Or Thailand or the USA or China or Germany or Spain or Australia or India or Taiwan anyone else for that matter...Japan was King, the cultural Emperor... so what happened? At one time all the media hype was Japan, the stores wanted manga or Japan film. The business model and pop culture was something to be admired and copied. Michael Crichton wrote Rising Sun, Blade runner shows mostly a Japanaized Western future, Tampopo in the 80s a fun comedy about a national food obsession every wanted to eat Japanese, classics like Yojimbo and Seven Samurai were to be studied, Akira broke new animtion ground with its post apocalypse cyber punk dystopia themed animation, 'Angel Cop' and other weird obscure shit were sold in book shops and movie stores where japan is recognized as the most powerful nation on earth. the rest of the nasty world desires to see Japanese destroyed. scary alien gaijin internationally-bankrolled leftist social insurgent groups terrorize the J-population daily, big bad imperial cop saves japan? You had the horror movie VHS hype with Ringu before other Asian nations started to do the horror genre. There were classic more kid friendly Hayao Miyazaki films that gave Disney and Pixar a run for their money...so Did Japan's artistic dominance die with the Stock Market crashes, the endless economic stagnation killed the arts and soon came the end of the Japan-Hype?
I guess the West, Europe, the US they still look to Japan in some ways for inspiration, S.Koreans pretty much copied the Japan formula in business and arts but they hate to admit as much...Hollyweird? they still rip off stuff like Battle Royale and Godzilla films but did Japanese dominance of film / tv die in the 90s
Today its more of a cultural export of stuff like Sony Playstation Biohazard Resident Evil, the Marios the Sonics the other video games for the new breed of Western Stoners stay at home single men drinking beer playing games, the new hikikomori Otaku which will be created in the lockdowns, Japanese culturally still sell to the kids and teens, they still have big sales with Pokemon style toys or culturally I guess they export dumb B-movie style stuff that inspires crap like Kill Bill,
Hollywood is pretty much fucked now with this Corona thing happening, I wonder who will be making the films of 2022 etc
With the Olympics timetable for 2020 I feel maybe in another time another alternative dimension, maybe Japan could or would have sold itself again...now with Covid it seems the world and Japan lost an opportunity. I wouldnt write Japan off yet as an exporter of arts and culture, if they do it correct the big gamer companies they will probably make a multi-million Dollar fortune with video game sales in a global lockdown.
Investors are also willing to gamble financial money on all kinds of nonsense, the GameStop hype made US shortsellers lose 70 Fucking billion, yup BILLION
So people are willing to burn money and dump it into any ridiculous bullshit card trickster hyped company, GameStop also said it's been "evaluating" since January (when the stock price surge started) whether to raise money this year through a stock sale, its price and shares and company falls but still up 870% this year....2020 and an Olympics that was Japan's chance to ride the hype...sell itself again
Will Japan make a big cultural comeback or is it to be a nation of old in decline with its best years behind?
will Japan take back the Top spot from Korea and others?