Japanese Pop Culture and Entertainment

Globalization has fostered the spread of American culture and thus shrinking and homogenizing the world. Thus through Anime and globalization, I would like to show how Japanese culture is being influenced and changing. Anime originated during the 20^th century. It evolved through manga, which is known as comic books. The first famous anime emerged after WWII when Osamu Tezuta produced Tetsuran Atomu (Astro Boy). The techniques that were used in this film were burrowed from French, German, and American cinema becuase they were technologically advanced. Osamu Tezuta gave further provided guidance to people in terms of how to be and how to act. However, anime did not become accepted into the Japanese culture until the 80’s when anime became heightened in production. Anime started representing the popular culture: “manga and Anime…are not the totality of the culture but point to certain aspect of it” (Anthony Enriquez). This means that popular beliefs and traditions were incorporated in anime and further reflected the popular culture. This allowed the younger generations to rely on the media and popular culture to help them shape their understanding religious knowledge and practices.

I came to Japan in hopes to improve my Japanese skills. Thus, recently I have been watching anime films hoping it will help my listening and speaking skills. In these films, I have noticed the presence of American culture. For example, many of the characters do not resemble the Japanese people and instead look more like American people with blond hair, big green or blue eyes dressed in western clothing. Today at school, I met with my Japanese-speaking partner and I asked her why Japanese girls dye their hair blonde, dress in American outfit, and change their eye color. Her simple answer was that they want to look like and act like Americans and so they emulate these behaviors and lifestyles. This is very sad for me to observe because I can see the traditional Japanese culture slowly disappearing among the youth as they learn to adapt to more of the American culture and lifestyles. Globalization has many positive and negative sides and I am interested with the question of to what extent is it ok for globalization to take place. Or can globalization exist simultaneously without altering the culture, values, tradtions, norms etc.

Jin Kya Park. “Creating My Own Cultural Bubble”: Consumption of Japanese Spriituality in Anime. San Diego, CA, May 2003.