Um.. I wasn't sure where to post this, so if I'm wrong, just tell me. =D
This is a homework assignment I did for my english class this year. It was open topic so, of course, the only thing that came to mind was MANGA! but I had to narrow the topic down a little more than that and came up with this!
I'm posting this because I think that the point I made (based on my little town) also applies to BL. If you sub 'BL' for 'manga' it should work out, except for the evidence of course. sweatdrop
Anywho, here is is:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“In You and I There's a New Land”
The infamy of American pop culture is its massive and widespread influence upon the world from which resistance is futile. When one goes overseas, we don’t notice the merchandise being sold for oriental cartoons in France or the Sudoku champions playing in Italy. No, we notice the McDonalds down the road, the random English words used here and there, and the posters featuring American movies and pop icons. To see a single culture reflected by many other cultures is a beguilement that prevents people from realizing that influence is a two way street: Any two or more cultures that coexist will, without fail, subliminally influence each other in some form or another. Hence it is not possible for one culture to influence one or more other cultures without being influenced in turn. With the harrowing vastness of American pop culture looming over the world, we fail to notice the trickles of the ‘contaminated’ foreign culture that infiltrate and manipulate this so-called ‘culture consuming’ infection.
America --> Nippon. Japan is probably the most prominent example of ‘Americanization ’. When this group of islands finally emerged from isolation in the mid 1800s, the American Dream was there waiting and found itself welcomed with open arms. In a sense, America could be considered the matrix of modern Japanese culture. Since first opening the doors to the global community, the Japanese have adopted a few hundred English words into their language as common words, such as orenji (orange) and pen, slang or jargon, like baibai (bye-bye!) and hai chizu (say cheese!), and song titles. Yes, song titles. The majority of Japanese music written today will have an English word or groups of words as a name. In fact, the Ayumi Hamasaki CD I purchased on my trip to Japan last year, “A Song for XX”, didn’t have a single Japanese character written on the track list. Not one! Song titles are only the beginning, however. Their style of music has been severely influenced by American rock, pop and techno. If it weren't for the difference in language, you might confuse the two. Also, the common themes of American music are appearing more and more frequently in Japanese music. For instance, Hikaru Utada’s first hit single was called “First Love” and all following albums featured at least one song following this theme such as “I Love you” and “This is Love”. Speaking of common and shallow themes, Japanese television has also been drastically affected. American tv spawned the Japanese soaps, crime shows, game shows, and cartoons. The latter was especially inspired by Americans and their super hero comics. Despite all of these cultural changes due to American influence, the Japanese haven’t become ‘American’. They have simply adopted all of these foreign cultural traits into their culture. Just because the American way is popular doesn’t mean that it has eradicated the foundation of their culture from existence.
Nippon / America. Japan may seem all new, but in reality, it has slowly matured and gradually evolved. American pop culture didn't devour that of the Japanese. Instead, ‘Americanization ’ nurtured the oriental culture and allowed it to flourish. New words aren’t weeds inhibiting the Japanese language. The Japanese adapted. They still use their original alphabet, kanji and hiragana, so to make way for these new words, to assimilate them, they developed a new set of characters: katakana. With these new words, their language became more potent. They now have more diverse means of expressing their thoughts and feelings, new ways to describe their pasts and legends in literature. Though still not as large as the English language, they now have considerably enlarged their vocabulary by switching gears from 'stagnant' to 'thriving'.
English isn’t the decline of Japanese music. Just because the popular J-pop, or Japanese pop music, songs focus on the common, simple themes of American music scene doesn’t mean that all modern Japanese songs are shallow. For example, Hikaru Utada's “Deep River” is about life, how it changes continuously, how each psyche is unique and how we all find our own way. There are many meaningful japanese songs out there. It’s just a matter of sorting through all the pop junk, just as you would with American music.
American art styles didn’t lead to the degradation of a century old art style. Instead, Japanese stylistic ideas were enchanced ten-fold and spliced into many popular subgenres. Japanese comics haven’t become ‘American Comics’, they were inspired by the 'Super Hero' era in the States to better themselves and become what we have all come to call manga.
It turns out that ‘Americanization ’ isn’t ‘Assimilation’ but a pathway to ‘commensalism’.
Nippon --> America. Japan’s pop culture’s latest stage of evolution is becoming an international sensation! Although its influence isn’t as strong or as prominent as the international Americanization, it’s slowly worming its way into other cultures. At the bottom of the 'Japanese-influence-o-meter', we have J-pop. It isn’t popular yet, but at the store HMV, that did not have any Japanese music in the past, now features a section for Hikaru Utada amongst the American and Canadian pop artists and sell three of her albums (“Exodus”, “Ultra Blue” and “Greatest Hits”). Utada’s emergeance in Canadian music stores is a sign that J-pop is selling here in the Americas hence there is a growing market. This, by itself, is a very auspicious sign for the rise of the J-pop genre in Americas. At the top of the 'Japanese-influence-o-meter' and taking the Americas, no, the planet by storm, are anime and manga. Recently, average people who know nothing about Japanese art are starting to differentiate between anime (cartoons) and manga (comics). Anime was once nigh impossible to obtain, but now stores like HMV and Blockbuster have flourishing anime sections. From nonexistant, to a shelf full of anime, which then blossomed into an entire section in less than four years. Also, more anime is being aired on television, particularly on the canadian station, YTV. It use to air the basic of the basics of anime: “Sailor Moon” and “Dragon Ballz Z”. I call them basic, for these were for young audiences and you eventually grew out of them. Now they air about 20 different animes for varying target audiences: young, old, girl, boy. Anime is becoming so popular that the Americans are jumping the bandwagon by creating a subgenre: “American Anime”. “Totally Spies” and “Martin Mystery” are prime examples of their lame products. I find these imitations quite vacuous, but I digress. Manga was even harder to find as only specialty stores, which focus on comics, carried them, and not many at that. Now these stores that had so few manga have entire bookshelves filled with them. Recently, even the average book store started selling them and the local library began lending them out, and their collections continue to swell with each passing month. Just this year, my school library set up a mini section for graphic novels! In as little as four years, Japanese pop culture in the Americas went from being regarded as a smelting pot of 'D&D' style geeks to a thriving phenomenon!
Amerika / Japan. Japan, 'infected' by American pop culture, has turned the tables and 'infected', though at a much, much lesser degree, the most influential country in the world: America. Japan is no longer a mote in America's eye, nor that of the world. Everyone wants to be America, but now, everyone wants Japan's manga aesthetic as well. What brought about this turning point in pop culture? As I have said, it was an inevitability, but some might say it's karma while others would say it was a coincidence. To conclude in true fangirl fashion, Kyaa! It's about time!
Bibliography
Yabushita, Linda, and Rico, Komanoya. Japanese Comickers. 3rd. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004.
Scott-Baron, Hayden. Digital Manga Techniques. 1st. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2005.
Sato, Eriko. Japanese for Dummies. 1st. New York: Hungry Minds, Inc., 2002.
A Song for XX. 2000. Ayumi Hamasaki.
Deep River. 2002. I Love You. Utada.
Exodus. 2004. Utada.
Ultra Blue. 2006. This is Love. Utada.
Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack. 2006. Sanctuary. Utada.
Official Websites for the following:
HMV, Future Shop, Coles/Chapters/Indigo, Blockbuster, YTV, Tokyopop, Digital Manga Publishing, Viz Media, Seven Seas Entertainment.
All other information is based off my grade 10 Japanese course, my trip to Japan in 2005 and prior conversations with friends eons ago.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
... I hope this is legible... >.<
This is a homework assignment I did for my english class this year. It was open topic so, of course, the only thing that came to mind was MANGA! but I had to narrow the topic down a little more than that and came up with this!
I'm posting this because I think that the point I made (based on my little town) also applies to BL. If you sub 'BL' for 'manga' it should work out, except for the evidence of course. sweatdrop
Anywho, here is is:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“In You and I There's a New Land”
The infamy of American pop culture is its massive and widespread influence upon the world from which resistance is futile. When one goes overseas, we don’t notice the merchandise being sold for oriental cartoons in France or the Sudoku champions playing in Italy. No, we notice the McDonalds down the road, the random English words used here and there, and the posters featuring American movies and pop icons. To see a single culture reflected by many other cultures is a beguilement that prevents people from realizing that influence is a two way street: Any two or more cultures that coexist will, without fail, subliminally influence each other in some form or another. Hence it is not possible for one culture to influence one or more other cultures without being influenced in turn. With the harrowing vastness of American pop culture looming over the world, we fail to notice the trickles of the ‘contaminated’ foreign culture that infiltrate and manipulate this so-called ‘culture consuming’ infection.
America --> Nippon. Japan is probably the most prominent example of ‘Americanization ’. When this group of islands finally emerged from isolation in the mid 1800s, the American Dream was there waiting and found itself welcomed with open arms. In a sense, America could be considered the matrix of modern Japanese culture. Since first opening the doors to the global community, the Japanese have adopted a few hundred English words into their language as common words, such as orenji (orange) and pen, slang or jargon, like baibai (bye-bye!) and hai chizu (say cheese!), and song titles. Yes, song titles. The majority of Japanese music written today will have an English word or groups of words as a name. In fact, the Ayumi Hamasaki CD I purchased on my trip to Japan last year, “A Song for XX”, didn’t have a single Japanese character written on the track list. Not one! Song titles are only the beginning, however. Their style of music has been severely influenced by American rock, pop and techno. If it weren't for the difference in language, you might confuse the two. Also, the common themes of American music are appearing more and more frequently in Japanese music. For instance, Hikaru Utada’s first hit single was called “First Love” and all following albums featured at least one song following this theme such as “I Love you” and “This is Love”. Speaking of common and shallow themes, Japanese television has also been drastically affected. American tv spawned the Japanese soaps, crime shows, game shows, and cartoons. The latter was especially inspired by Americans and their super hero comics. Despite all of these cultural changes due to American influence, the Japanese haven’t become ‘American’. They have simply adopted all of these foreign cultural traits into their culture. Just because the American way is popular doesn’t mean that it has eradicated the foundation of their culture from existence.
Nippon / America. Japan may seem all new, but in reality, it has slowly matured and gradually evolved. American pop culture didn't devour that of the Japanese. Instead, ‘Americanization ’ nurtured the oriental culture and allowed it to flourish. New words aren’t weeds inhibiting the Japanese language. The Japanese adapted. They still use their original alphabet, kanji and hiragana, so to make way for these new words, to assimilate them, they developed a new set of characters: katakana. With these new words, their language became more potent. They now have more diverse means of expressing their thoughts and feelings, new ways to describe their pasts and legends in literature. Though still not as large as the English language, they now have considerably enlarged their vocabulary by switching gears from 'stagnant' to 'thriving'.
English isn’t the decline of Japanese music. Just because the popular J-pop, or Japanese pop music, songs focus on the common, simple themes of American music scene doesn’t mean that all modern Japanese songs are shallow. For example, Hikaru Utada's “Deep River” is about life, how it changes continuously, how each psyche is unique and how we all find our own way. There are many meaningful japanese songs out there. It’s just a matter of sorting through all the pop junk, just as you would with American music.
American art styles didn’t lead to the degradation of a century old art style. Instead, Japanese stylistic ideas were enchanced ten-fold and spliced into many popular subgenres. Japanese comics haven’t become ‘American Comics’, they were inspired by the 'Super Hero' era in the States to better themselves and become what we have all come to call manga.
It turns out that ‘Americanization ’ isn’t ‘Assimilation’ but a pathway to ‘commensalism’.
Nippon --> America. Japan’s pop culture’s latest stage of evolution is becoming an international sensation! Although its influence isn’t as strong or as prominent as the international Americanization, it’s slowly worming its way into other cultures. At the bottom of the 'Japanese-influence-o-meter', we have J-pop. It isn’t popular yet, but at the store HMV, that did not have any Japanese music in the past, now features a section for Hikaru Utada amongst the American and Canadian pop artists and sell three of her albums (“Exodus”, “Ultra Blue” and “Greatest Hits”). Utada’s emergeance in Canadian music stores is a sign that J-pop is selling here in the Americas hence there is a growing market. This, by itself, is a very auspicious sign for the rise of the J-pop genre in Americas. At the top of the 'Japanese-influence-o-meter' and taking the Americas, no, the planet by storm, are anime and manga. Recently, average people who know nothing about Japanese art are starting to differentiate between anime (cartoons) and manga (comics). Anime was once nigh impossible to obtain, but now stores like HMV and Blockbuster have flourishing anime sections. From nonexistant, to a shelf full of anime, which then blossomed into an entire section in less than four years. Also, more anime is being aired on television, particularly on the canadian station, YTV. It use to air the basic of the basics of anime: “Sailor Moon” and “Dragon Ballz Z”. I call them basic, for these were for young audiences and you eventually grew out of them. Now they air about 20 different animes for varying target audiences: young, old, girl, boy. Anime is becoming so popular that the Americans are jumping the bandwagon by creating a subgenre: “American Anime”. “Totally Spies” and “Martin Mystery” are prime examples of their lame products. I find these imitations quite vacuous, but I digress. Manga was even harder to find as only specialty stores, which focus on comics, carried them, and not many at that. Now these stores that had so few manga have entire bookshelves filled with them. Recently, even the average book store started selling them and the local library began lending them out, and their collections continue to swell with each passing month. Just this year, my school library set up a mini section for graphic novels! In as little as four years, Japanese pop culture in the Americas went from being regarded as a smelting pot of 'D&D' style geeks to a thriving phenomenon!
Amerika / Japan. Japan, 'infected' by American pop culture, has turned the tables and 'infected', though at a much, much lesser degree, the most influential country in the world: America. Japan is no longer a mote in America's eye, nor that of the world. Everyone wants to be America, but now, everyone wants Japan's manga aesthetic as well. What brought about this turning point in pop culture? As I have said, it was an inevitability, but some might say it's karma while others would say it was a coincidence. To conclude in true fangirl fashion, Kyaa! It's about time!
Bibliography
Yabushita, Linda, and Rico, Komanoya. Japanese Comickers. 3rd. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004.
Scott-Baron, Hayden. Digital Manga Techniques. 1st. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2005.
Sato, Eriko. Japanese for Dummies. 1st. New York: Hungry Minds, Inc., 2002.
A Song for XX. 2000. Ayumi Hamasaki.
Deep River. 2002. I Love You. Utada.
Exodus. 2004. Utada.
Ultra Blue. 2006. This is Love. Utada.
Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack. 2006. Sanctuary. Utada.
Official Websites for the following:
HMV, Future Shop, Coles/Chapters/Indigo, Blockbuster, YTV, Tokyopop, Digital Manga Publishing, Viz Media, Seven Seas Entertainment.
All other information is based off my grade 10 Japanese course, my trip to Japan in 2005 and prior conversations with friends eons ago.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
... I hope this is legible... >.<
