Theresa's Blog Post #2


Today, I’ll discuss some of my own findings and semi-research of my research topic. After exploring different areas of Japan and such, I have already witnessed influence of Japanese pop culture all around. For example, I visited Akihabara which is the main source of pop culture in regards to anime/manga culture. Akihabara started as a district that sold mainly computers and electronics as they began to boom into ‘otaku’ culture. Now, it is filled with not only electronics and miscellaneous goods, but also tons of anime merchandise and maid cafes that cater to ‘otaku’. There are literally floors of shops with so many goods that it’ll literally take hours to search every single shop. You’ll even see girls dressed up as maids often communicating with those passing by to hand out pamphlets to advertise their café. Noticeably, there was plenty of foreigners because this is a hot spot for tourists who visit Japan and enjoy anime/manga. But I didn’t only notice it in Akihabara; there is an abundance of influence from anime/manga in pop culture through mascots. Aside from the usual Pikachu and Sanrio characters, there is a popular mascot character called ‘Doraemon’. Doraemon is a children’s manga/anime that you will see literally everywhere if you take the time to look. I even noticed a small Doraemon statue that was present in front of the Mukougaoka Yuen Station. Most popular mascots in Japan have toys and places inspired by anime/manga because it has such an impact on Japan (especially towards children).



I had the chance to visit a very large store filled with goods inspired by popular anime series in Shibuya as well. Anime/manga culture has always had a strong market in Japan and even the movies they advertise for movie theaters are going to typically have an animated film. For example, when I went to watch Detective Pikachu at a Japanese movie theater, there were advertisements for animated films because those have gained a huge amount of popularity. ‘Your name’ was a very popular in Japan and literally became one of the highest grossing films in Japan (even surpassing Spirited Away). In North America, you’ll typically see marvel films surpassing every other film and they are usually the most popular. However, while in basically every other country Avengers: Endgame is the most popular grossing film in 2019 thus far, in Japan the current highest film in the box office is Detective Conan. After that, a Doraemon film is also one of the highest grossing films in Japan. These two series are older series that continued to evolve over time into super popular series in Japan today. Detective Conan for example inspired tourist attractions in the author of Detective Conan’s home town which was named “Conan Town”. This indicates that there is a lot of inspiration from anime/manga culture present not only in Akihabara, but other popular places as well. For example, Pokemon is a series that has become so popular in Japan, that you will literally see Pikachu everywhere if you look hard enough.

Concluding this, I have observed so far that anime/manga is very abundant in Japanese pop culture today. It’s not just in shops in stores, you find advertisements on buses, trains, train stations, and even in convenience stores. Next, I intend to visit Ikebukuro which is another district in Tokyo which also has shops and places inspired by anime/manga.

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