In the 1990s, the Japanese media industry grew rapidly, both in terms of the range of consumable media and the number of choices within these media products. Within this development of Japan’s information environment, there was a downward trend in the audience ratings television programs received, to the extent that the number of so-called “mega hit” programs that attained high ratings declined in numbers (See Tomura 1991; Ito and Fujita 1999). Due to the diversification of viewer lifestyles, tastes and interests, and, above all, to the multiplication of media products, the audience became segmented and fragmented. Programs that transcended gender...

Scenes from the prime-time television dramas in Japan synchronize with the rhythms of the larger cultural milieu. They represent rituals, trends, and sentiments in real time, sometimes at a hyper-real speed. The hectic schedule of new drama production and syndication restrictions make television dramas in Japan abundant and yet, paradoxically, transient. In a discussion about Japan’s strict copyright laws, dramas are likened to ephemeral goods and described as shōmohin (goods to be consumed) and kieyukumono (things to vanish) (Suzuki and Maeda 1997). However, as technology (e.g., VCR, VCD, internet), business (e.g., video rental, DVD sales), and circumstantial changes (e.g., regional...

Ōta Tōru is a prominent television drama producer at Fuji TV. He has produced many phenomenally popular dramas, such as Tokyo Love Story, The 101st Proposal, and All Under One Roof. This chapter is an edited composition of his speech on 23 November 2001 at the International Conference, “Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational TV Consumption in East/Southeast Asia,” which was held at International Christian University, Tokyo.

I am Ōta Tōru from Fuji TV. Thank you for inviting me. Today, I’d like to focus on three points in my talk. My first point will be on how the “trendy drama” came to...

The “Japanese wave” has been a euphemism for the recent success of Japanese media products across Asia. Ever since the release of phenomenally popular television programs such as Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation, Japanese idol dramas have swept throughout Asia — Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, China, Singapore, and Thailand. This chapter examines the reasons for this transnational popularity, which has been unconvincingly likened to a “Japanization” of Asian cultures, as well as the effects the dramas have on their local audiences in various countries. Rather than employing the lines of traditional “cultural imperialism” theories, this chapter employs audience studies to...

Following the 1991 broadcast in Taiwan of Tokyo Love Story, a Japanese television drama series commonly referred to as an idol drama, contemporary Japanese culture has come to be a dominant influence over Taiwan’s youth culture. Images of Japanese pop stars and singers were soon to crowd Taiwan’s television screens and record stores in the years that followed. Within a decade, the term ha-ri (Japan-mania or Japanese fever) has turned into an everyday word that indicates a formation of consumer culture: fashion, commodities, tourism, manga (comic books), magazines, and television shows. On the one hand, Japanese culture is hailed as...

Ying, a 19 year-old female undergraduate, was watching a new VCD of a Japanese TV drama with a friend when I visited her. I looked around her room. There were Sanrio dolls on her TV set, a big poster of Takenouchi Yutaka, and two photos of Hokkaido’s lavender field torn from magazine pages on the wall. Aside from textbooks, her shelf displayed magazines such as More, With, and Taipei Walker, several manga (Japanese comic books), as well as CDs of Japanese TV drama soundtracks. In addition, some Japanese traditional decorations such as noren (door screens), furin (wind bells), and omamori...

The tendency of popular culture forms to spread to areas within geo-cultural — rather than simply regional — markets is commonly attributed to what Straubhaar calls “cultural proximity.” Cultural proximity is the notion that cultural similarities, including “shared identity, gestures and non-verbal communication; what is considered funny or serious or even sacred; clothing styles; living patterns; climate influences and other relationships with the environment” are key elements in determining preference patterns of certain imported cultural forms over others (Straubhaar 1997, p. 291). With regard to the popularity of Japanese dramas in Asia, this notion is recalled in terms such as “shared sensibilities”...

The globalization of popular culture is central to the rapid growth of consumerism worldwide. In Thailand, young people are attracted to Hollywood films, billboard chart music, world class sports, Japanese comic books and cartoons on television, and, not least, to Korean and Japanese television drama. As we move towards a new informationbased economy and digital technology, we begin to witness the magnitude of the flow of these cultural goods, which rise in conjunction with the multiple channels of distribution of large global media conglomerates. In this chapter I will focus the discussion on the increasing influence of Japanese popular culture...

What is a VCD? Most people living outside Asia are not familiar with this form of video technology. The appearance of a VCD is exactly like that of a music CD, although a VCD movie will normally require two discs, each with up to 74 minutes of playing time. Since the mid-1990s, VCDs have been widely marketed in most Asian countries, excluding Japan. Invented in 1993 and developed by a number of transnational electronics companies, including Sony, Panasonic, Philips, and Matsushita, etc., VCDs emerged in the Asian market earlier than the official release of DVDs in 1997 in the global...

Whether tourist or resident, one confronts a surprising amount of Japanese commodity culture in Hong Kong: Japanese supermarkets, Japanese comics (manga) on newsstands, Japanese fast food, pop music, and ubiquitous Hello Kitty shops selling every kind of trinket imaginable. In electronic media, there is a huge selection of Japanese computer games, toys, and anime (animation) as well as Japanese films screening at multiplexes. In video and record shops, there are not only large sections of “J-pop,” but also handsome box sets of Japanese prime-time television called simply “yat-kek” (Japanese drama) in Cantonese.

One feature of all this stands out: it...

The Korean government has banned the import of Japanese popular culture since its liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. It was not until the late 1990s that Korea finally declared its open door policy to Japanese popular culture. Even so, Japanese TV programs, such as dramas and variety shows, are still not allowed to be broadcast in Korea. For Korea, Japan has been regarded as a “close but distant” other/oppressor. Japan’s economic success has been envied as the model or manual for incorporating Western capitalism, but Korea’s painful experience with the Japanese as colonialists cannot been easily forgotten. The...

The rapid expansion of global capitalism, combined with technological development and the demise of the Cold War confrontation, has fundamentally transformed the global landscape. The ways individuals identify themselves and relate to one another have become much more complicated and multi-faceted as incessant, massive, fast, and multidirectional flows of people, materials and information across borders have tremendously increased. The growing mobility and interconnectedness of the world have challenged the notion of culture understood as the shared meanings, values and ways of life of people who live within bounded territories. Hence, the “assumed isomorphism of space, place, and culture” (Gupta and...

TV dramas are an integral and ubiquitous staple of the cultural diet everywhere in the world where there is a sizable television industry. In any given country around the world, dozens of TV dramas are shown on TV screens each year. They are one of the most popular television genres around, and thus the industry likes to produce and broadcast them — in the knowledge that they are able to attract large audiences. However, not all TV dramas are the same, nor are they all similarly well received. Some of them fail and are forgotten soon after. Most manage to gain...