What do you think of when you hear about pop culture? Popular culture is an expression that characterizes a set of cultural elements specific to the society of a nation or region. These can be related to dance, music, movies, festivities, food and so on.
And these cultural expressions go beyond the borders of the country and can be known worldwide thanks to the media that is able to give us information from anywhere in the world.
This text will show more about how pop culture emerged in Japan and how it ended up becoming so popular.
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The first steps of Japanese pop culture
After the peace of the Second World War was restored, Japan and its culture began to be viewed differently.
Before Japan was more associated with samurai, katanas, kimonos, bonsai, cherry trees and these characteristics are no longer the only links with Japan.
During the post-war reconstruction of Japan, comic books that are known worldwide as manga began to emerge and popularize among themselves.
In these manga the highlights were the character's physical characteristics such as big eyes and spiky hair. The story also had a more distinctive feel to it than American hero comics.
Films and drawings also emerged from manga that showed more of the culture of this people.
But they started to gain their space because of TV in the second half of the 20th century, because until then this was something experienced only among the Japanese themselves.
The export of Japanese productions to be broadcast on television began in the 1960s. But the interesting thing is that this did not happen with the aim of becoming popular or successful, on the contrary, there were many Japanese who did not support this type of entertainment.
With the arrival of these productions, other nationalities associated the physical characteristics of the characters from the comics to the Japanese, although they don't look like people in real life, but it was possible to identify that production was made by them.
Manga began to grow even in the seventies with the Japanese society and gained space in Germany, Italy, Spain and the USA.
In the nineties, with the internet becoming more accessible along with television, they were the starting point for the birth of otaku community.
Then it became common for other nations to have habits that were common for Japanese people, such as eating Japanese food, using chopsticks, seeing words written in Japanese on plates and prints, among other forms of cultural manifestations.
The power of Japanese pop culture
In the last twenty years the growth of interest in Japanese culture has grown significantly. Before, subjects like this were only dealt with by the academic community for study, but it ended up becoming a pop phenomenon.
Japanese pop culture has influence on fashion, aesthetics, music, movies, comics and many others. Who never wanted to use those school uniforms or hero armor? Or have that cool colored hair?
Before pop culture was something more Americanized, the Japanese went from being consumers to exporters of pop culture.
People around the world started to want to have a little bit of Japanese culture with them and consequently began to acquire manga, anime, games, movies, dramas and so many other Japanese animations.
It was even possible to find clothes to try to look like the characters.
The importance of world fans
As already mentioned, all this success was not intentional, it was surprising even for the Japanese themselves to see their products and creations going out to various places. And there are a lot of fans who insist on consuming the maximum in relation to Japan.
But today the situation is more favorable for that. Today we have all the technology at our disposal without the worry of having to go to Japan to get to know the culture there. Although a trip to Japan would be cooler than seeing it on screen huh!!
The USA and Europe led the interest in these Japanese creations so thanks to these strong influences we could watch classic anime on open TV such as Knights of the Zodiac, Dragon Ball, Inuyacha and others. Do you remember seeing any of these in your childhood?
And all this was already possible in the nineties! And since 2010 it has improved even more. Several official manga came to Brazil as well and several open TV channels had dedicated schedules to air only anime.
Long live the TV market!! Without him, this process of getting to know Japanese culture would not be available to everyone who was interested.
There are Japanese bands with shows in several countries and this whole process was gradually more decisive to have people who consume this market outside Japan.
The article is still halfway through, but we recommend also reading:
pop culture today
If in the seventies Japanese pop culture started to crawl, nowadays it is bigger than we can imagine.
With the facilities we currently have, we can delve even further into this culture to get to know each aspect better.
Currently we can order Japanese products from anywhere just using our cell phone. And for those who are not a big fan of ordering things over the internet, there are also physical stores selling Japanese products.
If you want to speak their language, you can take online courses to learn and also face-to-face.
By subscribing to streaming platforms you will hardly find any drama, anime or documentary about Japan.
In at least ten countries anime is very popular. And as incredible as it may seem, Japan is not among those with the largest audience for this content.
You can eat Japanese food by going to the mall wherever you are and paying whatever price is most affordable for you. Only here in Brazil the average number of Japanese restaurants is already over fifteen hundred.
There are even content creators just about Japan like Suki Desu itself, YouTube channels and the traditional books.
And of course the good and classic manga that have physical and electronic versions that you can order over the internet as well.
What attracts you the most from Japanese pop culture?
