Skip to main content

Home/ Let's Manga/ Group items tagged manga_industry politics anime

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Nele Noppe

Aso's omission of the anime industry - 0 views

  • Aso's Angel ...appears to be the manga industry, if this recent speech is any indication. It's telling that the Prime Minister focused exclusively on manga and not anime, which has "entered the global lexicon" and enjoys great popularity abroad well. Was it simply a slip of the tongue or an actual slight -- a sign that the troubled industry simply isn't worth saving to The Powers that Be?
Nele Noppe

Japan's Gross National Cool, By Douglas McGray - 0 views

  • 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. But can Japan build on its mastery of medium to project an equally powerful national message?
  • But cultural accuracy is not the point. Less important than authentic American origin is the whiff of American cool.
  • Yet Japan is reinventing superpower again. Instead of collapsing beneath its political and economic misfortunes, Japan’s global cultural influence has only grown. In fact, from pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence now than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • At times, it seems almost a strange point of pride, a kind of one-downsmanship, to argue just how little Japan there is in modern Japan. Ironically, that may be a key to the spread of Japanese cool.
  • Hello Kitty drives an empire worth almost $1 billion in global sales per yea
Nele Noppe

Workshop on Popular Culture, Cultural Policy, and Cultural Discourse in East and Southe... - 0 views

  • Workshop on Popular Culture, Cultural Policy, and Cultural Discourse in East and Southeast Asia, June 1-2, 2009, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The workshop on Popular Culture, Cultural Policy, and Cultural Discourse in East and Southeast Asia, will be held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The purpose of this workshop is to conduct a comparative and multi-sited study of the emergence of the popular cultural industries of East and Southeast Asia, examine the corresponding cultural policies initiated by the various states in the region, and construct an empirically-plausible framework to examine related issues. The workshop will particularly focus on the cases of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean poplar cultures: their emergence, expansion to other markets in the region, and the discourse they create. Panel 1: Popular Culture, Regionalization, and the State 1. Amitav Acharya, American University, "Culture, Regionalism and Southeast Asian Identity" 2. Galia Press-Barnathan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Does Popular Culture Matter to International Relations Scholars? Possible Links and Methodological Challenges" 3. Nissim Otmazgin, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "A Tail that Wags the Dog: Cultural Industry and Cultural Policy in East Asia" Commentator: Arie Kacowicz, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 2: Cultural Flows and Soft Power 1. Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore "Delusional Desire: Soft Power and TV Dramas" 2. Jean Marie Bouissou, Science-Po "From Niche Market to Hypermarkets: The Birth, Growth and Maturation of the French Manga Market" 3. Eldad J. Pardo, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "The Comeback of Iran's Z $B{ (Brkh $Bb (Bneh: Ancient Heroes in the Global Age" Commentator: Eyal Ben Ari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 3: Cultural Policy in the Making 1. Kozuka Souichirou, Sophia University "Copyright Law as a Tool of New Industrial Policy?: Japan's Unsuccessful Attempt to Promote its Contents Industry" 2. Kukhee Choo, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies "Cool Japan Nation: Japanese Governmental Policy towards the Anime Industry" 3. Jung-Yup Lee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst "Managing the Transnational, Governing the National: Cultural Policy and the Politics of "Cultural Archetype Project in South Korea" Commentator: Ehud Harari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 4: Cultural Industry and Cultural Discourse 1. Miki Daliot-Bul, Haifa University "The New 'Japan Brand': Cool Japan as Zeitgeist" 2. Pang Laikwan, the Chinese University of Hong Kong "Censorship against Ghosts: China's Cultural Policy Historicized" 3. Kwai Cheung Lo, Hong Kong Baptist University "Historical Tensions in East Asian Popular Culture and the Roles of the State" Commentator: Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore Panel 5: Cultural Production and Social Change 1. Marwyn S. Samuels, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "The Media Industry, Popular Culture and Social Change in Contemporary China" 2. Shin Hyunjoon, Sungkonghoe University "Trans/National Cultural Industries as an Agency of Regionalization? The Case of South Korea" 3. Cherian George, Nanyang Technological University "Silence and Protest in Singapore's Censorship Debates" Commentator: Nir Avieli, Ben-Gurion University Panel 6: A Comparative Perspective: Popular Culture in the Middle East 1. Wael Abu-Uksa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "State and New Media in the Middle East: An Overview" 2. Sariel Birnbaum, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Historical Audio-Visual Dramas: From Egyptian Dominance to a Pan-Arab Satellite Discourse" 3. Tal Shenhav, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Broadcasting the Future Generation: Gender Messages for Women and Youth in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia" Panel 7: Concluding Comments and Open Discussion Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University Eyal Ben Ari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem For further information and registration please contact Dr. Nissim Otmazgin at nissimot@mscc.huji.ac.il
Nele Noppe

Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōji... - 0 views

  • the world's largest regular gathering of comic fans today is Tokyo's biannual Comic Market
  • dōjinshi phenomenon did not start with Comic Market, Comike and dōjinshi are inextricably linked, having shaped each other's history for three decades.
  • Comike convention has shaped the most important trends defining the development of dōjinshi in Japan today
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • In 1975, a woman who had made critical remarks about the Manga Taikai was excluded from that convention, and [End Page 234] subsequently a firestorm of anger among fans produced a movement against the Manga Taikai led by the famous circle Meikyū (Labyrinth), which resulted in the conception of a new alternative convention. On December 21, 1975, the first Comic Market—"a fan event from fans for fans"—was held in Tokyo.6
  • [End Page 232]
  • [End Page 233]
  • Comike's underlying vision was of an open and unrestricted dōjinshi fair, offering a marketplace without limitations on content or access.
  • With the advent of these fan-consumers (as opposed to fan-creators), dōjinshi became demand-driven publications. Greater competition gradually fostered rising standards of quality, which in turn attracted more circles and buyers. Higher sales shrank production costs and boosted profits, which could then be reinvested in the dōjinshi themselves. Small printing companies, many of which had begun in the minikomi (microcommunication) boom of the early 1970s, were able to use the profits derived from greater demand for their services to modernize their equipment, lowering production costs further and enabling them to construct their production schedules around each Comike.8 Additionally, lower printing costs freed smaller groups from the dependence on bigger groups, which often had strict rules on content and style to avoid conflict among their many members. Having lost their raison d'être, these big clubs and circles gradually faded away, leaving dōjinshi creators to produce stories they liked, in the manner they liked.9
  • [End Page 235]
  • aniparo parodied popular anime series, and in doing so, attracted a new type of fan to Comike, beyond its core group of 2000 or so attendees. These were female fans, mostly middle and high school students strongly influenced by the 1970s florescence of shōjo manga. They began to create and consume dōjinshi in which the (bishōnen or "pretty boy") male protagonists of popular anime and manga were transposed into a very particular sort of erotic story typified by the phrase: "without tension" (yama nashi), "without punchline" (ochi nashi), and "without meaning" (imi nashi)—and hence the contemporary genre title, yaoi.10
  • The eleventh Comic Market in spring 1979 saw the popularity of the cute and pure bishōjo or "pretty girl" (strongly influenced by 1970s shōjo manga) skyrocket among men's dōjinshi circles, attracting many new male participants.
  • The Comic Market was dominated by women from the beginning (90 percent of its first participants were female), but in 1981, thanks to lolicon, male participants numbered the same as female participants for the first time in Comike's history.13
  • [End Page 236]
  • Internal conflicts on the Comike planning committee underlay some of these developments: they marked the ascendancy of the faction led by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who favored Comike's unlimited expansion.15 Though he was criticized for purportedly selling dōjinshi out to commercialism, Yonezawa couched his plans for Comike in terms of a collective organization of the convention by all participants, including staff, circles, and visitors.16 Whatever the underlying reality, these public principles remain little changed today.17
  • Faced with this loss of identity, talent, and space, every other large fan convention except Comike dissolved. Yaoi Boom But in the middle of the decade, one manga and its anime not only saved dōjinshi fandom from near extinction but was responsible for its biggest boom yet. Takahashi Yōichi's Captain Tsubasa (1981–88, Kyaputen tsubasa),
  • [End Page 237]
  • New dōjinshi conventions appeared, and manga shops began selling dōjinshi on commission. Comparatively lush, custom-made, oversized dōjinshi with more than one hundred pages became common, and popular circles could now live on their fanworks' profits
  • professional creators like Toriyama Akira of Dragonball fame participating,
  • [End Page 238]
  • Despite the self-censorship brought on by the mass media's criticism, Comike nevertheless continued to thrive. Young men tired of new, tighter restrictions on professional manga turned to Comike, and attendance once again swelled to 230,000 in the summer of 1990.23 Hardcore lolicon was now passé, and erotic dōjinshi for men had greatly changed. New genres were introduced with such aspects as fetishism and a new style of softcore eroticism enjoyed by men and women alike; in particular, yuri (lily), or lesbian stories, emerged.24Dōjinshi also became smaller and shorter due to professional publishers recruiting talented dōjinshi creators en masse: the bulk of dōjinshi were the works of the less talented creators left behind.25
  • Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers. Almost everyone could now afford to make digital dōjinshi as well as audiovisual or even interactive dōjinshi (i.e. dōjin music and dōjin games).
  • The personal technology revolution meant [End Page 239] simplification of fanworks' production processes as well as completely new possibilities for communication and new digital genres. With the growth of dōjinshi in other media, the term "dōjin products" (dōjin seihin) has gradually come into use to describe fanworks of all genres.
  • Further, the conversion of Tokyo's Akihabara "Electric Town" into a district full of shops selling otaku-related goods, as well as the nationwide expansion of otaku-goods retailers and the establishment of Internet communities and message boards in the late 1990s, enabled otaku to live out their interests and to communicate nonstop with like-minded people everywhere. Their interests and culture were easily shared, and consequently information on Comic Market and dōjin culture spread around the world.
  • The rise of the Internet also meant that Comike lost its monopoly as the center of otaku and dōjinshi culture. Nevertheless, Comike remained the most important event for Japanese fans, especially after companies with otaku-related products started to exploit it.28 Firms had been interested in Comic Market for decades as a never-ending pool of promising new talent and as a place to exploit them commercially, and they were willing to pay much money for direct access to these masses of otaku.29 Starting with NEC in the summer of 1995, companies were granted exhibition space to market or to sell their newest products. This was the birth of the dealer booth at Comike, and, as with dōjinshi circles, the number of applicant companies was much higher than that of available spaces: a self-sustaining event with such high attendance was too important for any related company to ignore.30 Companies accepted the existence of unlicensed parody dōjinshi using copyrighted material (albeit in a transformative and thus arguably fair-use manner) since they could now sell exclusive goods at Comike (Figure 3) or use it as a marketing place, attracting to the convention people who were not interested in dōjinshi.
  • In the summer of 2004, 5 percent of all circles participating in Comike were headed by a professional mangaka or illustrator, while another 10 percent had some professional experience.
  • Despite its relative newness, Higurashi became one of Japan's biggest media phenomena, and at the seventy-sixth Comic Market in summer 2009, Tōhō Project became the first dōjin title ever to receive the honor of being considered its own genre.
  • [End Page 243]
  • It seems that dōjinshi circles are not switching entirely to the Internet but rather are using it as an informational and marketing platform for themselves and their creations, spreading the knowledge of and fascination with Comic Market to new spheres.
  • With high attendance, positive media attention, and industry support, Comike's position seems invulnerable. Even the deaths of important figures such as Iwata Tsuguo in 2004 and Yonezawa Yoshihiro—who was the face of Comike for decades—in 2006 did not harm its position. But unresolved problems, such as the use of copyrighted material in parody dōjinshi and the child pornography questions inherent in lolicon and shotakon, remain.
  • Comike was neither the first nor the biggest dōjinshi fair when it was established; its main purpose was to provide the freest market possible, and that freedom has come at a price. The dream of a Comic Market open to every one and everything was never realized, as there were too many physical, financial, and legal restrictions. Even today, the Comic Market suffers from a lack of space, a lack of money, and a lack of legal security. Only two-thirds of applicant circles can participate due to constraints, since, as a small independent operator Comike's financial resources are limited and most of the work is done by volunteers.
  • s the center of attention, with its size and its links to the industry, it is undeniable that Comike possesses the power and the means to influence social, market, and even political developments. In [End Page 244]
  • recent years it has not been reluctant to use this power. Whether through conferences on copyright issues or on the establishment of a "National dōjinshi fair liaison group" (Zenkoku dōjinshi sokubaikai renrakukai) in 2000, it has taken on the responsibility of representing and of regulating Japanese dōjinshi culture.
Nele Noppe

Prime Minister Asō: Anime, Manga Are Part of Japan's Recovery - 0 views

  • According to Asō, the market for Japan's cultural exports could worth 20 to 30 trillion yen (US$200-300 billion) if business opportunities are exploited. Japan's cultural exports is one of the three pillars upon which Asō is relying for economic growth; the other two are a 'low-carbon revolution" and a "society of health and longevity."
1 - 6 of 6
Showing 20 items per page