Cool Japan: the relationships between the state and the cultural industries

7.2 Empirical findings

Cool Japan represents a significant change of the stance of the government towards the Japanese cultural industries. Before the 2000s, the authorities did not pay much attention to them because they viewed these industries as unprofitable and trivial. Moreover, Japanese popular culture, especially anime, manga and video games, was stigmatized as being vulgar and a part of low-brow culture. This negative opinion explains why the Japanese state neglected these industries for a long time.

Yet, the enthusiastic reception of Japanese pop culture around the world changed the attitude of the bureaucrats. Now, they assume that the support of the cultural industries can stimulate the domestic economy, and contribute to present Japan in a positive way. Nevertheless, the active promotion of the cultural industries does not mean that negative sentiment towards them has disappeared among the bureaucracy.

It is important to bear in mind that the current promotion of the cultural industries did not initiate the success of Japanese pop culture overseas. The Cool Japan policy represents a reaction of the Japanese government. Anime studios, manga publishers and video games companies started the exports of their products on their own, that is to say outside of a governmental framework. More than Japanese companies and local distributors, piracy has been the main driver of the massive dissemination of Japanese popular culture. Copyright infringements paved the way for the legal commercialization of pop culture products in countries such as Taiwan and South Korea where their imports were banned respectively until 1993 and 1998 (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.1).

Since the advent of the Internet in the 2000s, online piracy has been the main driver of the dissemination of Japanese pop culture. It is a very easy task for fans to have access to the new episodes of their favourite anime or manga because scanlations and fansubs are released few hours after their release in Japan (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2). The too lax enforcement of intellectual property copyright by the East and Southeast Asian states (China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and so on) has contributed to the proliferation of illegal products easily available in the cities of these countries (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.1).

Another significant empirical finding of this research lies in the sectionalism of the Japanese bureaucracy. Two kinds of conflicts occur in bureaucratic regimes: conflicts within the bureaucracy, and conflicts between the bureaucracy and the central political authorities (Eisenstadt, 1956). Johnson reminds us that “the greatest threat to a bureaucrat’s security comes not from the political world or private-interest groups but from other bureaucrats” (1982: 321). The sectionalism of the Japanese bureaucracy can be traced back to the Meiji period (Boyd, 2006: 52). Struggles between ministries to protect their jurisdictional domains, to expand them, to compete for more budget and prestige are a recurrent feature of Japanese politics which complicates the coordination and cooperation between ministries.

Chapter 5 offers evidence that Cool Japan represents another example of the sectionalism of the Japanese bureaucracy. Ministries and agencies involved in the framing and the implementation of this policy tend to view it according to their respective domains. For instance, the METI considers Cool Japan as an industrial policy to promote a sector with promising ripple effects in terms of economic growth and jobs creation. According to this ministry, the aim of this policy is not to improve the working conditions of mangaka and animators. The Agency for Cultural Affairs hopes that it will be for foreigners a gateway to Japanese traditional culture, the main focus of this state body. And the MOFA thinks that this policy can increase Japan’s soft power.

At the outset, Cool Japan meant content products such as anime, manga, video games, movies, TV drama and music. But its scope has extended as more and more ministries and agencies became part of this policy. Nowadays, Cool Japan has a very encompassing meaning, from content products to food, sake, fashion, design, traditional craftworks and so on. As a very large number of state actors is involved in the support for the development of the cultural industries outside of Japan, not surprisingly, Cool Japan is a complex policy, not only for bureaucrats but as well for these sectors.

The IPSH and the Cabinet Office try to regulate the competition between ministries to obtain more budget. A large part of the tension takes place because of the struggle of each ministry to secure more funding. The IPSH mediates between ministries when tension occurs concerning their policies to promote the Japanese cultural industries (Choo, 2012: 89-90). Yet, when the Cabinet Office makes recommendations to ministries to adjust their policies, these recommendations are often ignored. In the current Abe government, there is a minister to coordinate the Cool Japan policy. However, it is doubtful that a minister without a ministry can be successful in the coordination of all the state actors. Sectionalism does not mean that ministries and agencies do not cooperate at all, and that they do not talk to each other. Chapter 5 describes some examples of collaboration. Nevertheless, sectionalism still represents a major hurdle for a better coordination between ministries and agencies because they want to protect their domains.

This doctoral dissertation also focused on the reactions of the anime, manga and video games sectors to this policy. Consistent with the features of the developmental state introduced in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1, the Japanese state has institutional links with the AJA and the CESA. In particular, the METI, the leader in the implementation of the Cool Japan policy, meets several times a year these two business associations in order to inform them about the governmental policies and to obtain information on the business conditions that these industries face. The manga industry is a specific case because two associations (the AMP and the DCA) representing this sector exist, but they are informal associations. Despite the absence of corporate status, the METI has contacts with them. This ministry has links with some companies as well, for example Kadokawa.

The relationships between the government and these industries do not imply that they have captured the authorities. The state collects information and data about them through institutional links, but, at the same time, maintains an autonomy to implement the policy that it judges necessary. For instance, the METI requests the collaboration of the AJA for policies that the state has already decided. This ministry often makes decisions that do not satisfy the AJA. Yet, this business association knows that it cannot oppose the governmental policy. And the government rejected the request of the video games industry to get tax cut in order to face the rising cost of the development of video games.

The main gap that exists between the state and the cultural industries concerning Cool Japan is about the timing of this policy. According to many interviewees, this governmental initiative is too late. Indeed, manga, anime and video games companies began the exports of their products a long time before this policy (see Chapter 4, Sections 4.2-4.3). At that time, the Japanese government was not interested in their business. A specific gap exists between the state and the AJA about what kind of anime to export through Cool Japan. In contrast to the AJA, the authorities prefer emphasizing the dissemination of children anime.

The Japanese cultural industries would like the government to combat more vigorously the piracy of their products. Even big companies cannot eradicate copyright infringements without the assistance of the state. The intervention of the authorities is necessary. Regardless of its effectiveness, the MAG Project testifies that the government is making significant efforts to fight online piracy. Yet, it does not include video games. It would be interesting to observe if the MAG Project extends to video games in the future. In its struggle against copyright violations, the Japanese government needs the cooperation of the East and Southeast Asian states where pirated copies of products are massively available. In the case of China, the ongoing struggle over the memory of the Second World War and the continuation of territorial conflict make a cooperation very difficult to achieve.

The relationships between the government and the cultural industries are quite recent. The CESA was created in 1996 and the AJA in 2002. It does not appear that these sectors have the same intensity of relations with the state that other sectors such as chemistry, banks, steel, automobiles etc. The Japanese cultural industries do not seem to employ amakudari. They reject state interference in their contents if it allocates them financial help. If they had amakudari, maybe their mistrust would disappear, at least decrease. Artists and creators want to protect their freedom of expression and independence. Mistrust towards the government is particularly present in the anime industry. It is nurtured by the willingness to secure independence and an anti-governmental stance because several elder animators aged around sixty years old are rather leftist.

Such mistrust seems absent in other sectors such as the nuclear one (Vivoda and Graetz, 2015) and the space one (Pekkanen and Kallender-Umezu, 2010). Before Cool Japan, the anime sector was not even judged as an industry, but rather as an extension of the manga publishers. The video games industry wants to preserve its independence from the government so that it does not suffer from restriction and limitations imposed by state policies. The mistrust of the anime industry and the willingness of the video games sector to remain independent cast doubt on the claim made by several scholars that the Japanese business-government relations are consensual and based on harmony (Zhao, 1993; Kono and Clegg, 2001; Hamada, 2010).

Lastly, the Japanese cultural industries are heterogeneous. This represents one difficulty for the state in the implementation of its support for these industries. Most of the time, anime studios are not the right-holders of anime. Studio Ghibli is an exception as its anime are original stories. When anime studios are present in the production committee, they have to share the revenues with the other members (TV stations, video games, toy and film companies as well as publishers and advertising agencies) based on each participant’s respective investment. Most of the anime studios are small companies struggling with the low budget that they receive from the production committee. In contrast to anime studios, video games companies and manga publishers are right-holders. Similar to other sectors, the Japanese cultural industries are composed of big companies and the SMEs. The former do not really need the assistance of the authorities in their exports. But, if financial support is available, they want to benefit from it. The SMEs need more the support of the state to expand abroad. Yet, it does not mean that they are totally satisfied by the Cool Japan policy.