JAPN 308: Japanese Pop-Culture
Objectives
This course explores post WWII Japanese music, literature, artistic media, and hi-tech products. Investigates social themes ranging from post-holocaust Japanese hedonism to childhood fantasies by looking at Manga comic books, Anime animated movies, and popular music from Enka to J-Pop to Karaoke, as well as fashion and style, popular technology, consumerism, and environmental issues. Explores the evolution of pop culture and its impact on society.
Reflections
Throughout this course, I learned about Japanese history and pop culture, such as the woodblock art, Akihabara (a famous district of electronic shop), maid café, etc. I also learned about Japanese lifestyle and hobbies, which provided in the sample 1 and sample 2, and its influence people thought and behavior, as well as negative and positive affects toward people’s lives and the society.
|
Otaku, for example, is referring to the people that are obsessive interesting in particular anime, manga, and video games. Based on the course lecture, I learned that most Otaku are hiding themselves inside their room. They live in their own imaginary world and don’t have any actual social life. With this situation, Otaku is playing an important role that has a negative effect / influence on the Japanese, where they are escaping from reality and gradually becoming isolated from the world.
Not all the influences that I learned through this course have negative effects on the Japanese, it can be positive effects as well. Drama, for example, serves as a product of education and information. Trendy dramas provide the information about the social realistic and the environment, as well as lifestyle trends. Therefore, trendy dramas are famous for the Japanese, not because of the well-crafted story line, but the trendy lifestyle. Trendy dramas bring in all the famous locations to the viewers, like cafe and tourist spot, which encourage viewers to come and visit those places that appeared on the dramas. As the viewers go along through the drama, they can learn all the lifestyles, like the fashion that the celebrities are wearing or the activities that they did in the drama, which can boost up the local economy.