That whole add campaign for the Lupo is one of the things that disgusts me about Japan. It’s the massive marketing of life-style. Buy this, wear this, drive this and you’ll be cool. Of course we have that in America and lots of people follow along but still, here in Japan it’s multiplied by 10!.
That and idol worship as in movie stars and TV celebrities. Did you know that on the majority of TV gameshows in Japan feature celebrities. There are no everyday people for contestants. You watch the game show and watch celebrities win prizes of $10k or $20k etc. How is that interesting? They are already stinking rich. They don’t need the money. But, most of the Japanese TV poplulation just wants to watch the the cute / beautiful people.
Many celebrities are on 6 or more TV shows AND are the spokesperson for 5 or more brands of stuff. Here’s one, Mr. Tokoro. He’s on 6 TV shows, as well as spokesperson for Mister Donut, Kanebo, NEC Biglobe Internet service, Bridgestone, Mitsubishi Air Conditioners, The Japanese Lotto. Plus he’s got an animated series about HIM!
Beat Takeshi is another one. He’s on 7 TV programs and 6 products. Most Americans think of him as this cool Hollywood outsider making interesting independant movies but of course if those Americans saw him here they’d think nothing of the sort. Turn the TV on and you’re bound to see him on stupid talkshows, gameshows, etc. He’s about as far from an outsider as you can get.
Then there’s Akashiya Sanma. He’s similar to the others. At any time of the day or night it seems like your chances of turning on the TV and seeing one of those 3 faces is greater than 50%. Add about 4 more similar people and that chance would go up to 80%. It’s crazy. If that’s not evidence of an “old boys network” in Japanese TV I don’t know what is.
Celebrity worship gets sickening at times. For example with Tomb Raider the movie coming out earlier this month they’ve been interviewing Angelina Jolie alot. In one interview the interviewer, a Japanese woman around 28, was literally acting like she was going to collapse from excitement. She was saying things like “I can’t believe I’m in the same room with Angelina Jolie” and “can I please touch you to prove to myself this is real”. Angelina Jolie was actually looking pretty nervous to be by this freak of a fan. As in like “chill out, I’m just another person like everybody else.” I guess America used to do this in the 40s and 50s but we seemed to have grown out of it for the most part. Here it’s still the norm.
It’s the same with J-Pop, Japanese pop music. The fans idolize every one of them beyond obsession. Worse, 90% of them are all made, not talented. Imagine if every band in America was N-SYNC, Milli-Vanilli, Spice Girls and you’d have a good idea of the Japanese popular music seen. The funniest thing is watching them dance because they can’t. It’s not that Japanese people can’t dance. I’m sure they can but you can’t tell it from the lame music videos. Bounce a little, cut alot and anybody can look like a J-Pop idol.
Here it doesn’t matter if you have any talent it matters that you are cute or hunky. In fact at lease a few Japanese I’ve met know their idols have no talent but that doesn’t matter because “they’re so cuuute!!”.
mate. everything you mention about japan is what america is famous for. use your imagination a bit will you. mainstream culture is rubbish. top of the pile of rubbish is american mainstream culture. you really believe its different to japan’s?….doh!
While it’s true that American Pop culture gives us plenty of crap as well it’s not even 1/10th the level if crap it is in Japan.
Take music. In the states we have Brittany and In-Sync but we also have plenty of real talents on our charts. Finding any real talent on the Japan top charts is nearly impossible. Sure there are talented musicians in Japan but they seldom make it on the charts.
Same with movies. America has it’s crap pop trash but most of it is not nearly as bad as the Japanese crap pop trash and even so there are plenty of good movies that make it on our chart. There are few that make it on Japanese charts.
Shut the hell up. Japan owns you. Stop complaining and get a life. Go get a ganguro girlfriend.
Its a simple trade off between the US and Japan, the US gives Japan its reality and Japan gives the US its unreality, niether is beating the other and require the other to actually get anywhere…im proud of american culture and show equal envy for japanese culture.
Sorry, America sucks, it’s the truth, even your white cousins the Euro’s hate you…
Japan seems to worship American culture because it idealizes diversity because their country’s demographics consist of over 98% Japanese. Someone said that they like someone just based on looks alone; if we didn’t do that ourselves, Carson Daly wouldn’t be around and Paris Hilton would be a nobody to us. For the diversity we have, America shouldn’t be so monotonous and lame. Everyone is a friggin’ poser and does whatever the media tells them to. Our actors suck and can only play one type of character, any music on our “charts” suck and I don’t even consider it music. Japanese pop-culture might be a bit overboard and a little nuts, but you find it here on a disguised level if you’d open your eyes. And at least the Japanese are not complete morons.
My point isn’t that America doesn’t have it’s pop crap, it’s that Japan there is NOTHING BUT pop crap.
America has plenty of great actors. Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, and there are many many others. All these actors play all kinds of characters and do it very well. Sure, in America there are one track actors like Bad Pitt, Ben Affleck, etc but Japan has no good actors what so ever (okay, maybe one, Ken Watanabe but he may be one track as well)
While they used to have Kurasawa Japan has no good directors anymore. About the only thing they release that doesn’t suck is Ghibili anime once every 2 – 3 years. Sure people complain that American movies suck with stuff like the Fantastic Four and the Island but there actually are plenty of good movies that come out in America. Movies like Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, Million Dollar Baby, Donnie Darko, etc. Japan has nearly zero. You don’t have to take my word for it, ask any Japanese person over 25 and they’ll tell you Japanese movies suck. (under 25 and they are still enchanted by pop crap just like under 20 Americans think summer popcorn movies are good movies)
As for music while America has pop crap like Britany Spears on the charts we also have plenty of actual talent. Japan has nearly zero. Almost every act on the Japanese charts is a just a face/body with a producer behind them. At least in music, unlike movies, if you dig underground you can find some talent but with far less exceptions the talent doesn’t make it to the charts in Japan.
No, the Japanese are not complete morons but their top of charts entertainment culture mostly is.
Dude…what have you been smoking?
I think that all the “artists” here in America SUCK. All we have is this rap shit and crap about sex, drugs, cars, and money.
I think you gotta do A LOT more research before you go and say that Japan has zero talent…idiot.
Yeah, the U.S. entertainment is kind of going stale … unfortunately, it’s a vicious cycle of the populace getting fed “what’s cool” then thinking that the crap is cool, then sending the message back to the entertainment companies of “we want more junk!”, and the entertainment companies only being happy to “give ‘em” more to keep the $$$ flowing.
In Japan though a lot of what Greg is saying is true. There is actually good talent in Japan, but the way the entertainment industry works here is everything get’s “processed and canned” so some of these people have no choice but to go with the flow … or have to do really outrageous things to differentiate themselves.
To start with, a lot of the commercials and ads usually feature entertainers (musicians, movie stars, TV personalities) … unlike the U.S. where ads and commercials show images of “everyday” people. You won’t necessarily see Lucy Liu riding a bicycle vertically up a building in an American beer commercial, but you’ll definately see that here in Japan.
Some of the really good talent here in Japan sometimes leave for Hollywood, but many don’t leave … one factor could be their lack of command of the English language (which working in Hollywood requires), and of course they’d almost be re-starting their careers.
To break into TV/Movies here the pattern I have observed is this:
1.) Start showing up on these TV shows a lot.
2.) If you’re lucky, you’ll start showing up on commercials a lot.
3.) If you’re lucky, you’ll end up on some TV drama.
4.) If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in some major movie
5.) You have to keep your “face time” going with the TV public else they’ll forget you.
6.) If you’re popular enough, you’re career will cycle regularly from numbers 2 through 5.
7.) If you fail on #6, you’ll fade off into oblivion.
I’ve some Japanese friends who complain also about how much of the entertainment here is just crap … at least the TV programs on NHK are of very high quality (compared to many of the other stations).
Anyway, I didn’t watch much TV or listen to music in the U.S. (because of the low quality) and don’t do much of the same here in Japan either (in my opinion, it’s worse here).
Haven’t you heard of Dir en Grey? What about Bleach03? Man: I’ve found really hard made songs just in Morning Musume or L’Arc-en-ciel. A lot of this people you say they suck 10 times more, work hardest than anyone to make it in the american market and they never make it no matter what. They actually research and try to reinvent the formulae of pop all the time. You can’t really say that’s happening in America besides Radiohead, Mars Volta or Flamming Lips. I think you haven’t heard enough of J-pop to make such a critic.
Japanese culture kinda lame nowadays. I can see how hard they try to act like those characters in “anime”. Well, I know not all of them, but I found hell lot of them!
I used to be one of those Japan-addict guys. But then I realized how boring they are. I still listen or watch Japanese stuffs once for a while, because few of them are pretty good.
I like the old way of Japanese entertainment, especially tv-shows/movies. I’ve watched Long Vacation before, and their act was very natural. No cute-act or anger-anime-style or even those silent-cool-act-but-gay at all.
for one you dumb bitch, America is not full of hip hop artists! maybe you should change the radio station or television once and a while and maybe then youd realize theres about 25 other genres of music out there that dont include sagging pants and fake chains. every country has good and bad aspects when youre dealing with pop culture. as stated above, we have phenomenal actors and actresses that are talented enough to play various roles in movies that top the charts. if they suck so bad, how are they getting there? are you claiming the american generation to be a bunch of idiots as well?
maybe you should re-read this blog, because this guy is not calling japan a load of bullshit. hes just saying they sort of take it over the top and he is saying that their talent isnt as recognized as ours for whatever reason it may be. i guarantee people in japan are super talented and work their asses off and still never make it, but you have to realize the same thing happens in america, if not more often. i can vouch for a load of bands who spend years working and never get where they should be. but no matter what country you are in, it comes to who has the most money, or who can get the most attention to sell the most products. what he was saying is that there are just less people in japan on the charts, hes not claiming there arent any talented people.
you guys need to take a step back and realize some people arent out to attack the world. he was never claiming America to be a “superior” country, he was just stating reality and giving his opinion. if you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen.