Me No Speaka Wapanese!
Even before A Bathing Ape introduced Tokyo style to SoHo hipsters and Gwen Stefani named her tour “Harajuku Lovers,” Japanese pop culture was fast becoming the lingua franca of cool in Western tribes.
While anti-globalisation activists protest the proliferation of the infamous golden arches of McDonald’s restaurants the world over, many others are more than ready to accept emblems of Japanese pop. Since 2004, American tweens could pay for their Hello Kitty backpacks and toasters with a matching Hello Kitty Debit MasterCard (www.hellokittycard.com), emblazoned with the iconic mouth-less cat. . In 2003, 26.4 million Playstation 2 consoles by Sony were shipped to the United States and 19.4 million consoles to Europe. Japan's Marubeni Research Institute estimated Japanese cultural exports books, music, magazines, films and collectables at $15 billion in 2002, three times their value a decade earlier. And the revolution had only just begun.
Everything Japanese is invading mass consumerism faster than you can say “Pika-who?”, but the pervasive sweep of red and white is even more evident in groups that fall slightly outside the ker-ching radar. An obvious example: the bizarre world of anime and manga (Japanese comic book) fandom. Japanese animation, or anime, has found a cult following far beyond its shores. Discounting the irony of the genre’s large-eyed, blonde-haired protagonists, Western anime fans have been lapping up offerings from Hayao Miyazaki (director of Spirited Away) and Rumiko Takahashi (manga artist for InuYahsa) long after they graduated from grade school. Step into an American screening of Innocence: Ghost in the Shell, for example, and you will find not only Japanese students but local Caucasian lads, clad in Evisu jeans and clutching the latest issue of Asian-American magazine, Giant Robot (www.giantrobot.com).
Hardcore fans of Japanese animation are often dubbed the loaded label of anime otaku. Mention the word otaku to someone from Japan and s/he will envision an image of a social recluse, dressed in last night’s pyjamas and suffering from an unfortunate case of adult acne. Type otaku into an internet search engine and find thousands of matches from self-professed fans of that nature, none of whom are Japanese.
Such ready adoption of the term, originally deemed derogatory, just reiterates the widespread acceptance of Japan as the world’s leading exporter of cool, resulting in the phenomenon of the Wapanese. A crude portmanteau of “white” and “Japanese,” the Wapanese, according to www.urbandictionary.com, are “decidedly Caucasian individuals who, by means of thoroughly warped postmodern acculturation processes, have come to the decision that it is in their best interest to act as if they were denizens of the nation of Japan.”
But more often than not, such tributes to Japanese culture are in fact a superficial cut-and-paste exercise, borrowing elements of kawaii visual candy or sex and violence bordering on the perverse. Most self-professed Japanophiles try as hard as Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation to truly understand Japanese culture – that is, they hardly try at all. But until a state of informed and thorough cultural appreciation is reached, let’s keep singing with Gwen and friends, “Harajuku Girls you got the wicked style/I like the way that you are/I am your biggest fan.”
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Article contributed to Asia! Magazine Backpage
written by May Yip
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While anti-globalisation activists protest the proliferation of the infamous golden arches of McDonald’s restaurants the world over, many others are more than ready to accept emblems of Japanese pop. Since 2004, American tweens could pay for their Hello Kitty backpacks and toasters with a matching Hello Kitty Debit MasterCard (www.hellokittycard.com), emblazoned with the iconic mouth-less cat. . In 2003, 26.4 million Playstation 2 consoles by Sony were shipped to the United States and 19.4 million consoles to Europe. Japan's Marubeni Research Institute estimated Japanese cultural exports books, music, magazines, films and collectables at $15 billion in 2002, three times their value a decade earlier. And the revolution had only just begun.
Everything Japanese is invading mass consumerism faster than you can say “Pika-who?”, but the pervasive sweep of red and white is even more evident in groups that fall slightly outside the ker-ching radar. An obvious example: the bizarre world of anime and manga (Japanese comic book) fandom. Japanese animation, or anime, has found a cult following far beyond its shores. Discounting the irony of the genre’s large-eyed, blonde-haired protagonists, Western anime fans have been lapping up offerings from Hayao Miyazaki (director of Spirited Away) and Rumiko Takahashi (manga artist for InuYahsa) long after they graduated from grade school. Step into an American screening of Innocence: Ghost in the Shell, for example, and you will find not only Japanese students but local Caucasian lads, clad in Evisu jeans and clutching the latest issue of Asian-American magazine, Giant Robot (www.giantrobot.com).
Hardcore fans of Japanese animation are often dubbed the loaded label of anime otaku. Mention the word otaku to someone from Japan and s/he will envision an image of a social recluse, dressed in last night’s pyjamas and suffering from an unfortunate case of adult acne. Type otaku into an internet search engine and find thousands of matches from self-professed fans of that nature, none of whom are Japanese.
Such ready adoption of the term, originally deemed derogatory, just reiterates the widespread acceptance of Japan as the world’s leading exporter of cool, resulting in the phenomenon of the Wapanese. A crude portmanteau of “white” and “Japanese,” the Wapanese, according to www.urbandictionary.com, are “decidedly Caucasian individuals who, by means of thoroughly warped postmodern acculturation processes, have come to the decision that it is in their best interest to act as if they were denizens of the nation of Japan.”
But more often than not, such tributes to Japanese culture are in fact a superficial cut-and-paste exercise, borrowing elements of kawaii visual candy or sex and violence bordering on the perverse. Most self-professed Japanophiles try as hard as Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation to truly understand Japanese culture – that is, they hardly try at all. But until a state of informed and thorough cultural appreciation is reached, let’s keep singing with Gwen and friends, “Harajuku Girls you got the wicked style/I like the way that you are/I am your biggest fan.”
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Article contributed to Asia! Magazine Backpage
written by May Yip
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Labels: Pop Cult
