Where is Japanese Pop Culture Policy Going?

Japan’s pop culture constitutes a much more powerful image of the country than cars and sumo do today. Therefore the idea of capitalizing on such image to revitalize the national brand and economy is a rational one. But the development of the cultural policy has been fragmented and unknown to the public.　 Firstly, the multidisciplinary nature of creative economy and the creative industry challenges Japanese cultural policy which does not have a cross-cutting ministry. Secondly, Japanese popular culture policy has not been able to justify itself yet from a cultural point of view. It has clear economic and international political purposes but has no decisive answer as to how the public support for a culture like anime should benefit the society at large. Thus the discussion of cultural value needs is unavoidable and cultural policy will do better to be driven by cultural ends that derive from such shared values. It is especially important for pop culture policy because of its newness (anime is not a traditional culture) and “controversial” nature (anime involves sexual and violent expressions). This controversial aspect of Japanese mass culture even intensifies overseas because of the lack of cultural contexts that accommodate such subversive expressions. Thirdly, Japanese cultural policy also needs to understand the cultural difference in the meanings of the concepts like “culture” and “art” in the West and Japan. This sounds vague but has had impacted on the decisiveness and confidence of the Japanese cultural policy so far. Lastly, Japanese cultural policy must understand how Japanese craftsmanship makes an economic difference in the creative industry. Just like any industry in Japan, creative industry heavily relies on the craftsmanship nature of Japanese people. This typical, multidisciplinary Japanese professionalism resembles “art for art’s sake” property argued by Caves (2002) in the way that artists may accept to work for low monetary rewards because of their intrinsic artistic motivation that goes over and beyond economic motivation. Japanese craftsmanship also tends to disregard economic rewards but what separates the craftsmanship fundamentally from the art for art’s sake property is that it is triggered by social external norms already internalized by Japanese people. The fact that craftsmanship is seen non-cultural sectors as well suggests that the motivation of craftsmanship does not necessarily has anything to do with intrinsic, artistic inspiration and creativity which specifically requires what art for art’s sake requires as rewards; cultural rewards. This is to say that the Japanese cultural policy needs to understand how creativity can be best renewed and nurtured and let go of its strong collectivistic, egalitarian definition of good, peaceful lives in which individual uniqueness, innovation and strange new ideas are sacrificed. After all, creative economy is strongly demanding Japanese cultural policy to shift from its definition of the culture as an objective to “preserve” the past to “renew” the future in the way that Japanese creativity is exploited in a sustainable manner.