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

5.4 Conclusion

This chapter highlighted that the Cool Japan policy is a complex policy. Indeed, a very large number of ministries and agencies are involved in the state’s support to the expansion of the Japanese cultural industries abroad. The complexity is also the result of the tendency of state actors to consider Cool Japan through their jurisdictional domains. The large array of ministries and agencies raises the issue of the coordination of the Cool Japan policy. Even if Tsuruho Yōsuke is in charge of such issue in the current Abe government, the coordination between the various state actors is hampered by the strong sectionalism still present in the Japanese developmental state. Cool Japan represents thus another case of jurisdictional competition between the ministries to expand their budget, their domains and the number of their bureaucrats.

Nevertheless, the state actors implicated in the Cool Japan policy can be classified into two categories: those who support the development of the international sales of the Japanese cultural industries; and those who want to improve Japan’s soft power. In the first group, we find the Cabinet Office which initiated this policy by the creation of the IPSH in March 2003. The METI has the leadership in the implementation of Cool Japan given its institutional links

with the AJA, the CESA and two informal associations representing the manga publishers (AMP and DCA). In order to enhance the competitiveness of the Japanese cultural industries judged as too inward-oriented, it has decided to assist in the exports of these sectors. Both points are characteristics of the developmental state (see Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1).

Cool Japan represents an industrial policy as defined in the Introduction because the Japanese developmental state wants to improve the business conditions of the cultural industries so that they increase their earnings in the foreign markets. Indeed, be it the J-LOP, the J-LOP+ or the Cool Japan Fund, they were set up to boost the dissemination of the Japanese pop culture. Yet, the J-LOP grants subsidies to the cultural industries (anime, manga, video games etc.) whereas the Cool Japan Fund invests through the buying of shares, that is to say equity investments, to become a minority shareholder not only in projects involving the cultural industries, but also the creative industries (food, lifestyle, fashion and tourism). The priority of the Cool Japan Fund is to invest in the SMEs. In the same vein as the METI, the JETRO and the MIC regard Cool Japan as an industrial policy. The participation of the JTA offers evidence that Cool Japan is intimately linked to the development of the tourism industry in Japan. Though not being really interested in enhancing the profits of the Japanese cultural industries overseas, the Agency for Cultural Affairs still promotes them through the annual Japan Media Arts Festival and provides financial assistance to animators, notably the young ones.

The MOFA and the Japan Foundation are present in the second group because they consider Cool Japan as a way of improving Japan’s soft power. As a result of its global success, the MOFA regards Japanese pop culture as a powerful tool to advance Japan’s diplomatic goals. Nevertheless, it has not been able to convert this popularity into political support yet. In spite of the important success of Japanese anime, manga and video games in China and South Korea, Chinese and South Korean people still have a negative attitude towards Japan certainly because of the salience of territorial conflicts between Japan and its two neighbours and of a divided memory of the Second World War. Whereas the MOFA has an instrumental view of Japanese culture, the Agency for Cultural Affairs prefers introducing it not only as an asset of Japan, but also as an asset of mankind.

For Cool Japan, the Japanese development state has funneled a massive amount of money into the policy, a total of ¥69.8 billion, respectively ¥41.6 billion in the Cool Japan Fund, ¥15.5 billion in the previous J-LOP, ¥6 billion in the J-LOP+ and ¥6.7 billion in the present J-LOP. This sum does not include the money spent by all the ministries and agencies involved in this policy. The commitment of the state is in the long-term. In theory, the Cool Japan Fund will last twenty years. Yet, in reality, the state wants this fund to last as short of possible, around a decade. During this time frame, it hopes to find the successful business model for the exports of Japanese content, food, fashion and lifestyle. The Japanese developmental state has decided to provide financial support to the cultural industries because it considers that their expansion abroad will have important ripple effects for the national economy, notably the development of the tourism industry.

The present priority given by the government to the cultural industries represents a complete change from its disinterest in them until the end of the 1990s. Bureaucrats assumed that this economic sector was not important enough to be the subject of governmental policies. However, the worldwide success of Japan’s pop culture made them change their mind. They realized the strong potential of the cultural industries in terms of job creation and economic growth for Japan. They also understood that the dissemination of pop culture can help to propagate a positive image of Japan through soft power. The publication of McGray’s article in 2002 helped the Japanese elite to embrace the concept of soft power and to understand the significance of the Japanese cultural industries. After the analysis of the Cool Japan policy, the next chapter will examine how the manga, anime and video games sectors react to it.

Chapter 6: The Cool Japan policy and the anime, manga and video games sectors

6.1 Introduction

For a long time, the Japanese developmental state did not pay attention to the cultural industries because it considered them unimportant. Bureaucrats judged that manga, video games and anime were trivial, thereby unworthy of being the focus of their attention. Yet, their attitude changed given the enthusiastic reception of these cultural products around the world since the 1990s. They realized the potential of Japanese pop culture, not only to spread a positive image of Japan, but also to stimulate the Japanese economy with job creation and growth. At present, with Cool Japan, the government is actively supporting the dissemination of Japanese popular culture around the world.

This chapter is organized into three sections. Each one deals respectively with a sector of the cultural industries studied in this doctoral dissertation and covers four points. Firstly, the reactions to the Cool Japan policy are examined. They show that the Cool Japan policy is a late policy because the industries of anime, manga and video games diffused their products before its implementation (see Chapter 4, Sections 4.2-4.3). Moreover, the Japanese cultural industries reject state’s interference in their works if they receive subsidies. This mistrust is particularly present among artists and creators who want to safeguard their independence from the authorities.

Secondly, evidence is provided that the state has institutional links with these industries, mainly through their business associations, and a relative degree of autonomy, two characteristics of the developmental state (see Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1). This subsection also points out that the relationships between the Japanese developmental state and these industries emerged quite recently. Indeed, the CESA was created in 1996 and the AJA in 2002. The case of the manga industry is specific because it has two informal associations: the AMP and the DCA. Despite the lack of corporate status, they have contact with the METI (Munakata Saho, 2015).

Thirdly, the issue of the piracy is addressed. The Japanese cultural industries expect from the government to more actively tackle the issue of piracy which is particularly widespread in East and Southeast Asia (China, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and so on) (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.1). Even the biggest companies cannot eradicate piracy by themselves, especially nowadays with the Internet (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2). The start of the MAG Project to combat online piracy in July 2014 demonstrates that the state tries to eradicate copyright infringements. Nevertheless, the MAG Project focuses on the anime and manga, not on video games. As far as the author of this thesis knows, the Japanese government has not implemented the equivalent of the MAG Project for the industry of video games. This does not mean that the CODA does not combat illegal copies of video games.

Lastly, the heterogeneity within these sectors, especially between the big players, and the small and middle ones, is studied. Before the start of Cool Japan, big companies had already established their networks abroad to commercialize their products. This contrasts with the situation of the SMEs which lack staff speaking English and the networks to export their products.