For my Final Reflection, I will reflect on Japan and understand its context within popular culture. Japan has a very large soft power influence in the East Asian region and across the world, and has many popular culture products such as food, entertainment, and culture. Popular culture is political and influences many aspects of society such as norms and customs. It is important to also understand Japan’s history and formation of popular culture, which helped them become the global power throughout the 20th Century and in contemporary society as its economy grew in the 1960’s and on, and as it fell in the 1990’s. For many aspects of popular culture the medium affects and influences the way humans act and choose to associate things and other people. Japan is a great case study to understand the effects of soft power, influence of culture, and how people utilize a specific medium in order to create positive feedback about the product. First, to understand this, we must understand Japan’s cultural legacy that has influenced the formation of its popular culture.

    After WWII, Japan was under American military occupation from 1945-52 where American forces helped rebuild the nation with some western influences as well. Japan had no military force, only a self defense force, and there was much tension between the Japanese people and American military men. Because of their defeat in WWII, they were able to build from ground zero focusing on manufacturing in which they used their connection to the United States to bring the global economy to Japan. Some multinational corporations that were established were Sony, Mitsubishi, and Toyota, which all benefited from the massive economic boom that helped them develop to become the second largest economy by 1968. During this time, manufacturing was their largest industry creating cars, electronics, and other luxury goods. This influenced popular culture because it helped Japan’s economy grow. All of these companies employed salarymen allowing many people in urban cities to work at these large companies. Popular culture is then dominated by Japanese cars where most people owned a Datsun (now Toyota) or a Mitsubishi and used many of Sony’s products. The reception of these products were very good. Although inequality was rampant, people were still happy that Japan was an emerging economy and these companies were influential on the global market. Manufacturing greatly helped Japan regrow their status as a major global power after the devastating loss of WWII, bringing it back to having a wide global influence.

    Throughout the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s, Japan’s economic bubble kept growing until 1989, when the economic bubble final burst, and Japan entered one of its worst recessions ever having long lasting impacts for the economy and people of Japan. After the economy bubble burst, Japan went into a recession, which was worsened by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which brought economic hardship on many Asian economies. This also specifically harmed the Japanese economy, and people were no longer positively receptive to the manufacturing industry as most people are getting laid off. Another industry that suffered was the leisure industry because as people are getting fired or laid off en mass, their financial ability to participate and spend money on these activities decrease. However, one industry that flourished was the technology industry. One example was the production of video games. They grew because they are exportable, sell by the unit increasing their buying and selling capabilities, and served as a possible escapism for someone who felt that they at least had control over the video games in a time when they have no control over anything else. Watching, listening, and playing became the new medium as video games became central to Japanese popular culture. Video games started to rise in the mid to late 1980’s and skyrocketed into one of the largest forms of leisure with video games such as the Super Mario franchise, Street Fighter, and others from Japan. It was well received even in an economy that was undergoing a significant economic recession. This was also integral to Japanese economy because it became influential across borders as people in other parts of Asian and even in western nations such as the United States, began to buy and play video games displaying their exportability in helping the economy and soft power influence. This lead Japan to establish Cool Japan, a national branding campaign to display Japan as a rising presence in the tech industry. Through media, consumption, and other avenues, the economy steadily increased through Japan’s soft power of cultural consumption. They became influential in Asia exporting beauty products, anime and manga, sanrio, video games, and much more making everything consumer-friendly for a global appeal. The medium became whatever aspect of exportable goods Japan could produce and the reception was always seen as good.

   Throughout Japanese history of the 20th and 21st centuries, it is easy to see the rapid increase in the economy of the 1960’s through the 1980’s and the subsequent economic turmoil that followed and how this lead to many mediums such as manufacturing of cars and electronics of the 1960’s and 1980’s affect the reception of the product and how it had shaped the popular culture in Japan. It also greatly affected popular culture from the 1990’s and to contemporary times as Japan established their Cool Japan campaign and increased their soft power influence by exporting culture showing how popular culture travels across borders. Japan produces many kinds of popular culture products that continue to affect the Japanese economy and help establish Japan’s global influence. This is how popular culture affects Japan and how Japan affects popular culture.