Repackaging national identity
Cool Japan and the resilience of Japanese identity narratives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6233683 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Taku Tamaki (0000-0002-0293-8321, Loughborough University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 108-126 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0218-5377 • E-ISSN: 1750-7812 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02185377.2019.1594323 |
| OpenAlex | W2924134650 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 20 |
Cool Japan' is an instance of Japanese government's nation branding exercise as part of its soft power projection in which the unique selling point is identified as Japanese national identity. In this paper, I examine the relationship between Cool Japan and Japanese national identity and highlight a tension in the construction. Cool Japan is about emphasizing Japan's attractiveness for public diplomacy, while the top-down nature of the branding undermines the imagery that the branding is designed to convey. I show that policy elites resolve this tension by invoking the traditional Japanese identity narratives that construct Japan into both a non-Western and an un-Asian entity, reproducing the myth of Japanese uniqueness. I argue that the elite narratives surrounding Cool Japan readily replicate the language reminiscent of prewar identity construction. Despite the contemporary popularity of manga and anime, the purported 'coolness' of these products are framed within older constructions of Japanese Self that can trace their pedigree back to the nineteenth century. Using the minutes of committee meetings, policy documents, as well as media interviews given by policy- and business elites, I show that Cool Japan is effectively a twenty first century rendition of the familiar Japanese identity construction
Aesthetics · Anime · China · Diplomacy · Elite · Government (linguistics · Identity (music · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · National identity · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Soft power · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
Japanese Public Broadcasting
Sake as Cultural Diplomacy
Measuring ethnocultural empathy in Japanese undergraduates
Internationalization, Diplomacy, and Beyond
Nation branding from below
The reflective positioning of Japanese EFL students in the negotiation of their own emergent bilingual identities
Mobility without Diaspora
Pirates, justice and global order in the anime “ One Piece ”
Picturing translocal matters in a mobile world
From Playground to Cultural Ground
Competitive Identity
Darwinians, Communitarians, and Missionaries
Beyond the Nation Brand
The Pitfall Facing the Cool Japan Project
Can Cool Japan save Post‐Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology
Japan Brand Strategy
Nationalism, Domestic Politics, and the Japan Economic Rejuvenation
The ‘Abe Doctrine’
Did manga conquer America? Implications for the cultural policy of ‘Cool Japan’
Conflicts of 1930s Japanese Olympic diplomacy in universalizing the Olympic Movement
Identity Entrepreneurship and the Consequences of Identity Failure
Japan's Gross National Cool
Public Diplomacy
Pop-culture diplomacy in Japan
Identity, Narrative and Politics
A brand new future? Cool Japan and the social imaginary of the branded nation
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |