Neojaponism and pop culture New Japanese exoticism in France

Abstract

In 2002, the worldwide success of Japanese pop culture was labelled by Douglas McGray as “cool Japan”, a way for the country to gain influence through its export of content, a phenomenon analysed as “soft power” (Nye 1990). McGray was emphasising the massive success of characters like the Pokémon or Hello Kitty, which were recent global hits at that time. Then the expression “cool Japan” was so successful that it became a key word with which to point to that global diffusion. Nevertheless, the process was running long before this moment in Europe, specifically in France. Japanese animation has been broadcasted on French television since the end of the 1970s, and manga began to be translated and published during the 1990s. Consequently, generations of French children grew up with Japanese pop culture as background entertainment. Some become so involved that they gathered as a fandom, an imagined community of Japanese pop culture lovers who share knowledge and references about what they love and the country from which it comes. Therefore, these fans are making a direct link between manga, animation and Japan, as they do so building dream images of the country. This process can be linked to exoticism as a way to represent otherness through symbolic and imaginary pictures. Since the Japonist movement, France has had a long tradition of exoticism focusing on Japan, and we can therefore raise the idea of new manga-related images as neojaponism, a way in which to renew traditional ‘clichés’.