Politics, Culture and Identities in East Asia

Integration and Division

Peng Er Lam, Tai Wei Lim

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9789813226241
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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This edited book reflects the "yin-yang" of East Asia — the analogy of co-existing "hot and cold" trends in that region. To concentrate only on geopolitical competition and regional "hot spots" will exaggerate, if not misrepresent East Asia as a Hobbesian world. Nevertheless, geopolitical competition cannot be ignored because a failure of the balance of power and deterrence between China and the United States (and its allies) will destabilise the region. There are four "vectors" in the geopolitics of East Asia: China rising, the United States "rebalancing" to this region, Japan "normalising" as a nation-state and ASEAN emerging as a regional community. The interplay of these four "vectors" will set the trajectory of geopolitics in East Asia. Another focus of this volume is on the politics of identity. The distinctiveness, character and flavour of a group, real or imagined, can be "cool". "Cool" as in being charming and appealing transcends national boundaries. Plurality and diversity of identities and cultures in East Asia can be a celebration of life and humanity. However, xenophobic identities, often based on exclusive race, language, religion and hegemony, and its subsequent politicisation can rend a nation apart. Indeed, the affirmation of one's identity may be at the expense or denial of the identity of "the other". Similarly, the assertion and the intricacy of identity and nationalism in East Asia can also be problematic. However, a person or group can have multiple and different scales of identities. Indeed, identities can be fluid and situational.

--> Contents:

• Introduction: Politics, Culture and Identity in East Asia: Integration and Division (The Editors)
• East Asia: Geopolitics and Economic Interdependency:
  • Four Geopolitical Vectors in East Asia: China Rising, US Rebalancing, Japan "Normalising" and ASEAN Community Building (Lam Peng Er)
  • Hot Spots in the Korean Peninsula and the East and South China Seas: Obstacles to an East Asian Community (Lam Peng Er)
  • Economic Ties that Bind East Asia (Chiang Min-Hua)
• Politics of Identity:
  • "Fishball Revolution" and Hong Kong's Identity (Lim Tai Wei)
  • The Taiwanese Identity: Social Construction and Dynamic Changes in Cultural and Political Factors of Influence (Katherine Tseng Hui-Yi)
  • ASEAN Identity: An Elusive Dream? (Lim Tai Wei)
  • China, Japan and the Two Koreas: A Clash of Identities (Lam Peng Er)
• Regionalism, Popular Culture, Food, Media and Tourism:
  • J-Pop and Manga in East Asia (Lim Tai Wei)
  • Interlocking Cultural Relations Between South Korea and Its Neighbouring Countries (Lim Wen Xin)
  • Chinese-Language Media in East Asia: Connectivity Amid Diversity (Shih Hui Min)
  • China's Media Portrayal of ASEAN: From Antagonism to Euphoria to Circumspection (Lye Liang Fook)
  • Intra-East Asian Tourism: An Exponential Rise Despite Bilateral Geopolitical Tensions (Liu Bojian)
  • China: A New Global Education Hub (Wu Xiaoping)

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--> Readership: Policymakers, academics, professionals, undergraduate and graduate students interested in geopolitics and politics of identities of East Asia. -->
Keywords:East Asia;Politics;International Relations;IndentitiesReview: Key Features:

• The diversity of scholars with individuals from Singapore, China, Malaysia and Taiwan lends different perspectives to the studying of East Asia
• Other than the different nationalities of the scholars involved in this project, it is also a multidisciplinary venture with political scientists, economists, Japan experts, Sinologists and Southeast Asian experts involved
• It coincides with the 20th anniversary of the founding of Singapore's premium Northeast Asia and China-watching think tank. It is a meaningful project from an institutional consolidation point of view

Regionalism, Popular Culture,
Food, Media and Tourism

Chapter 8

J-Pop and Manga in East Asia¹

LIM Tai Wei

In an era of globalisation, popular cultures originating from different localities worldwide are able to reference the universalistic influences of the United States, aspects of which are hybridised with local cultures. The polycentric dispersions of the Japanese, Korean and Chinese popular cultures provide fertile materials for studying production and fandom consumption in the region. The different production centres in these three countries transcend national and traditional cultural boundaries, facilitating cultural hybridity.

Structurally, Japanese and Korean popular cultures serve as forerunners for regional developing economies with emerging consumers like China. They also provide a platform for interpenetration, adaptation, innovation and hybridisation of exogenous Western culture and traditional popular culture in the East Asian economies, leading to the establishment of the current local-regional-global cultural network. While Japan has prided itself on producing and exporting its own fantastical pop culture, Korean entertainment has gained popularity and global recognition in melodrama and musical market share. Japanese electronic soft power has also become both regionalised and globalised.

The ACG (Anime, Comics, Games industries) genre in Japanese popular cultural industries alone do not tell the whole story. The prevalence of a mixed media format in which products are simultaneously launched as animation, comics, games and other paraphernalia implies there is an informal economy beyond the original ACG products. Some popular products evolved and mutated into other industries. For example, Pokemon started off as a card game; it was taken over by Nintendo and reconstrued as an electronic game and movie franchises. There are spin-off products from ACG that have become industries by themselves, including the toy manufacturing and manga-recycling sectors. Some independent firms (“indie” companies) produce small-scale musical or other visual productions while tourism-related venues based on popular cultural themes attract domestic and foreign tourists and visitors.

Some of these spin-off products are produced through franchises granted to independent producers; they carry local or/and overseas original brand name or design or fan-based products. Others are lifestyle choices with popular cultural symbols integrated into functional items which are subsequently used by consumers in their daily lives. In such cases, lifestyle (product functionality) is integrated with design aesthetics and cultural symbolisms (the ability to look cool when carrying such symbols around as a source of status). Sometimes, aesthetic symbolism even trumps functionality when an object often used in daily life is not used for the primary purpose for which it was created but as a decorative item or accessory.

Some of these subsidiary products have become regional hits in themselves such as the now ubiquitous and addictive capsule toys “Gashapon” purchasable by turning a knob after inserting coins and then waiting for a toy to drop. The innovative feature about this product is encouraging consumers addictive desires to collect the entire range of figures in the capsules derived from popular anime and manga series, including the rare pieces. Gashapon toy retailing model is now well-known throughout East Asia. The intense demand for these small toys contained in plastic capsules spawned another industry far away in China. Japanese companies, like Bandai the original creator of Gashapon, hired Chinese artisans well-skilled in painting miniature objects (e.g. rice grain painting) to make Gashapon products on a large scale.

Profile of Consumers

Most existing academic literatures state that the target audience and consumers of Northeast Asian popular cultural products within and outside the region is still the middle class that grows alongside the East Asian economies. Consumption patterns therefore appear to have a homogenising effect on regional populations, creating a group with similar aesthetic appreciation, entertainment options, fashion trends and creative development. For the mainland Chinese market, Taiwan and Hong Kong are the melting pots for the cross-pollination and hybridisation of different cultural and lifestyle influences into unique products that are later introduced to the mass Mainland market.

Among the consumers, there is a very important group in Japan that stands out — the local, regional and international communities of otakus. Originally stereotyped as a group of nerdy individuals who rather spend their time in their bedroom, plastered with pictures of their idols on the wall, playing electronic games, the otakus have become a major group of consumers in Japan who are eager to collect their idols’ paraphernalia. Their consumption and fan inputs essentially shape and drive the popular cultural trends. Some management literatures classify them as a rising group of important consumers, alongside other products of Japan’s demographic and social changes like the elderly, single women and “freeter”/“parasitic” singles living with their parents. Otakus have moved into the position of governing taste and, through this route, made their impact on shaping lifestyle choices, fashion sense and social status determinants. In playing these roles, otakus have accumulated sufficient cultural capital credentials for producers to spend time and money on tracking and predicting otaku trends and fashion.

Otakus have also spawned industries that are relatively recession-proof. Even the economic bubble burst in 1989 that started a long-lasting recession which Abenomics is climbing out of could not stop the growth of otaku consumption. The otakus live in their own universe of consumption. Besides games, anime, comics and a large array of paraphernalia that accompany these three categories of products, otakus also indicate their own preferences for food, converse in their own lingo franca and terminologies related to popular culture, and form their own circles (sakuru), clubs and associations both in reality and online. Otaku consumption represents a deep integration between culture, lifestyle choices and the economic system.

Otakus are not standoffish consumers. They take part in shaping the production process, fashion trends and creative conceptualisation of the products they consumed. The very idea of creative products connotes that value lies not in the material used to make them but in the value-add of innovation used to shape these materials or in decorating them to create symbolic designs that reflect certain cultural inclinations or lifestyle choices. Consumer inputs like the ones offered by otakus are thus essential.

Otakus want to direct the consumption pattern, production process and marketing directions. As otaku consumption is a reflection of the many preferences of different individuals, the process is not hegemonically led but consists of contesting ideas and preferences that will eventually be aggregated to produce a general trend. Similarly, the opinions and views of otakus are not guided or led, but each contribution of ideas becomes a component of the grand narrative that will then become the dominant idea and concept for each evolving stage of fandom; many of these ideas became end products in the gaudy district of Japan’s Akihabara. Akihabara is often seen as the premium retail outlet, trendsetter and showcase for Japanese popular cultural products.

The otakus’ obsessions, hobbies and interest have spawned new innovative lines of products one after another. Some of the otakus have given up being interested in the three-dimensional lives and realities that they live in and switched to a preference for the two-dimensional world. The cosplayers, otakus, manga readers, gamers, figurine collectors and anime consumers are all engaged in their own subjective interpretation of reality when they consume fantasy and make-believe products found in Akihabara. The two-dimensional world is the subjective reality where otakus are engaged in.

Nucleus of Japanese Popular Culture

As the origin of innovative retail business models and fashionable products, Akihabara functions in the same manner as Silicon Valley where creative ideas are fermented in garage-size units resulting in products that serve the consumption desires and needs of the otakus. These products are sometimes the result of collaboration between different units, each with its own field of specialty. Sometimes, these collaborations become bigger units or get acquired by larger firms like Bandai. Some successful product ideas started small and fermented in humble units; when picked up by a progressive otaku crowd and later tailored for the general domestic consumers, they can eventually proliferate to become an internationally known product line. Sometimes, Akihabara will give space for subcultures to exist and interact with the main ecology of the district; in some cases, the features of these subcultures would be subsumed into a popular cultural industry, hybridising with more mainstream cultures to generate ideas and products that become acceptable to the masses.

The demarginalising of different subcultures or innovative minority ideas in Akihabara’s production ecology contributes to the organic laissez-faire growth of creative ideas with little intervention and inputs from the state. When the select few ideas are actualised into popular products and gain traction with domestic and overseas consumers, the government becomes a stakeholder in its success and offers funding for the promotion of cultural items.

Indeed, in the case of Akihabara, the government is planning to be more involved in the industry; it is still early to tell how this development will evolve and the impact it will have on the popular cultural industries in Akihabara. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) now has an initiative that includes Akihabara, promoting tourism, consumption in Akihabara Electrical Town and the popular cultural retailers. State agencies are also planning to slowly cultivate Tokyo’s creative clusters; an example that could be seen in the initiative of Creative Tokyo under the care of METI.

Digital technologies have also given the industry a big boost. Sharing is an effective marketing and distributional tool and the availability of digital technologies increases the speed and widens the geographical reach of such cyber products. Fan clubs, official and unofficial, have shared the latest gossips and news, and proliferate them through smartphones, blogs and websites. When fans subtitle, create their own decorative items for concerts, develop specific dance moves for use in concerts, translate foreign language products into their own language, they are developing a code through which fellow fans within the same community can speak to each other.

Sharing bits of information such as concert dates, store discounts and limited edition product releases creates a collective narrative that contributes to identity-building and coherence of the fan club, group or tribe dedicated to a particular idol, group or product. In some genres of Japanese popular culture, fans even integrate performance into the collective ritual of identity-building. Some of these fandom behaviour were emulated in other East Asian locations, contributing to their regional popularity.

Regional Reception

Japanese popular culture’s past successes with regional audiences, particularly in East Asia is well-studied. Some scholarly works have used th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Introduction Politics, Culture and Identity in East Asia: Integration and Division
• East Asia: Geopolitics and Economic Interdependency
• Politics of Identity
• Regionalism, Popular Culture, Food, Media and Tourism
• Index