Nowadays, what is one of the most popular things around the world? The answer will be Japanese culture.
In recent years, Japanese culture has swept the world. In Asia, almost everyone knows at least one Japanese traditional culture such as Bushido and tea ceremony. In Europe and America, there are many Sushi bars and Japanese restaurants in cities. Anime, as the most representative Japanese culture also has become popular outside of Japan.
First, Japanese Anime TV show has become very popular all over the world. It is easy to watch on TV in many states of the world. Today, American children’s channel has full of a variety of anime. But ten years ago, there are only few Japanese anime TV shows in America. People also can find many anime on the internet. In Cartoon Network.
com, there are many anime such as Dragon ball, Gundam and Ham taro. For instance, Gardiner states that in the last year, one Japanese toy and anime Company which called Bandai Entertainment has published 75 anime TV shows and movies in US market and this number is still continue to rise (2). In addition, popularity of anime can also be emerged by ranking. Ten years ago, anime never appeared on the leader board of children’s programming in America. However, anime usually show regularly on the ranking list.
For example, according to Faiola Anthony, in Nielsen rating, “Yu-Gi-Oh” is ranked in the third and “Pokemon” is sixth(3). In brief, from these phenomenon, it is clear that anime TV show obtains remarkable success outside of Japan. Furthermore, Japanese anime movie also received many attentions from all over the world. There are more and more anime films offer to audience in theatre. For example, in Asia countries, people can see some anime movie series like Doraemon collection in theatres every year. Hayao Miyazaki is a person which cannot be ignored in anime filmdom.
According to “Japan’s Gross National Cool”, a few years ago, “Spirited Away” which directed by Miyazaki became the first anime film which won the top festival price in Berlin Film Festival (Mcgray 2). This movie also gets good film review from The New York Times, Chicago Sun Times and Miami Herald. According to the division of Yahoo, Box Official Chart, “Spirited Away” was showed on 58 screens and earned almost 5. million dollars in ten weeks after released (Gardiner 1). Therefore, there is no doubt that Japanese anime movie get popularity outside of Japan.
Moreover, anime-related products are really popular around the world. One of the most popularity products is Hello Kitty. More and more people like to buy Hello Kitty not only because it is cut but also because it means Japanese chic. In this case, Mcgray claims that in 1980s, Hello Kitty Company in the United States only accepted custom-make after thinking they might not be able to not sell out. Nowadays, Hello Kitty has been treated as Japanese pop icon, American teenagers and twenty-some things like to buy Hello Kitty purses and cell phones (3). Many smart businessmen know how popular Hello Kitty is and choose to cooperate with Sanrio.
In nine months, Aeon Credit Service in Hong Kong sold 100,000 Hello Kitty Master Cards. A large number people waited outside of McDonald in Singapore when McDonald was selling Hello Kitty dolls with fast food. In Taiwan, even Sanrio was surprised when Taiwanese snapped up 200,000 Hello Kitty dolls from McDonald in August. People can find Hello Kitty products such as Hello Kitty coffee makers, golf balls and perfumes everywhere. They even can eat food shaped in Hello Kitty’s face at coffee house in Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Nowadays, Sanrio can earn 2. 86 billion dollars every year just by selling 15,000 kinds of Hello Kitty products (Koh 4). In addition, related-products of Pokemon are also liked by many people all over the world. The Poke video games were be translate in 30 languages and released in 75 countries. As has been noted, it is not hard to see that Japanese anime related-products have swept the world.
In conclusion, anime as a Japanese culture has high popularity all over the world. There is large number of anime in different states’ TV channels or people can find them easily on the internet. Anime as a popular thing always show on video ranking. Anime films also draw more and more attention outside of Japan. Furthermore, people around the world have crush on anime-related products.
People can buy a verity of merchandise in stores. Japanese culture has gain great success outside of Japan, and there’s a big likelihood that Japanese culture will go further in the future (775).
Bibliography:
Faiola, Anthony. “We’re Playing Their Toons. ” Washingtonpost. com 6 Dec.
2004. Web. 18 Jun. 2013.
Koh, Barbara. “Japanese Youth and Popular Culture. ” East Asian Studies News File. 8 Nov. 1999.
University of California Los Angeles. Web. 18 Jun. 2013 . McGray, Douglas. “Japan’s Gross National Cool.
” Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy. Retrieved Web. 18 Jun. 2013 . Gardiner, Debbie.
“Anime in America: Japan’s animated movies have risen from cult status tocultural force in the US. ” BNET. Jan. 2003. CNET Networks. Web.
18 Jun. 2013 .
