It has long seemed to me that Japan is much like the USA I knew growing up in Virginia in the 1950s and 60s—with this important difference. The young Japanese I encountered in Japan in the 1980s and 90s had no experiences comparable to the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights movements, the Hippie counter culture, the Bay of Pigs, and the assassinations of MLK and JFK.
It’s interesting, because there were massive protest movements in Japan, involving at their peak in 1960 (against the U.S.-Japan security treaty) more of a percentage of Japan’s population than I suspect the American antiwar movement did. And the Japanese student protest movements almost a decade later were large, too. But when those flamed out in 1971-2, there was nothing to replace them. Or more accurately, they were replaced by something completely different: fandoms — for music, manga, anime, etc etc. That’s the defining feature of youth culture from about 1980 on.
Yes, there were protest movements in Japan. But, unlike American men in my generation, none of the participants was subject to conscription into the military. Fear of being drafted and sent to ‘Nam was a huge factor affecting all of us. Also, there was nothing on the scale of the Civil Rights Movement. Why?
I agree with most of your cultural analysis, but what I find myself wondering about is the difference in material conditions.
In my particular case, the defining motivation of the time in which I grew up was fear of being drafted and sent to ‘Nam. Not an experience shared by Japanese men in the postwar era.
Excellent piece. I would agree that in contrast to Japan, the manosphere was a reaction to the 'coalition of the ascendant' era that you identified. Based upon my experience there, I still believe that Japan to be culturally conservative (broadly speaking). Although this is admittedly painting with a broad brush -- and taking into consideration the evidence to the contrary in pop media that you site -- who needs a manosphere when you have the LDP? I will never forget Seiichi Ota's horrific comments in 2003, in addition to Yasuo Fukuda, Takami Eto, Toru Hashimoto, Mio Sugita...etc. Recall the 草食系男子 panic. I do agree that this is quite distinct from the U.S. where it was mostly bottom-up rather than what I saw in Japan as being amplified mainly from the top (conservative politicians or other prominent reactionary authors/celebrities. And to be fair, at the time, there was a strong backlash against these folks including from Koizumi.
Train Man is an Aughts phenomenon in Japan that started from a 2004 thread posted in a forum for lonely men on 2channel, the precursor to 4chan. It takes its name from the story: a nerd intervenes when he sees a woman getting harassed on the train, and she gives him her number in gratitude. But he's so clueless about dating he doesn't know what to do, and turns to the forum for advice. The anonymous participants coach him into asking her out and eventually proposing marriage. It became a bestselling book and then a hit TV series. Many think the whole thing was made up. But it's an early example of a meme going mainstream, and also of fragile/disempowered men taking the spotlight by embracing traditional values. (This story anchors the final chapter of Pure Invention, the book, if you're interested in a deeper dive.)
Hey Matt! Long time follower and have read Pure Invention cover to cover multiple times! Wanted to ask, do you know anywhere to access an English version of the 1% book? All I can find are Japanese amazon listings. Would love some help here if possible. Thank you!
Thanks for reading! Even in an era of global fascination with Japanese self-help, neither of those books have been translated. They’re very aimed at the local audience’s particular situation. Hiroyuki’s advice comes down to “don’t try too hard.” It sort of prefigures the “low social consciousness” movement (insofar as they move :)
I thought as much. A shame, as that is exactly what I wanted to read.. something that speaks specifically to the local situation. Interesting to think about Korea and the 'vibe' there in relation to what you've talked about here. Can they be plotted on the same line as America and Japan (closer to what's going on in America, or beyond that?) or is it something else entirely do you think..
When I was researching Pure Invention the book, it shocked me how perfectly the milestones lined up between Japan post-Bubble and America post-Lehman. But things have really diverged when it comes to young people: Asian kids reacting to uncertainty and chaos by dropping out while Western ones seem to be turning troll (the far right is the counterculture of the 21st century.) There’s no shortage of misogynist/right-leaning/chaos-loving kids in Japan either but for a variety of reasons they aren’t affecting society at large…. Yet. We are seeing hints that this might change, though. Like the rise of meme-troll candidates in the last Tokyo gubernatorial election.
It makes sense Hiroyuki is telling kids to stop trying. They’ve been told their whole lives to work their asses off, study hard, pass entrance exams, etc. yet are rewarded with much less opportunity than previous generations. Hiroyuki, who made a fortune outside the system and takes great pleasure in trolling society, is a kind of digital folk hero figure to a lot of extremely online folks.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Related, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Moon Channel's videos about the 'Gacha Gender Wars' in Korea since I watched them a few months ago. Have you seen them? I think you'd enjoy watching. I imagine you'd have a lot of opinions about his 'Kawaii: Anime, Propaganda, and Soft Power' video also!
Regqrds the descriptorzilla "affecting society at large" Mister Alt. How would you suppose the number of persons comprising the manosphere compares with that of the number comprising the hardcore Harris base, the "cat ladies"?
No way, Matt Alt. That someone dubbed them 'cat ladies' does nothing to diminish the fact that the "Harris base" was/is an enormous number of younger women for whom marriage and children is the opposite of what they want. I am surprised to the max that you would choose to respond in such a way, Matt!
"Perhaps because the gender lines have always been more fluid in Japanese pop culture" also made me think of how many male leads in anime/video games are voiced by women!
The ending feels a bit oversimplified. iirc, gamergate wasn't about the presence of women in video games -- Lara Croft is a classic. It was about women (mostly one woman, Aneeta Sarkeesian) pointing out that Lara Croft and other video-game women are drawn for male fantasy and don't empower women.
I'm no expert, but I read my kids' pokemon books and I watched some Miyazaki and I don't see that things are much different in Japan. The difference is that they don't have a Sarkeesian protesting because their gender relations are stuck in the 1950s.
This doesn't mean there isn't a gender war going on. There is. As you've noted, Japanese women are strongly attracted to western society. The main difference is that when men go to war they make a lot of sound and fury (via podcasts and memes), while women just walk away and find somewhere better to be (like the USA).
All due respect (I do appreciate your reading and commenting), I do not think you're recalling correctly. It was never about female characters in games, nor was it about journalists. It was about female gamers and creators, who were harassed mercilessly by men who believed games were "their" territory. This, like your previous question about Train Man, is a big part of the final chapter of Pure Invention, which goes into a much deeper dive on the topic.
They are those whose victimary sensibility is so infernally swollen they had Michelle Obama concoct an ad that advised partnered women to hide their vote from their men so as to PRO-TECT them from the VIOLENCE that any vote for Trump would automatically expose them to!
Another point. Different generations, different experiences. There was a lot of media attention given to career women while the “New Breed” (新人類), a generation much smaller than the Japanese Baby Boomers (団塊世代) were entering the labor force and starting careers. Ironically, however, many (most?) women decided that the salaryman grind was not for them. Who would want to live like that with the option being fun, travel, and fashion with friends. Not all women had these opportunities, but the daughters of affluent Boomer parents were in the media limelight.
My bad. The women in the limelight were not the Boomers’ daughters, but the daughters of the “burning generation”(燃えてる世代), the greying corporate warriors who rebuilt Japan after WWII and paved the way for the economic bubble during which the New Breed came of age.
There was definitely a lot of mass-media-policing of women’s behavior back then: backlash against the “gals” of the Eighties, the “parasite singles” and “kogals” of the Nineties, the “carnivorous women” of the Aughts, etc. Fortunately they didn’t let it bother them. They were too busy inventing the future while the critics fumed (it was young women who pioneered mobile texting, emoji, mobile/smart phone as lifestyle, etc)!
Could you please enlarge on this "pioneered (as) lifestyle" claim? How was estimation of that 'phenomenon' arrived at and by what sort of investigative agency?
There’s a great book on this topic…. It happens to share a title with this newsletter! It in fact contains an entire chapter devoted to Japan’s early-adopting tech-whiz schoolgirls and young women. Check it out if you’re interested in a deeper dive.
Am I right in thinking you omit mention in Pure Invention's opening chapter of how Kosuge escaped the all-cionsuming Asakusa firestorm? Yoko Ono escaped because her father was a banker and had.a bunker - how did Kosuge escape?
Wish I knew. He may have taken shelter in a bunker of some kind, or he may have been out of the neighborhood that day, or he may simply have been very lucky. He left no memoirs. We'll probably never know.
I totally am, Matt Alt. Even tho I have not yet managed to access the text itself, I can assure you the Empire of Schoolgirls, can I say of Panchira outblooming even Sakura, swallowed.me whole long ago .
But in translation, you often have to find these rough equivalents. I personally think it’s close enough, even if it doesn’t capture the intensity of “woke.”
The big issue with translating “woke” is that it means very different things to different people at different times. That is what makes it difficult to capture in a word. I think there is overlap between “political correctness” and the ways in which people use “woke,” but that’s why I have a hard time thinking of them as true equivalents.
That said, this reminds me that there is probably an interesting piece to be written about the way right-leaning Japanese net users appropriate words from the American culture wars into their online speech.
Just back to say that this is probably one of my favourite things you've ever written : ) When is the next book, Matt? : )
wow. outstanding piece. great to wake up to this… thank you Matt.
It has long seemed to me that Japan is much like the USA I knew growing up in Virginia in the 1950s and 60s—with this important difference. The young Japanese I encountered in Japan in the 1980s and 90s had no experiences comparable to the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights movements, the Hippie counter culture, the Bay of Pigs, and the assassinations of MLK and JFK.
It’s interesting, because there were massive protest movements in Japan, involving at their peak in 1960 (against the U.S.-Japan security treaty) more of a percentage of Japan’s population than I suspect the American antiwar movement did. And the Japanese student protest movements almost a decade later were large, too. But when those flamed out in 1971-2, there was nothing to replace them. Or more accurately, they were replaced by something completely different: fandoms — for music, manga, anime, etc etc. That’s the defining feature of youth culture from about 1980 on.
Yes, there were protest movements in Japan. But, unlike American men in my generation, none of the participants was subject to conscription into the military. Fear of being drafted and sent to ‘Nam was a huge factor affecting all of us. Also, there was nothing on the scale of the Civil Rights Movement. Why?
I agree with most of your cultural analysis, but what I find myself wondering about is the difference in material conditions.
The most excellent Helen Bluestocking mentioned you in her latest post Matt!
https://substack.com/inbox/post/162962703
That is most excellent. Thanks for the heads up!
In my particular case, the defining motivation of the time in which I grew up was fear of being drafted and sent to ‘Nam. Not an experience shared by Japanese men in the postwar era.
Excellent piece. I would agree that in contrast to Japan, the manosphere was a reaction to the 'coalition of the ascendant' era that you identified. Based upon my experience there, I still believe that Japan to be culturally conservative (broadly speaking). Although this is admittedly painting with a broad brush -- and taking into consideration the evidence to the contrary in pop media that you site -- who needs a manosphere when you have the LDP? I will never forget Seiichi Ota's horrific comments in 2003, in addition to Yasuo Fukuda, Takami Eto, Toru Hashimoto, Mio Sugita...etc. Recall the 草食系男子 panic. I do agree that this is quite distinct from the U.S. where it was mostly bottom-up rather than what I saw in Japan as being amplified mainly from the top (conservative politicians or other prominent reactionary authors/celebrities. And to be fair, at the time, there was a strong backlash against these folks including from Koizumi.
I think the Train Man phenomenon plays no small part in this as well. It’s basically about training a nerd, tamagotchi-style, to be a man.
Can you please elaborate on that? I don't follow from sentence 1 to sentence 2.
Train Man is an Aughts phenomenon in Japan that started from a 2004 thread posted in a forum for lonely men on 2channel, the precursor to 4chan. It takes its name from the story: a nerd intervenes when he sees a woman getting harassed on the train, and she gives him her number in gratitude. But he's so clueless about dating he doesn't know what to do, and turns to the forum for advice. The anonymous participants coach him into asking her out and eventually proposing marriage. It became a bestselling book and then a hit TV series. Many think the whole thing was made up. But it's an early example of a meme going mainstream, and also of fragile/disempowered men taking the spotlight by embracing traditional values. (This story anchors the final chapter of Pure Invention, the book, if you're interested in a deeper dive.)
Hey Matt! Long time follower and have read Pure Invention cover to cover multiple times! Wanted to ask, do you know anywhere to access an English version of the 1% book? All I can find are Japanese amazon listings. Would love some help here if possible. Thank you!
Thanks for reading! Even in an era of global fascination with Japanese self-help, neither of those books have been translated. They’re very aimed at the local audience’s particular situation. Hiroyuki’s advice comes down to “don’t try too hard.” It sort of prefigures the “low social consciousness” movement (insofar as they move :)
I thought as much. A shame, as that is exactly what I wanted to read.. something that speaks specifically to the local situation. Interesting to think about Korea and the 'vibe' there in relation to what you've talked about here. Can they be plotted on the same line as America and Japan (closer to what's going on in America, or beyond that?) or is it something else entirely do you think..
When I was researching Pure Invention the book, it shocked me how perfectly the milestones lined up between Japan post-Bubble and America post-Lehman. But things have really diverged when it comes to young people: Asian kids reacting to uncertainty and chaos by dropping out while Western ones seem to be turning troll (the far right is the counterculture of the 21st century.) There’s no shortage of misogynist/right-leaning/chaos-loving kids in Japan either but for a variety of reasons they aren’t affecting society at large…. Yet. We are seeing hints that this might change, though. Like the rise of meme-troll candidates in the last Tokyo gubernatorial election.
It makes sense Hiroyuki is telling kids to stop trying. They’ve been told their whole lives to work their asses off, study hard, pass entrance exams, etc. yet are rewarded with much less opportunity than previous generations. Hiroyuki, who made a fortune outside the system and takes great pleasure in trolling society, is a kind of digital folk hero figure to a lot of extremely online folks.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Related, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Moon Channel's videos about the 'Gacha Gender Wars' in Korea since I watched them a few months ago. Have you seen them? I think you'd enjoy watching. I imagine you'd have a lot of opinions about his 'Kawaii: Anime, Propaganda, and Soft Power' video also!
Will check it out!
Regqrds the descriptorzilla "affecting society at large" Mister Alt. How would you suppose the number of persons comprising the manosphere compares with that of the number comprising the hardcore Harris base, the "cat ladies"?
Hard to say given that one is an actual phenomenon and the other is an imaginary straw(wo)man argument.
No way, Matt Alt. That someone dubbed them 'cat ladies' does nothing to diminish the fact that the "Harris base" was/is an enormous number of younger women for whom marriage and children is the opposite of what they want. I am surprised to the max that you would choose to respond in such a way, Matt!
"Perhaps because the gender lines have always been more fluid in Japanese pop culture" also made me think of how many male leads in anime/video games are voiced by women!
Is it really true that Ruth Benedict wrote her famous book without having ever visited Japan?
The ending feels a bit oversimplified. iirc, gamergate wasn't about the presence of women in video games -- Lara Croft is a classic. It was about women (mostly one woman, Aneeta Sarkeesian) pointing out that Lara Croft and other video-game women are drawn for male fantasy and don't empower women.
I'm no expert, but I read my kids' pokemon books and I watched some Miyazaki and I don't see that things are much different in Japan. The difference is that they don't have a Sarkeesian protesting because their gender relations are stuck in the 1950s.
This doesn't mean there isn't a gender war going on. There is. As you've noted, Japanese women are strongly attracted to western society. The main difference is that when men go to war they make a lot of sound and fury (via podcasts and memes), while women just walk away and find somewhere better to be (like the USA).
All due respect (I do appreciate your reading and commenting), I do not think you're recalling correctly. It was never about female characters in games, nor was it about journalists. It was about female gamers and creators, who were harassed mercilessly by men who believed games were "their" territory. This, like your previous question about Train Man, is a big part of the final chapter of Pure Invention, which goes into a much deeper dive on the topic.
They are those whose victimary sensibility is so infernally swollen they had Michelle Obama concoct an ad that advised partnered women to hide their vote from their men so as to PRO-TECT them from the VIOLENCE that any vote for Trump would automatically expose them to!
Another point. Different generations, different experiences. There was a lot of media attention given to career women while the “New Breed” (新人類), a generation much smaller than the Japanese Baby Boomers (団塊世代) were entering the labor force and starting careers. Ironically, however, many (most?) women decided that the salaryman grind was not for them. Who would want to live like that with the option being fun, travel, and fashion with friends. Not all women had these opportunities, but the daughters of affluent Boomer parents were in the media limelight.
My bad. The women in the limelight were not the Boomers’ daughters, but the daughters of the “burning generation”(燃えてる世代), the greying corporate warriors who rebuilt Japan after WWII and paved the way for the economic bubble during which the New Breed came of age.
There was definitely a lot of mass-media-policing of women’s behavior back then: backlash against the “gals” of the Eighties, the “parasite singles” and “kogals” of the Nineties, the “carnivorous women” of the Aughts, etc. Fortunately they didn’t let it bother them. They were too busy inventing the future while the critics fumed (it was young women who pioneered mobile texting, emoji, mobile/smart phone as lifestyle, etc)!
Whoops, there I go repeating myself, in the comment about my generation of men and our fear of the draft.
Could you please enlarge on this "pioneered (as) lifestyle" claim? How was estimation of that 'phenomenon' arrived at and by what sort of investigative agency?
There’s a great book on this topic…. It happens to share a title with this newsletter! It in fact contains an entire chapter devoted to Japan’s early-adopting tech-whiz schoolgirls and young women. Check it out if you’re interested in a deeper dive.
Am I right in thinking you omit mention in Pure Invention's opening chapter of how Kosuge escaped the all-cionsuming Asakusa firestorm? Yoko Ono escaped because her father was a banker and had.a bunker - how did Kosuge escape?
Wish I knew. He may have taken shelter in a bunker of some kind, or he may have been out of the neighborhood that day, or he may simply have been very lucky. He left no memoirs. We'll probably never know.
I totally am, Matt Alt. Even tho I have not yet managed to access the text itself, I can assure you the Empire of Schoolgirls, can I say of Panchira outblooming even Sakura, swallowed.me whole long ago .
“How do you say ‘woke’ in Japanese?”
I *thought* the answer was ポリコレ (“porikore”, short for “political correctness”), but maybe I’m missing something.
Those aren’t the same word(s)in English, so I don’t think they’re equivalent in Japanese, either.
But in translation, you often have to find these rough equivalents. I personally think it’s close enough, even if it doesn’t capture the intensity of “woke.”
The big issue with translating “woke” is that it means very different things to different people at different times. That is what makes it difficult to capture in a word. I think there is overlap between “political correctness” and the ways in which people use “woke,” but that’s why I have a hard time thinking of them as true equivalents.
That said, this reminds me that there is probably an interesting piece to be written about the way right-leaning Japanese net users appropriate words from the American culture wars into their online speech.
America’s influence remains strong.