Made in Japan: Waseda University Scholar to Present Culture of "Cool"

Koichi Iwabuchi, professor of media and cultural studies at the School of International Liberal Studies of Waseda University in Tokyo, will present “What’s So Cool About ‘Cool Japan’?” on Monday, March 10, at 1 p.m. in LaCorte Hall, A-103 at California State University, Dominguez Hills. The event, sponsored by the Asian Pacific Studies Program, focuses on the spread of Japanese media culture to the Western world and its promotion of the country’s “soft power” of influence over culture and media as opposed to technology and politics.

Jung-Sun Park, associate professor and coordinator of Asian Pacific studies is a cultural anthropologist whose internationally published writings focus on transnationalism, race and ethnicity, and Korean and East Asian popular culture. She states that the West’s long fascination with Japanese culture dates back to 19th century Europe, with the interest in Japanese woodblock printing and fanciful depictions of European women in kimonos, as painted by Claude Monet.

“Asia is some sort of mystifying object,” notes Park. “What is sensitive about that kind of fascination is that it’s based on orientalism and making the exotic, exotic.”

Park says that the West recognizes Japan, China and India as the most typically Asian nations. Its special fascination with Japan stems from its reputation as the Asian country most on par with the advancements of the United States.

“Japan has been the most economically advanced Asian country for a long time,” she says. “America has an interest in Japan as an economic partner, competitor and collaborator. As a result, it is also more interested in other aspects of the Japanese life, like art and other cultural dimensions.”

Park cites the non-nationalistic character of Japanese pop cultural product as a significant factor of its overseas appeal.

“In Japanese animation, most of the characters are non-typical Asian or Japanese,” she points out. “They have very hybridized forms and characteristics and actually resemble the physical forms of Westerners. So, it’s much easier for audiences in the West to watch the animation and enjoy it because they can sort of emotionally connect with the characters.”

The popularity of Japanese pop culture throughout Asia has a converse result, says Park, as its products have aspects and characteristics that appeal to a wide range of audiences and consumers across borders.

“For Asian consumers, one of the reasons why Japanese pop culture has been so successful is because it sort of translates Western culture for Asians,” she says. “Through the filter of the Japanese reinterpretation, Western cultures become more familiar or easier to approach or consume for Asian consumers.”

Iwabuchi is the co-editor of a Hong Kong University book series, TransAsia: Screen Cultures. His recent publications include Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism (Duke University, 2002); Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas (ed., Hong Kong University Press, 2004); and East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave (co-edit with Chua Beng Huat (Hong Kong University Press, 2008).

For more information on Asian Pacific studies at CSU Dominguez Hills, click here.

- Joanie Harmon