply an export commodity of Japan and our ‘youth culture’ today is universal in nature and shapes young Japanese, Chinese, Europeans and Americans into global consumers who identify more strongly with a material product that ‘I simply must have’ and so clouding the older human questions about existence that have crept up with every generation of humanity: ‘why am I here?’ and ‘what is life all about?’ Are youth worldwide drawn to anime because they are starving for stories, wisdom about the whys and wherefores absent in their own daily lives? Questions that are not answered by the ever growing pile of ‘stuff’ and ‘things’ in their lives? Could the simple reason that anime has appeal word-wide is that the youth generation in most every country are becoming increasingly the same in outlook and life philosophy; a sameness that global consumerism breeds?

I may comment on Japan’s Lost Generation here on this blog, but I have run across so many opinions in my research that point out this ‘lack of purpose’ seen in the hikikomori, NEET, Parasite Singles groups in Japan are by no means UNIQUE to Japan.

What is happening is that the media in Japan is acting as a mouthpiece for the elite who are trying to reshape public discourse, and so the media comes out in criticism of these youth trends in Japan; youth reacting to the economic malaise in their country and the lack of direction for them and their peers that existed for previous generations. These youth, a mirror on their society, are simply reacting to the world around them and they are dissatisfied with the options being presented to them by society. And how the mass consumerism fits it in is that through the international goods they buy and consume, Japanese youth are getting a sense that there is something better out there, but not quite sure of how to get at it.

When the western media pick up these stories and report about things such as hikikomori, they simply regurgitate what was printed in the Japanese press with no fact checking in what is either intellectual laziness or an eye to what sells papers over truth (as if this is something that is news in recent months in the U.S.). The Glocom website and others point out that despite the nihonjin-ron sentiment of these issues in Japan now, Parasite Singles exist in the UK and Europe, and most definitely in America (though the American press doesn’t frame it as such— here it’s ‘depression’, ‘autism’, ‘ADD’, etc—and hey, lets medicate that problem away with Xanax or Zoloft rather than looking seriously at the problems causing these issues in the first place). This blog is about Japan’s Lost Generation, but increasingly in my research I’m finding that the youth problems in Japan are worldwide, the only difference with Japan is their press is putting Japanese youth under the microscope for all the world to see.

Next in part eight: Wrapping it up with a few case studies.

Anime & Society Series Part Six

'Storytelling is a window into an insider’s perception of their own culture.’

Another phenomena I’ve noticed in recent years related to anime is that U.S. distributors no longer assume all anime is kiddie anime like Sailor Moon, so there are now venues like Adult Swim on Cable television that allow for more mature themes to hit the airwaves using animation as a medium. As a result, there is far less modification of Japanese anime, dumbing down, for those anime that do make it to air in America.

As I’ve pointed out in previous segments of this series on anime, you can see there is a straining process going on in the anime market both in the Japan and the U.S.: a Marketing Darwinism that most likely encourages the promotion and development of mainstream stories which will appeal to the largest possible segment of the consumer population.

What does this all mean for a Sociologist?

It means two things:

One is that the anime that makes it to market is the most marketable, and taking the distortion of the drive for ‘entertainment value’ into account, it provides stories that could be considered to have some sort of resonance with the peoples lives who consume the product.

It also means that inadvertently, we are looking through the eyes the anime’s creator through the story he tells: a story steeped in his own social and cultural influences. We get a window into how that Japanese artist perceives his world:

For example, a Japanese writer may set a story in a Japanese high school as a backdrop. There are so many examples of this in anime such as the 1980s anime Ranma or the new 2004 anime Bleach. For those outside of Japan, the structure of a Japanese school with its school uniforms and its accompanying tight social structure is outside the experience of most western viewers. Therefore, what was just an establishing back-story for the anime creator upon which to base his story, becomes an intriguing window into Japanese society for the western viewer from an insider’s viewpoint—idealized images as well as criticisms. Japanese Family structure portrayed in anime is another interesting sample to pay attention to in this regard.

Storytellers from all walks of life have something to say; they have some point they are trying to make to their audience. It was once said that people need food and water to survive, but they need stories in order to live, in order to know HOW to live.

I write fiction as a ‘second career’ and as a story teller, I naturally want to sink my teeth right into the development of the story, to let the plot twist, wend and grow… first however, I need a plausible setting, an atmosphere, a concrete grounding in which to base my tale— the more grounded in reality my background setting, the better—especially if my story’s uses the horror, science fiction, supernatural or even comedy genres. For example, in science fiction there is a grounding in existing life and technology to show you that this is a possible ‘future’ of your own reality and so pull you into the story with a basis of comparison. In most cases, the storyteller draws from personal experience to create the establishing groundwork for his fable. While the main story line might be a crazy comedy or supernatural horror, there needs to be calms of normalcy for the jokes/scares to work.

The medium of animation provides a very flexible medium for storytellers, no matter what the genre, who can’t afford live actors or the big budget CGI effects a Hollywood blockbuster might be able to utilize.

This is where the treasure trove comes in for those who are academics or simply interested in Japanese culture: Anime and manga creators are indeed providing a glimpse into their society, oft times with social commentary attached— even if they may only being do so subconsciously. They provide a glimpse even direct observation by a researcher may not easily afford as observing someone in their home turf may make them self conscious and affect how they behave, thus ‘spoiling the broth’ as it were.

Images are copyright their owners.

Next in part seven: A growing darkness in some Japanese anime may reflect a changing global consumer based world society.

Anime & Society Series Part Five

'Not just for kids— Anime and Manga and cultural perceptions in Japan and the US’

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Well, I’m back! Classes are done and the bugaboo of semester term papers are dealt with so its time to breath life into this blog. For those of you wanting something different on the blog, there are only a few more parts left in the anime series where I get to the meat and bones of the issue and how it relates to the youth in Japan today (as well as the West). From there, I will tackle some other topics a little more on ‘target’ in the news of late such as the geriatric set in Japan and how they effect Japanese youth and their mass retirements may portend for the future.
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Invariably, anime gets into the old rub of cultural preconceptions; it seems that, with the exception of the youngest generation, common wisdom in America is that Animation and comic books are the purview of the child. These medium are just mindless entertainment for kids: US companies seem to agree with this if you look at production quality and toy marketing tie-ins of GI Joe and it’s ilk; they are just thirty-minute advertisements for an action figure.

Birth in Japan as a manga

The Japanese market is not like this to such an extent however; sure there are marketing tie-ins but they seem to be much more diverse in range and in much higher in quality— not a toy that breaks upon touching it. In Japan, the primary tie-ins are manga, Japanese comics, which have a large readership nationwide and a great proportion of the readership are adults. Many of these manga come out weekly in black and white anthologies 500 pages thick like Shonen Jump.

The stories and themes are adult, sometimes overly so, and many manga deal with stories that could be affecting real people. When a particular series can survive in for a length of time in one of the big anthology manga, as unpopular strips are dumped quickly, it might even get compiled into a book and if it’s really good, net a anime series on Japanese television.

If that anime series is popular, it gets picked up by US distributors. And the interval between airing in Japan to US distribution is dropping. A recent example of this a series called Full Metal Alchemist, which had a two-season run of 52 episodes in Japan that just finished this summer and is now on the Cartoon Network's 'Adult Swim' in America. Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex is another thoughtful anime that has been picked up for Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network.

The next generation of anime: blending CGI and cell animation

On the big screen, in the last few years the sophistication of anime in terms of both storytelling and technical achievement has become amazing. When I lived in Japan in 2004, three movies that stood out were Steamboy, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, and Appleseed.

See for yourself:
Here's a trailer for Steamboy.
Here is a trailer page for Innocence.
And here is the Appleseed trailer!!!. (When I first saw this trailer, I just about plotzed!)

From a technical standpoint, the last two movies are the most impressive as they blend cell animation used for most Anime with CGI. Innocence suffered from a little too much exposition in the plot department, but it successfully brought an animated ‘film noir’ effect to the screen and was masterful in that sense it appeared to have an almost ‘Blade Runner’ feel to the movie.

Appleseed, based on a manga by the same creator of the original Ghost in the Shell manga, Masamune Shirow, and both Appleseed (directed by Haruka Handa) and Innocence (directed by Mamoru Oshii who's done an insane amount of anime movies), are simply a stunning executions of what promises to be the future direction of the anime genre. And the social commentary in Appleseed isn’t half bad either. Go read the Wired magazine treatment on this movement to CGI blending for more on this.

While Anime has been around for fifty years plus since Atom Boy, I think it’s reached maturity as a storytelling medium and may rival Hollywood in certain genres in the years to come.

Images are copyright their owners.

Next in part six: Storytelling as window into an insider’s perception of their own culture

Anime & Society Series Part Four

'Tinkering too much, The US Commercial filter on Japanese cultural exports.'

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ZOIKS! I did it again! Almost a week since a post. Well in my defense I am in the throes of semester finals at my University. Look for a more consistent posting schedule after next week.
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While the newest generation of anime fans gripe about liberties taken with their favorite new anime by US distributors, they should realize the awful hatchet jobs done in 1980’s when anime series were first being imported by American distributors. In the interests of making anime viable for a US market, they ended up filtering anime classics such as Final Yamato (named Star Blazers in the US), SDF Macross (Robotech in the US) and others so that they could be marketed to better appeal to ‘American audiences’.

SDF Macross and Robotech

For example , when watched side by side, the original Japanese anime series SDF Macross and Robotech, its American version, are almost two totally different works both in terms of mood and atmosphere. The characters have different names (Ichijyo Hikaru is ‘Rick Hunter’ in Robotech), all of the original music is stripped out in the Robotech version, and some of the editing done to SDF Macross in order to make it into the US Robotech alters some of the original intentions of the Japanese creators of Macross. In the original, the dialog is a lot rougher and there are battle scenes that provide glimpses of dying solders and civilians that are cut from Robotech. The storyline and motivations of characters in Robotech are often choppy or haphazard in segments and I used to think this was just how the anime was until watching the original SDF Macross.

Robotech even took three separate anime TV series in Japan, SDF Macross, Super Dimension Calvary Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada and jumbled them into one three season Robotech run in the United States. Moreover, production quality back in the day for American versions left much to be desired: As much as I was a fan of Robotech as a kid, the dubbed English dialog is just painful to hear today.

War and lost innocence

If you watch SDF Macross in Japanese but with the more accurate subtitling in English, the series has a harder and grittier edge to it. SDF Macross is a war story, it’s about the lost of innocence as a young man, Ichijyo Hikaru, who at the outset is totally against war and killing, and is swept up by events out of his control into a conflict with an alien race in what is only the second encounter with aliens in the history of humanity, only after the discovery of the crashed alien ship the series is named after. Over the course of the series, Hikaru (Rick Hunter) becomes hardened to killing and something dies inside him.

In a sense, the original unfiltered anime of SDF Macross deals with the issues of identity Japan as a nation has been struggling with since WWII. You can see these recurring themes of war, the pursuit of peace, nuclear conflict, and mass catastrophe to civilians in many stories within the Japanese entertainment industry. These tropes have reached almost a meme as so many Japanese writers and moviemakers feel the need to struggle with the social conflicts within Post-WWII Japanese society in their works.

Godzilla and the A-Bombs

Godzilla, a sci-fi and monster classic, at its very core is a commentary on the nuclear age. The tromping around of the monster devastating Tokyo time and again in these movies by destroying whole swaths of the city has echoes in the firebombing of Tokyo by the US in WWII as well as the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Godzilla is the personification of such devastation felt collectively by the Japanese, if even on a Jungian level, cloaked in a fictional movie.

Akira and war

The much acclaimed Akira anime on some levels also struggles with the nuclear age, the military as well as the damage they do to a society. Since 1945, Japan has been one of the rare countries to not invest more than 1% of its GDP in a standing army or regional conflicts. Though opponents to the Self Defense Forces, SDF, may decry otherwise, Japan as a country has a clarity in being free from conflict that many other nations in the world are currently embroiled in, willingly or not. Japan’s citizens have a perspective on war, both from the losses in WWII and from the current calm in the eye of the storm, very few countries outside of Europe can claim and the creators of works in Japan such as anime struggle with these dichotomies. For example, Gundam is yet another anime that picks up the theme of war and the conflicting duties of a soldier. Getting back to our original focus, Robotech is yet another variation of this theme and by filtering it in the US, much of the message is watered down and lost.

Filtering from a sociological perspective

From a sociological perspective, the cultural filtering performed by US distributors of Japanese anime due to the perceived marketability of the original Japanese product hasn’t stopped either, the biggest strain comes with anime marketed in Japan to pre-teens which have themes intermixed with mature storylines; when these anime arrive in America they end up being heavily censored, with whole episodes sometimes omitted from the run in order to conform with American standards of what is morally acceptable to show to American youth. I understand that Sailor Moon, that old favorite with the pre-teen set, had to have nearly an entire season cut from it’s US distribution because of a lesbian relationship between two of the show’s characters which ended in a suicide.

Shocking you say? Not, really. Not for Japanese manga and anime storytelling. This merely highlights the cultural differences between Japan and America.

Images are copyright of their creators.

Next in part five: Anime is not just for kids!

Anime & Society Series Part Three

'Studio Ghibli and Disney; ‘The filtering process of anime by the West laid bare.’

But that's not my beautiful wife, not my beautiful car, not my beautiful life...

Welcome to part three of this series at Japan's Lost Generation which looks at the medium of anime. Perhaps you are wondering the point of this series on a blog focused on youth problems like hikikomori, Neet, suicide, enjo kosai and Parasite singles among other things... in answer to this, I ask that you be patient— I'm getting there, but I feel I need to establish a background for those readers who may only have a passing knowledge on the medium of anime and the issues it presents in the West.

I think anime is an important medium worthy of serious academic research, and it presents an invaluable window into Japanese society. The point behind the parts one and two of this series as well as segment three is to outline the difficulties in using the Japanese medium of anime and manga as a source material on understanding Japanese society and culture. For those unable to understand the language of Japanese nor able to hop on a plane and buy anime DVDs and manga magazines direct from Japan, they are invariably going to have to rely on less than 'pure' sources of anime.

What that leaves most of us, in terms of access to anime, are Western distribution models and perhaps online resources such as this blog. However, it would seem that we are at the mercy of Western commercial market forces in what actually reaches our store shelves, and that is part of the problem; the first three parts of this series as well as part of the fourth is setting the stage so that the reader can understand that though anime is an excellent source of information on Japanese society, the problem in the West is that this content is filtered by the big western distributors by what they believe is in our 'best' interests in terms of salability and FCC regulations. Anime portrays the fears and dreams of mostly young Japanese animators and writers in their twenties and early thirties, through their stories we get an insider's glimpse of what social forces are churning Japanese society today and causing phenomenon like hikikomori. However, in the West, what we end up getting is an edited version of Japan which conforms to commercial or moral perceptions rather than reality. In future parts of this series I will get down to the 'meat and bones' of the anime issue in Japan and discuss some of the darker topics Japanese animators are tackling based upon what they see in our society. All I ask is that you hang on for the ride.

Below I present Disney and Studio Ghibli as a sort of 'case study', if you will, of how things go south. This entry is a bit longish, but I will try to chop the others into smaller bits so the blog doesn't suffer from three day gaps—I'm also dealing dealing with the usual end of term papers crush so I apologize for those who are waiting for each part of this series. They are coming.

Disney acquires rights to distribute Miyazaki films

Today, the newest big production anime by industry giants such as Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli are licensed by massive media conglomerates in the West such as Disney. The idea of having a powerhouse like Disney as a world distributor of anime house that has netted the biggest box office ever in Japan such as Princess Mononoke (Jp:'Mononoke-hime') or Spirited Away (JP:'Sen to Chihiro no Kamikushi') seems at first glance like a match made in heaven. It appeared that Disney had acquired all terrestrial rights to many of Studio Ghibli’s Miyazaki's films, the man who is considered by some to be the new ‘Walt Disney of Japan’ in terms of his visionary works and the beauty of the final movie products. At first, there was great excitement amongst Western anime fans as Disney’s acquisition meant that anime would finally be mainstream in the United States. However, though Disney acquired the rights to Miyazaki’s films, it seemed that afterwards the company sat on them, and sat on them, and even today sits on them.

Disney struggles with cultural differences

My general sentiment is that Disney botched its initial handling of it’s first Miyazaki film, the distribution of Princess Mononoke for a number of reasons. First, Princess Mononoke is a very violent ‘cartoon’ with adult themes by Disney standards. Disney didn’t seem sure what demographic to market this anime to: should they edit it and push it on the usual pre-teen crowd like a ‘cartoon’ of the type that Disney’s animation houses were accustomed to churning out every season? Should they advertise it to adults? And if so, how would they get past the fact that it was a serious storyline in the medium of animation? How would they lure American adults to the theater to see the anime? What Disney ended up doing is it initially went for the 'limited distribution' model showing the film in small art houses and all but squashing hopes of a run in mainstream cinemas— where it was shown in Japan.

Built-in fan base for anime in Japan not comprable in the U.S.

Here again, the method mentioned in part two of this series of 'concept-to-manga-to-anime' in Japan simply doesn’t work in to that extent in America. The only exception to this would be the surge of American superhero comic book characters that have found their way onto the move screen as big budget productions, such as many Marvel Comics' titles Spiderman, Daredevil, Blade, Hulk, Punisher et al. DC Comics has also boasted a series of films based upon their Batman and Superman properties. However, these American examples do not parallel manga as Hollywood is banking on the casual viewer of a comic book movie to see it partially out of nostalgia of reading the comic as a kid. Most adult viewers do not read comics with the weekly frequency or volume as manga is read in Japan.

Disney’s formulaic cute ‘mascot’ characters

Another problem for Disney is Miyazaki’s films lacked the formulaic cute little ‘sidekicks’ incorporated into EVERY Disney animated story, no matter how serious or adult the themes in the content of a Disney animated film. Examples include the dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy in Mulan and the gargoyles Victor and Hugo voiced by Charles Kimbrough and Jason Alexander respectively in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. For adults, these ‘sidekicks’ are ploys to keep young children entertained while watching a movie that is perhaps above their cognitive comprehension. However, for older children and adults Disney ‘sidekicks’ serve as an irritant that distracts from the storyline and presents yet another stuffed-toy based-on-the-movie they will have to buy for their child when they leave the theater.

Bad voice acting/no top draw stars

Another glaring problem is, until recently, with CGI visual feasts like Shrek with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy, Disney and other Western distributors didn’t really seem to put much though or investment in ‘voice actors’ for English dubs of Japanese anime productions. ‘Voice acting’, or the reading of lines by a person for the animated characters on the screen, is a big industry in Japan with some voice actors being as popular and loved by the Japanese public as regular movies stars and singers. This voice acting also carries over into Japanese voice actors for dubs of live-action flicks like Minority Report. The Japanese voice acting industry actually tries its best to consistently assign one voice actor to say, Tom Cruise, and that Japanese voice actor does all voice dubbing for Tom Cruise no matter what movie he appears in; no matter the American distributor. So for a big budget anime in Japan like Ghost in the Shell Innocence, the voice actors employed are top notch. However, the same cannot be said for American dubs of Japanese anime; its getting better, but some of the worst examples of extremely bad voice acting comes from the 1990’s in series like Ranma where it seemed they just yanked random people off the street and paid them minimum wage to read lines.

Growing pains: Western distributors slowly adapt to the demands of anime

When Disney acquired all terrestrial rights to Miyazaki films, there was a fear that it would be handled badly, and the corporate culture that pervades such multi-national ventures, the formulaic approach, and the low priority on voice acting had a lot of dedicated anime fans in the west fearing the worst: were Miyazaki’s works going to end up in a vault somewhere undistributed by Disney because their corporate culture was unable to assimilate Japanese animation?

Well obviously, that didn’t occur, but it has been a painful growth process for Disney and other large distributors in America as they took hugely popular anime from Japan thinking they were going to rake in the cash, but managed to alienate even the core anime fans in the West because of arbitrary censorship, sloppy voice acting, and the wholesale altering of some series out of sequence. For those unable to invest the time in learning Japanese, Western distributors remain the best source of anime, but if you have the patience, you may want to try turning the subtitles on the next time you watch a DVD of anime and listen to the show in it's original language.

Note that images are copyright Ghilbi Studios or their respective holders.

Article by Michael Dziesinski

Next in part four: Tinkering too much, The Commercial filter on Japanese cultural exports

Anime & Society Series Part Two

“The Commercial distribution of Anime in Japan and America; the ‘cultural filtering’ of Western commerce.”

In addition to the distribution methods detailed in part one of this series in which dedicated Anime fans worldwide access and distribute Japanese animation today via fansubs, the primary means of dissemination and accessibility to Japanese animation for western public consumption is via commercial distributors in the form of DVDs, cable television and the like.

In the Western world, like it or not, commercial market forces, often with the primary interest in maximizing profits, attempt to push products on the public which are calculated to appeal to the greatest common denominator. Often, this entails a 'dumbing down' of a concept to ensure maximum demand. The smarter creators of intellectual properties try to ‘layer’ their product with various aspects and nuances that will appeal to different groups of the audience for differing reasons while at the same time serve to keep them all loyal to the product. Niche and specialty markets do exist, and arguably Anime is one such niche market, however it is a multi-million dollar market with a potential audience of millions in America.

From concept to manga to anime; the bottom-up method of shaping a concept in Japan

As mentioned in part one, the birth of an anime series is often a long and careful road as Japanese distributors want to put their money on the winning horse if they can help it. What has developed over the decades is a vetting process for a concept which begins as a weekly comic strip in one of the highly cutthroat manga anthologies which account for 40% of the entire magazine and publishing market in Japan.

An artist’s work has to be really compelling if it's going to appeal week-after-week to the 5 million plus circulation in Japan for publications like Shonen Jump. If a manga is worth it's salt, it gets picked up as a compiled manga book and may even make the transition to a one-shot anime OVA (Original Video Animation), a mini series, or even a season run on national television in Japan. While it’s made to sound rather straightforward here, many manga fall by the wayside and never make it to screen. The most marketable concepts are what get the financial backing for production into anime.

What this system in Japan achieves is this: any anime that makes it to commercial distribution already has a grass roots appeal on the street by an established fan base that already followed the story as a weekly manga title. This means that any adjustments or social filtering of the commercial product is done while it is still in its manga run; a much cheaper endeavor for book publishers to change gears over what an animation house with dozens or hundreds of cell animators on staff could do mid-project. Therefore, the creator of the manga has a very quick feedback system with the fan base; if they don't like where he is taking the story, they stop reading and his work is pulled from publication.

Put simply, market forces are more a ‘bottom-up’ phenomenon rather than a ‘top-down’ one seen in the United States in Hollywood. Japanese artists have a finger on the pulse of Japanese society, or at least there readership, and thus are better able to create works that appeal to their target audience with much less guesswork and quicker adjustment when things don't work. In sociological terms, the anime has been already socially filtered by it's fan base, vetted for commercial viability by the manga publisher, and arrives on television screens relatively untouched as an anime.

The top-down method of Hollywood creative conceptualization

In contrast, Hollywood operates in a ‘top-down’ method of shaping its product for market. Hollywood concept creation appears to be an elite closed off system of scriptwriters, directors and studios all feeding off one another in a bubble oblivious to what the public might desire. Often the decision is made from the top to execute a safe yet clichéd story trope, fill it with big name movie stars to pull the audiences into the theater, and then, after the work is in a final cut, show it to advanced screening audiences and see what their reaction to the almost finished work might be. This bubble world of Hollywood feeding on itself might also explain why so often three comet-hitting-the earth type movies come out in one summer by three different Hollywood studios. The problem with this form of concept management is that, by the time it reaches an advance screening audience, the story is already solidified bases on what may have been an awkward untenable concept to begin with by Hollywood types out of touch with the audience.

Consider this: Hollywood spends millions of dollars advertising their movies to the public to try and woo them into the theater; In Japan the public pays every week for the 'advertising'—the manga— a market which earns about 6 billion US-dollars annually in domestic sales. Japanese fans know quite well what is due to come out on screen as anime and often flock to the theater with very little in the way of big budget advertising.

This top-down attitude by the media conglomerates in the United States means that when a western distributor acquires an anime series from a Japanese production company, rather than just dubbing in English voices and release the product in the US markets, there seems to be an overwhelming tendency to 'tinker' with the anime formula in order to make it 'salable' to Western audiences. These alterations done by US distributors are, in effect, a form of cultural filtering.

Next in part three: Studio Ghibli and Disney; The filtering process laid bare.