This chapter examines television dramas and films that tackle the triple disaster of March 11, 2011. It focuses on the possibilities and limitations of these fictional genres with regard to taking a critical stance. The first section addresses television dramas that either avoid mentioning the nuclear disaster or lack any criticism about how it was handled. This is in contrast with two films that describe a fictional nuclear disaster that occurs after Fukushima. Both films convey the message that Japan has learned nothing from the Fukushima catastrophe, since the fictional disaster is handled in the same problematic way.

Introduction

The triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe that struck Japan on 11 March 2011—often referred to as 3.11—became the topic of many different genres in media and popular culture. Several documentaries were produced soon after the disaster, the majority of which “are critical of the government and nuclear industry to a greater or lesser extent” (Fujiki 2017, 93). In terms of popular culture, manga (Japanese comics) were probably the first to deal with the disaster. However, manga artists have obviously been afraid “that bringing up the topic of Fukushima in the mainly entertainment-oriented form of manga might further traumatize the people who lived or still live in the region afflicted by the disaster” (Maser 2015, 560). Creators in different genres might have had similar concerns. Although it is characteristic of Japanese television dramas to tackle current social problems, very few dramas dealing with the 3.11 catastrophe have been produced. Furthermore, most of these dramas focus on the flood disaster, avoiding mention of the nuclear accident and contamination. Producers may have worried that it would be difficult to find sponsors for dramas addressing the nuclear disaster due to opposition from the “nuclear village” (genshiryoku mura)—“the institutional and individual pro-nuclear advocates who comprise the utilities, nuclear vendors, bureaucracy, Diet (Japan’s parliament), financial sector, media and academia” (Kingston 2012).

While creators may have generally avoided tackling this difficult subject, some television and film productions have addressed issues related to 3.11, either directly or indirectly. This chapter analyzes some of these examples, with the aim of answering the following questions:

• • What are the possibilities and limitations of dramas and films as entertainment genres with regards to depicting the nuclear accident?

Audience studies is experiencing renewed interest in Japanese media studies. This chapter explores the potential of working with audience members to understand the daily uses of various popular media in Japan, as well as the impacts of that media on social imaginaries, life worlds and senses of self. Providing an overview of the earlier history of studying media audiences in Japan, this chapter offers an account of the development of audience studies in early Japanese cinema history and shares some findings from a recent study of memories of cinema-going in the Kansai region of western Japan.

Introduction

At the time of writing, audience studies is experiencing renewed interest from scholars in a number of the fields of research which comprise Japanese media studies. Why might the study of media audiences be of interest (again) to contemporary researchers, and what can we learn about media from studying audiences? The opening section of this chapter explores these questions, outlining the potential of working with audience members to understand the daily uses of various popular media in Japan, as well as the impacts of these media on social imaginaries, life worlds and senses of self.

While audiences, users and gamers have been a central feature of scholarship on gaming and digital media since the beginning of research on the topic (Hjorth 2007; Galbraith 2017; Whaley 2018), the histories of audience studies in earlier eras of Japanese film have looked slightly different. Providing an overview of the earlier history of studying media audiences in Japan, the next section of this chapter offers an account of the development of audience studies in early Japanese cinema history. Moving through the introduction of audience and reception studies to the 1950s, this overview ends with an assessment of new developments in the field unfolding today.

I conclude by sharing some findings from a recent study of memories of cinema-going in the Kansai region of western Japan, generated from an ethnographic research project that I conducted from 2014–2018. This section introduces a variation on audience studies in the form of the ethno-history (Kuhn 2002), a mode of researching memories of viewership in past times, which blends audience studies approaches with methods of research and analysis drawn from memory studies.

In contrast with optimistic shōnen protagonists, some Japanese popular franchises focus on characters that deal with psychological traumas and despondency. These young protagonists are saddled with responsibilities such as the survival of humankind. They carry out their assumed duties regardless of their mental instability. Even as reversals of fortune keep piling up, they press forward as if they had no other option. They will go as far as to sacrifice themselves for a world they reject. This chapter analyzes these works and explores the reasons why these nihilists with stamina have gained so much traction in the last decades.

Introduction: From zero to (loath) hero

In his study of the ecosystem of Weekly Shōnen Jump, one of the most influential weekly manga magazines since its advent in 1968 and especially since the 1980s, Bryan Hikari Hartzheim argues that although it has become a highly sophisticated publication in terms of production routines adapted to new forms of content consumption, its foundational motto “Friendship, Effort, Victory” continues to be the driving force behind the drafts that circulate at Shueisha offices (2019, 5). This seems logical considering the stable demand for the demographic genre shōnen (manga for boys) since the consolidation of the manga and anime markets in the 1970s. So much so that shōnen is the main culprit for the widespread identification of both Japanese comics and animation with the stories of self-improvement, positive values and happy endings that have dominated the market up to now.

Shōnen stories starring young action heroes have been distributed all over the world, and their sway has been acknowledged by successive Japanese administrations, which have co-opted the genre for cultural diplomacy actions. One of the most memorable moments of such diplomacy on a global scale came at the Rio 2016 Olympics closing ceremony with the brief presentation of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic). The inclusion of well-known figures such as Doraemon and supokon stars (a paradigmatic shōnen sub-genre) such as Tsubasa Oozora in the presentation sequence of the Japanese capital alongside athletes and Prime Minister Abe Shinzō is evidence of the extreme popularity of these heroes and their affinity with the Olympic creed: “[T]he most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.

This chapter explores the complexity of migrant communities in Japan through the lens of digital media. It aims to illustrate how migrants’ everyday diasporic experiences and their digital media usage are manifested in the Japanese context, so as to explore the intersection of digital connectivity and human mobility. The first section dissects the concept of “migrants in Japan,” followed by an introduction to transnationalism as a theoretical toolkit for digital migration studies. This chapter is then concluded by a case study focusing on digital media appropriation among Chinese migrants in Japan, demonstrating migrants’ indigenized application of digital media and transnational social engagement.

Introduction

With the rise of digital technologies, the time we are living in is marked by two interlocked phenomena, namely globalization and digitization. Globalization brings an easier means of transport together with evolving and transgressing technologies, leading to the increasing interaction, interpenetration and interdependence of economic, social and political activities across national boundaries. Meanwhile, digitization facilitates these transnational activities. Digital media, such as the internet and internet-based hardware (i.e., computers and smartphones) and software (i.e., social networking services, digital communication technologies and online streaming), have expedited the global process of interconnectivity and digitalized exchange, where flows of ideas and ideologies, languages and cultures contribute to the construction of a borderless world.

The increasingly interconnected and transnational media may also transform the meanings of being mobile and the logic of migration. Although transnational connections have always constituted an intrinsic element of human mobility, the instant communication and constant contact contemporary migrants enjoy differentiate them from their counterparts in other periods of history. Using digital media to mediate texts, images, sounds, discourses and ideologies, migrants today are able to engage in continuous contact with the homeland and at the same time negotiate the local reality in their host society as well as while on the move. In the context where digital media turn mobile individuals into connected dots (Diminescu 2008) that together compose a transnational social formation (Vertovec 1999), digitally connected migrants are no longer just a group of displaced people. Instead, through their development of new modes of social organizations, group actions, as well as collectively interpreted diasporic experiences (Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Wang 2020a), they are now designated as “transnational communities” (Anderson 1983; Retis and Tsagarousianou 2019; Ponzanesi 2020).

This chapter explores, by way of a literature review, the evolution of karaoke—the act of singing along to a pre-recorded vocal-less audio track—from its origins in 1970s Japan to the medium’s current manifestation among diverse international audiences. Looking to the wider literature on the medium to examine how karaoke as a systemic part of a specifically “Japanese” musical culture is often obscured; the chapter looks to evidence a distinct in-group/out-group dynamic within Japanese karaoke culture and its value-creation processes, proposing that karaoke was, and continues to be, a key force in the evolution of the Japanese music industry as well as the way Japanese interact with music.

Introduction

Karaoke, or the act of singing along to a pre-recorded vocal-less audio track (often accompanied by visuals), has drawn a considerable amount of attention as one of Japan’s foremost pop-cultural exports. Book-length studies such as Hosokawa and Mitsui’s Karaoke Around The World (1998), Drew’s Karaoke Nights: An Ethnographic Rhapsody (2001), Zhou and Tarocco’s Karaoke: The Global Phenomenon (2013) and Brown’s Karaoke Idols: Popular Music and the Performance of Identity (2015) have viewed the narrative of karaoke’s journey from Japanese invention to global success story as one fundamentally mediated by “local” uptake; karaoke as a medium that adapts technologically and performatively depending on where it is being consumed. However, this view of karaoke “by-satellite,” as a series of interconnected but disparate local scenes, obscures a key dimension: karaoke as systematically informed by Japan’s socio-cultural forms and spaces, as opposed to being merely a “product” of Japan. Can the Japanese karaoke experience instead be re-situated as part of something larger— both a vital component in a thriving domestic music sector, but also as a key node linking together the ideas of “practice” and “pastime”? Is it possible to read karaoke in Japan as not merely a playful form of musical interaction, but one in which wider, pre-existing structures and systems of social capital formation are re-enacted and given firmer meaning?

Answering these questions is important because they can help us to understand better the inherent tension that exists between descriptions of karaoke as something to be approached as simple entertainment—a means of unwinding after a long day at work—and as something serious that needs to be “practiced.”

The morning drama (renzoku terebi shōsetsu, or asadora for short) is both an everyday ritual and an institution of collective memory: since 1961, it has entertained Japanese television audiences by telling life stories of women against the backdrop of major events in modern Japanese history. This chapter examines how the asadora has changed in light of transformations in the Japanese television landscape over the past decade. Digitalization and the diversification of television programming have forced the public broadcaster NHK to find new ways to address its audience. The chapter presents two areas that NHK uses to highlight the social relevance of asadora: first, regional identity and “place branding,” especially in the context of post-3.11 revitalization efforts, and second, a “cosmetic diversity” that presents Japan as an open-minded nation through a rather superficial portrayal of minority groups.

Introduction

Even for those who do not like it, it is hard to avoid. In Japan, the morning drama (asadora) greets people from the walls of subway stations and is the subject of talk shows as well as of lively discussion on social media. The series, which has been running daily on the public broadcaster NHK since 1961, is one of the most successful programs on Japanese television, with ratings of around 20 percent. The social relevance of asadora increases through its constant paratextual framing; NHK and other media such as daily newspapers take part in this process by making it a topic of conversation in everyday life. For NHK, the asadora is an important pillar of its symbolic power (Scherer 2019), alongside the news and the taiga dorama (an annual year-long historical series), and it also opens up marketing potential for various stakeholders, e.g., in merchandise, music, fashion and tourism.

Because of its great social and economic importance, the asadora is often referred to as kokumin-teki dorama (national drama) (e.g., Hiyama 2015, 2). In fact, the morning drama has always been closely linked to the concept of the nation; the series tells life stories, mostly of women, against the backdrop of Japan’s development in modern times. The asadora is thus not only entertainment, but also an important institution of collective memory in Japan.

The media mix has become Japan’s answer to contemporary global media franchising practices. The logics of media mix travel through Japan’s media culture creating chains of production that reach from manga into the worlds of film, television and videogames. This chapter explores the development of media mix and the diverse transmedia worlds created under its auspices, while considering the industrial structures that have underpinned it. In doing so, the chapter argues for a reconsideration of the scope and reach of media mix, contending that media mix now accounts for not just major franchises, but also everything from art cinema to theater.

Introduction

Media mix is everywhere that Japanese media flows. It can be found in the movement of a character across texts, in the movements of texts between cultures and languages and in a plethora of reimaginings, adaptations and franchising practices. You can hold its results in your hand (as a toy, via a video game controller), you can watch it (as an anime, a live action film, a theatrical performance), you can read it (as a manga, a light novel), and you can participate in it (as a player, a creator, a cosplayer). It is also more than just media: media mix opens doorways to complex storyworlds, while at the same time indicating the processes that create them, the industrial structures that enable them and the fans who endlessly collect, collate and build upon those worlds. For these reasons, media mix needs to be considered not just as a key term within Japanese media discourse, but also as a constantly evolving aspect of Japan’s media landscapes. However, it is also important to note that media mix is part of a constantly debated and shifting construction of Japan’s transmedia worlds. It is continually being renegotiated and enmeshed within wider geographies of Japanese media economies and ecologies. To understand the “media mix,” therefore, this chapter offers an investigation of media mix’s conceptualization and history, as well as mapping its trajectories and evaluating its efficacy for exploring Japan’s transmedia horizons.

Conceptualizing the media mix

The conceptualization of media mix as a multifaceted—and not just multimedia—phenomenon in Japan is crucial to understanding how this term is used and when and how it manifests in Japanese media. Marc Steinberg’s influential definition provides a useful starting point.

This chapter examines the gender politics at play in the cinematic imagination of post- Occupation Japan through the analysis of the controversial film Akasen kichi (Red-Light Bases, Taniguchi Senkichi, 1953). To this end, it focuses on the film’s depiction of the panpan sex worker and the returned soldier—arguably the most symbolic figures of early postwar Japan—and their interactions with other members of the community in a town marked by the presence of an American military base. It argues that, while Taniguchi’s film critically depicts the complex power dynamics at play in this sexual “contact zone,” it also works to disavow Japanese men’s responsibility for the war by translocating their moral accountability and trauma onto “fallen” women and the Occupation.

Introduction

In a 1990 keynote address, Mary Louise Pratt introduced the concept of “contact zones,” which she defined as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths” (Pratt 1991, 34). Since then, the term has been adopted and developed across the humanities, and especially in postcolonial studies, feminist theory and critical race theory. The notion of a contact zone encourages thinking beyond the dichotomy of vanquisher versus victim and rejecting the image of a community as a homogeneous entity. It calls attention to multi-directional and multi-layered discourses that co-exist in tension with each other. A contact zone is a creative space in flux where instances of bilingualism, miscomprehension, parody, denunciation and appropriation take place under vernacular and imposed forms of expression as well as under new hybrid forms of communication (Pratt 1991, 1992).

For its potential to unearth disregarded voices and to problematize what may appear as absolute positions of domination and subordination, Pratt’s concept has been applied to the study of interactions of Japanese subjects, as both colonizers and colonized (Ballantyne and Burton 2005; Tanaka and Funayama 2011; Kramm 2017). In his study of prostitution under the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945–1952), Robert Kramm emphasizes both conflict and cooperation between and among Japanese and American institutions and individuals when he argues that prostitution and its regulation constituted a contact zone “for both occupiers and occupied to negotiate, reproduce, but occasionally also undermine the asymmetric power relations between and among them” (2017, 22–23).

Long shunned by academic discourse on Japan, Japanese media are at long last seeing the recognition they deserve. As anyone who has travelled to Japan can testify, media are everywhere— from the ubiquitous adverts on trains, to the tachiyomi (literally, reading while standing) of manga volumes or magazines in convenience stores, or the inevitable television sets in bars, restaurants or hotels; it is plain to see that Japan is a country saturated with media.

However, as a discipline, media studies is still relatively new. Having been born out of what was then called Communication Studies in the first half of the 20th century, which was initially almost obsessed with assessing the direct effect “mass-mediated” products had on the wider population, media studies as a discipline came to suffer under the perception that they were somehow not worthy of academic attention. Theodor Horkheimer and Max Adorno (1941) in particular, created a dichotomy between “high culture” (anything that was artistic, original and thus pure) versus “low culture” (anything that appealed to “the masses,” was produced en masse, and was essentially formulaic), stigmatizing research on anything “popular.” Naturally, this also had an impact on how Japanese media came to be studied—or, respectively, not to be studied, in spite of their prevalence and omnipresence in Japan.

When research on Japanese media started, the focus was very much on how it related to the political landscape. Several (anglophone) studies followed in the wake of the 1993 Tsubaki Incident (see page 9), an instance in which the close relationship between the media and the government became particularly visible (Feldman 1993; Krauss 2000; Freeman 2000). In Japan itself, at around the same time, research tended to focus on the representation of gender, or Otherness, in Japanese advertising and television drama, almost existing in separate spheres. What became evident, even then, were two tendencies that continue to dominate academic discourse up to the present day: a focus on case studies, often without looking at the industries that produce them, and a very clear research rationale about identities and discourses (Muramatsu 1979; Gössmann and Muramatsu eds. 1998; Iwao 2000; Iwabuchi 2001, 2002).

This chapter examines the discourse around gender in the media by analyzing a Japanese beer advertising campaign from the 1970s. Its major objective is to explore how discussions of advertising campaigns, across decades, reveal an underutilized, but rich and diverse trove of understandings about gender. To this end, the first section discusses the advertising discourse, the choice of product, its connection to gendered depictions and the background of this particular campaign. The various interpretations and discussions of the model of masculinity featured in this campaign are then analyzed and placed in historical context before a conclusion which summarizes these findings and highlights the importance of this approach.

Introduction

In 1970, Mifune Toshirō, star of countless jidaigeki and noted collaborator of Kurosawa Akira, sauntered to the bow of a ship, opened a bottle of beer and quaffed it. This performative act of consumption was in service of an advertising campaign for Sapporo Beer under the rubric “Otoko wa damatte…Sapporo Biiru” (Men are silent… Sapporo Beer). Utilizing Mifune’s image garnered from many years of playing loners, rough outcasts, and authoritative men, this campaign presented beer consumption as a masculine, Japanese and solitary activity. Lauded by authors and commentators as a success despite, or because of, its unique singular image of manhood, it gained a reputation both as one of the advertisements of 1970 and of this period. Its overt depiction of hyper-masculinity has continued to resonate, serving as a touchstone for the idea of what Japanese masculinity is, and what it should be. This vision has continued to inform depictions of men in contemporary advertisements and continues to be used as a reference for how men should act in order to be men.

This campaign was not without criticism, however, with contemporaneous commentators negotiating and challenging the meaning and significance of the depiction they saw in their newspapers, homes and in other media. To date, there has been little interrogation or examination of such interpretations and their evolution and importance within Japan’s mediascape in the postwar period. This chapter maps these changes in perspectives on gender and masculinity in Japan by critically analyzing the writings of the critics, creatives and corporate entities that constitute the advertising discourse.

Abstract

This chapter covers the historical development of film and television, the representative visual media of the 20th century, in Japan. Films were first imported and screened in Japan at the end of the 19th century, with domestic production starting soon after. The first cinema specializing in film exhibition was built in the Asakusa district of Tokyo in 1903. Following this, the number of cinemas increased to reflect the growing demand for films, and this in turn led to a string of film studios being created mainly in Tokyo and Kyoto from 1908 onwards.

From these beginnings, the Japanese film industry found its greatest success in the 1950s. In keeping with Japan’s postwar recovery, the number of movie-goers rapidly increased every year. At its peak, each person in Japan went to the movies at least once a month, on average, and movies became deeply entrenched in people’s lives. Six major film companies—Nikkatsu, Toho, Toei, Shochiku, Daiei and Shintoho—released new films every week. Each had its own directors and actors who were bound by contract and could not work for other companies. In 1958, film audiences reached a peak of 1.12 billion, but this turned out to be the last year of growth, and five years later, in 1963, the number had dropped sharply to less than half, at 510 million. Television broadcasting, which began in 1953 and rapidly permeated society, was seen as the problem, and indeed, the spread of television and the consequent decline in movie theater attendance gathered momentum.

In this chapter, I consider the history of Japanese film and television from the 1950s onwards, in terms of the interaction between the two media. In particular, I take a closer look at how an existing media industry, film, was forced to respond to the rise of an emerging one in television. Then, I clarify how the two representative visual media of the 20th century have continued to coexist to the present day.

Japan has a long history of disaster narratives, and this chapter considers five related to a single historical event, the 1985 JAL flight JL123 crash, which remains the world’s deadliest single plane crash. The chapter reviews relevant literature in relation to how dramatizations portray “the truth” while seemingly needing to fit with disaster narrative conventions. The chapter analyzes the way in which five dramatizations handle aspects of the JL123 crash and its aftermath. While the focus is on the JL123 crash, the methods used in this chapter could be applied to other events in the same way.

Introduction

Just as “fake news” has been discussed in relation to reporting, so it is pertinent to think about dramatizations and the degree to which they present “the truth” about events. This chapter addresses this topic by considering the media representation of a single event that occurred in 1985 in Japan. On 12 August 1985, JAL flight JL123 crashed in Ueno-mura, north-west of Tokyo. The crash remains the world’s deadliest single plane crash, with an official death toll of 520. Miraculously, four survivors were found when search and rescue teams reached the site the next morning. Naturally, news media covered the aftermath of the crash in the days and weeks that followed, but there have also been books, documentaries and dramatizations over the years. The scale and other aspects of the crash have ensured that significant interest remains in the disaster.

By focusing on the dramatizations relating to the JL123 crash, this study allows for a detailed analysis of disaster narratives. Japan has a long tradition of disaster movies, with the Godzilla franchise being the most well-known. To frame the study, the chapter begins with a review of the relevant literature to understand the role of dramatizations in portraying “the truth” together with their need to fit with conventions that disaster narratives include. The rest of the chapter analyzes the way in which five dramatizations handle aspects of the JL123 crash and its aftermath.