Throughout the book ““Cartoon Cultures: The Globalization of Japanese Popular Media”, Anne Cooper-Chen explains how and why Japanese cartoons have been prosperous at a time when Disney cartoons have spread all over the world. It indicates that some salient features of the Japanese culture makes its cartoon resilient in the presence of stiff competition. This paper uses cultural diversity that closely relates to proximity with specific examples and personal views to illustrate the global adaptation and popularity of Japanese cartoons.
One of the questions about Japanese cartoons is whether their global popularity is because of its exoticism to people from other countries. Cultural proximity plays a critical role in making Japanese comics attractive in immediate and far geographical regions. The author partially agrees that Japanese comics encompass new ideas and themes that seem exotic to Western people. However, she also recognizes that its popularity is not because of being exotic, but also because they also appeal to other Asian people because of being been closely related culturally. Whenever people's culture is fundamentally similar, they would enjoy the same appeals. For this reason, the Japanese’s Cartons have remained popular across Asia.
Besides that, the author noted that the animators strived to keep many features of the Japanese’s manga and animation that coheres well with the western culture. For instance, the author introduces the idea of the “psychology of entertainment,” which refers to the intriguing storylines of Japanese animation that give overseas fans emotionally pleasurable experiences and also satisfy their curiosity and fantasy of an imaginary world.
However, in the attempt for readers to understand the concept of cultural proximity as described above, one may assume the author means that geographic neighbors share similar cultures, specifically, Japan and China or Korea and Taiwan. The presupposition is misleading because, their cultures are different in various aspects. For example, Japanese society tends to be much more homogenous than Korean and Chinese societies concerning wealth and social status (Bestor and Hardacre, n.d.). Also, half of the Japanese population is centralized in cities, such as Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya, Yokohama, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Kawasaki, Hiroshima, and Kyoto, among others (“The Most populated cities in Japan ), while the population in China spreads all over the country. In this respect, the wealth distribution in the countries differs just as the spread of the population. The culture of the people emerge during socialization and, as a result, urban and rural set up may not necessary have the same cultural affiliations but that does not imply that they do not enjoy similar entertainment.
However, the author proceeded to analyze the differences between “cultural proximity” and “cultural imperialism.” In her arguments, she noted that “cultural proximity” and “cultural imperialism” were contradictory. The Author states in the book that “Cultural proximity is an antidote to U.S. cultural imperialism,” indicating that there is a thin line between Japanese cultural proximity and U.S. cultural imperialism.
However, this argument is contradictory because the development of Japanese animation in China is indeed an example of cultural imperialism. It is not always the superior culture that promotes cultural imperialism. At times, even smaller cultures may be promoting imperialist ideologies through extensive and intensive investments to impose its values, moral beliefs, and perception of the other cultures. For example, the author uses examples of significant sales of DVD’s, hiring of translators and free download sites to indicate that the Japanese animation industry uses strong media power to outcompete local animation companies in China to occupy the entire Chinese animation market.
Japan’s reliance on the power of media is a clear indication of the imperialist approach towards occupation in the Chinese animation market. It is noteworthy that author clearly points out that “Those who adhered to cultural imperialism believed strong media effects.” The media teaches, informs, and entertains, and the choices of words or entertainment materials would slowly infiltrate the population and become dominant in the long-term. In this regard, Japan would impose itself on the Chinese people through the media. Every action that Japanese Animation Production Company takes in China matches the definition of cultural imperialism that the author had described earlier in the book. Instead, in her analysis, Japanese cultural imperialism is sugar-coated as “cultural proximity.” As a result, it involves covert actions that are not directly noticeable without critical analysis.
I tend to believe that the popularity of Japanese animation is due to “local proximity” or “distance proximity” for various reasons. First, China and Japan being neighbors makes its animation much easier to enter Chinese market through different kinds of media. Neighboring countries engage in trade and also share media publications that are regional. As a result, Japan’s cartoon spread with little difficulties to China and Asia.
It follows that what causes Japanese comics to be popular in Asian countries is no different than that in western countries. The universal psychological appeal is what made it fascinating in the first place. The psychological appeal arises from the similarities in the cultural aspects either in the urban or rural areas of the neighboring countries or as a result of globalization that leads to diffusion of culture.
When young people first see Japanese manga or animation, they don’t think about how those characters share a similar cultural background with them, but instead want to discover what is new and different between those characters and them or others they have seen. The Author calls this psychological effect “cognitive” that refers to the human curiosity to acquire new information, knowledge, and understanding (McLeod. 2007). Children would process the information, internalizes it, and eventually tend to make sense of it. In the process, they may get used to the animations and keep on purchasing them. When demand rises, the Japanese companies will produce more to supply making them popular in many regions. Every Manga has a long and complicated story line because short, and scripts will kill curiosity. Besides, as the author emphasizes in the book, sexuality, and violence in Japanese manga and animation enriches its content and makes it more real and accessible to people. As a consequence, it appeals to the young generations in all regions they penetrate and make them popular due to the uniqueness. Later on, with the advent of the internet and visual technology, Japanese manga and animation become even more prosperous globally.
Like a construction process, the psychological appeal of Japanese cartoons is like laying a foundation of a building, and increasing visual technology and mass production is what makes a building a skyscraper that in this case is penetrating all over the world.
References
Bestor, T. & Hardacre, H. (n.d.). Contemporary Japan: Society and Culture | Asian Topics on Asia for Educators. Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at_japan_soc/common/all.htm
The most populated cities in Japan. (2016, March 1). Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/japan_cities.htm
McLeod, S. (2007). Cognitive Psychology. Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive.html
