As an older millennial it has been interesting watching the transformation of Japanese culture and media in America.
I remember having to download Cowboy Bebop over dial-up hiding that I had the internet connected all night from my parents. Even younger than that, playing Nintendo and Super Nintendo and having no concept that these were Japanese devices.
Of course these have led me to my current day, which is a strong fascination of just about everything Japan, from the language to the culture and its history.
It's so much different today where my kid can watch almost any anime she wants, streaming directly to the TV. Her friends know Dragon Ball, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, My Hero Academia and it is not a nerdy or niche thing. It is simply common knowledge.
As a kid in the Eighties, who had to hunt for every little scrap of info, and even then often never getting a chance to see a given series, I never could have imagined anime in translation being this ubiquitous one day. Nor that it might become an actual identity/lifestyle for so many foreign fans. Then again, it's also all very different stuff, genre-wise, than the sci-fi I grew up on. Funny how things change.
Try a videotape for $100 that contained two! That was all too common back then. Literally 100% of all money I made, whether summer jobs or birthday money or whatever, went into anime or merch for a significant portion of my adolescence.
Your audio delivery is spot-on and perfect for background listening while I am at a task (usually drawing comic strips)! I'd be happy to see you continue doing this for your subsequent updates.
I haven’t even listened yet but thank you for recording an audio version! I often don’t get to read your newsletters simply because I don’t have/make time to read. But I’m always listening to podcasts (including Pure Tokyoscope) so I can listen now! Now if we could just get these in the Pure Tokyoscope feed it would be the best of both worlds.
Thanks for listening. Maybe there's some way to cross-post to the feed. Another option is separately syndicating it as a podcast or uploading to YouTube. Still experimenting, any and all comments/advice welcome.
First off, there’s a slight mistake in the article: the Yu-Gi-Oh card game is called “Duel *Monsters*”. Duel *Masters* is something completely different.
Second, I remember the first time I heard about Pokémon: I was in third grade, and our teacher gave us these kids’ magazines to read. The feature story was about the infamous seizure incident due to that one Porygon episode. I remember thinking to myself “Man, that show sounds dangerous.”
So imagine my shock when two years later, in fifth grade, I see an ad for Pokémon on the back of a Disney Adventures magazine. They brought that show HERE?
Then I saw an ad for it and gave it a watch. I became obsessed for years, annoying my family by constantly talking about it — I was really cringe. My first “waifu crush” was Sabrina (the psychic gym leader.) The obsession largely wore off by high school, but by then I was branching out into other anime and self-studying Japanese.
Today I’m still largely a fan of Japanese pop culture.
Appreciated. Pokemon was truly the "can opener" for Japanese pop culture in a mainstream sense. The velocity and depth of its spread is really unprecedented.
The media environment at the time helped its spread; everyone watched the same shows at the same time, so Pokémon would become fodder for playground discussion. I even pretended to own the Game Boy game just to be part of the conversation. Pokémon was a phenomenon unlike any other, and thanks to media fragmentation today, we won’t see its like again.
I'm trying to think of a semi-recent megahit that isn't just the spinoff of a long-existing franchise. Most are platforms rather than narratives: Minecraft, Fortnite, etc.
There you go; for narratives, companies have to mine the megahits of the past because the fans of those megahits are now adults with spending money; some are even parents. The new megahits that do exist are platforms rather than narratives, I think, because everyone is online and the companies want to maximize engagement (and revenue) by keeping people on the apps as long as possible and pushing microtransactions on them. There’s even an element of this in the Pokémon games; those games didn’t have strong stories for the most part.
As an older millennial it has been interesting watching the transformation of Japanese culture and media in America.
I remember having to download Cowboy Bebop over dial-up hiding that I had the internet connected all night from my parents. Even younger than that, playing Nintendo and Super Nintendo and having no concept that these were Japanese devices.
Of course these have led me to my current day, which is a strong fascination of just about everything Japan, from the language to the culture and its history.
It's so much different today where my kid can watch almost any anime she wants, streaming directly to the TV. Her friends know Dragon Ball, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, My Hero Academia and it is not a nerdy or niche thing. It is simply common knowledge.
As a kid in the Eighties, who had to hunt for every little scrap of info, and even then often never getting a chance to see a given series, I never could have imagined anime in translation being this ubiquitous one day. Nor that it might become an actual identity/lifestyle for so many foreign fans. Then again, it's also all very different stuff, genre-wise, than the sci-fi I grew up on. Funny how things change.
Wasn’t it cool to buy anime DVDs for $40 that contained like 5 episodes? No. No it was not.
Try a videotape for $100 that contained two! That was all too common back then. Literally 100% of all money I made, whether summer jobs or birthday money or whatever, went into anime or merch for a significant portion of my adolescence.
Listen, Gen X had to pay $100 for a single VHS so that Gen y could pay $40 for a dvd so that Gen Z could get Crunchyroll for $10 a month.
Totally!!!!!
Not only that, I lived in a small town, would have to drive an hour to even see a store selling those DVDs
Got my Outlaw Star DVDs at FYE at the mall.
Grammar error:
"Japan isn’t mentioned once, but the story reads many from about Japan"
(I think?)
Thanks for the catch!
Your audio delivery is spot-on and perfect for background listening while I am at a task (usually drawing comic strips)! I'd be happy to see you continue doing this for your subsequent updates.
Thanks for the feedback! Noted for the future!
I haven’t even listened yet but thank you for recording an audio version! I often don’t get to read your newsletters simply because I don’t have/make time to read. But I’m always listening to podcasts (including Pure Tokyoscope) so I can listen now! Now if we could just get these in the Pure Tokyoscope feed it would be the best of both worlds.
Thanks for listening. Maybe there's some way to cross-post to the feed. Another option is separately syndicating it as a podcast or uploading to YouTube. Still experimenting, any and all comments/advice welcome.
First off, there’s a slight mistake in the article: the Yu-Gi-Oh card game is called “Duel *Monsters*”. Duel *Masters* is something completely different.
Second, I remember the first time I heard about Pokémon: I was in third grade, and our teacher gave us these kids’ magazines to read. The feature story was about the infamous seizure incident due to that one Porygon episode. I remember thinking to myself “Man, that show sounds dangerous.”
So imagine my shock when two years later, in fifth grade, I see an ad for Pokémon on the back of a Disney Adventures magazine. They brought that show HERE?
Then I saw an ad for it and gave it a watch. I became obsessed for years, annoying my family by constantly talking about it — I was really cringe. My first “waifu crush” was Sabrina (the psychic gym leader.) The obsession largely wore off by high school, but by then I was branching out into other anime and self-studying Japanese.
Today I’m still largely a fan of Japanese pop culture.
THANK YOU! Typo fixed.
Glad to help.
Appreciated. Pokemon was truly the "can opener" for Japanese pop culture in a mainstream sense. The velocity and depth of its spread is really unprecedented.
The media environment at the time helped its spread; everyone watched the same shows at the same time, so Pokémon would become fodder for playground discussion. I even pretended to own the Game Boy game just to be part of the conversation. Pokémon was a phenomenon unlike any other, and thanks to media fragmentation today, we won’t see its like again.
I'm trying to think of a semi-recent megahit that isn't just the spinoff of a long-existing franchise. Most are platforms rather than narratives: Minecraft, Fortnite, etc.
There you go; for narratives, companies have to mine the megahits of the past because the fans of those megahits are now adults with spending money; some are even parents. The new megahits that do exist are platforms rather than narratives, I think, because everyone is online and the companies want to maximize engagement (and revenue) by keeping people on the apps as long as possible and pushing microtransactions on them. There’s even an element of this in the Pokémon games; those games didn’t have strong stories for the most part.