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Kawaii: Anime, Propaganda, and Soft Power Politics.

Published on Sat, Jun 15th 2024

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In modern international politics, it is just as important to win hearts and minds, in one's own country and abroad, as it is to have power by force of arms. We call this power over hearts and minds: the power to sway people by persuasion rather than by force, soft power. And no country on Earth has mastered the art of soft power through cultural media quite like Japan has.

In this video, we'll explore the roots of Japan's soft power initiatives: how modern anime taps into pre-war orientalism, how war-time propaganda birthed the modern anime industry, how the Japanese government utilized soft power cultural diplomacy to manipulate the world's perception of it, and much more!

You are not immune to propaganda. It's OK, neither am I! But with a little awareness, we can at least inoculate ourselves against its effects.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
04:33 - Historical Context and Orientalism
21:18 - The Power of God (And Anime)
27:31 - Pure or Peril?
50:12 - Soft Power
1:04:37 - The Rise of Modern Anime
1:11:50 - A Strategy Born of Necessity
1:16:57 - The Japan You Were Taught to Adore
1:30:50 - Commodification and Plastic Love
1:47:00 - Summary and Subsidy
1:54:41 - The Cultural-Industrial Complex and the LDP
2:13:49 - Hearts and Minds
2:26:00 - Conclusion/Caveat (Emptor)
2:29:55 - Credits Gag
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The Video's Playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLETW98X7fZkO5QgpD3XbIHjfirgvbkToQ&si=Cd55Of7byjcDw0cU
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Attributions and Additional Reading:

History -
China Illustrata - https://htext.stanford.edu/content/kircher/china/kircher.pdf

Valignano, Alessandro (1584). Historia del Principio y Progreso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales.

https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/american-visitors-to-meiji-japan/

Akiko Yosano-
https://www.jstor.org/stable/488910?read-now=1&oauth_data=eyJlbWFpbCI6Im1vb255Y2hhbm5lbHl0QGdtYWlsLmNvbSIsImluc3RpdHV0aW9uSWRzIjpbXSwicHJvdmlkZXIiOiJnb29nbGUifQ&seq=16#page_scan_tab_contents

Soft Power and Anime -
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259779790_Geopolitics_and_Soft_Power_Japan%27s_Cultural_Policy_and_Cultural_Diplomacy_in_Asia

https://polpemjepangsmjhiugm2015.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/yoshio_sugimoto-an-introduction-to-japanese-society.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20040403225208/http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/cool_japan/story.html

https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/mono/creative/

https://web.archive.org/web/20110323050051/http://www.gov-online.go.jp/pdf/hlj_ar/vol_0028e/21-23.pdf

https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/japans-creative-industrial-complex/

https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/despite-popularity-manga-and-anime-kiyoteru-tsutsui-feels-decline-japanese-studies-united-0

https://theconversation.com/japan-is-using-cultural-diplomacy-to-reassert-its-place-in-the-world-but-is-the-message-too-exclusive-106463

Cool Japan Fund:
https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2791/en

https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/about/cjfund.html

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Finance/Government-weighs-fate-of-floundering-Cool-Japan-Fund2

https://animationanomaly.com/2013/04/16/a-theory-on-government-subsidies-for-animation/

J-LOP/J-LOX:
https://www.cao.go.jp/cool_japan/english/link_en/link_j_lop_en.html

https://www.vipo.or.jp/project/j-lop-plus/list/

https://jloxplus-jp.translate.goog/office/?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Assorted Other:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/williamyang/taiwan-comfort-women-statue

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/27/the-silencing-of-japans-free-press-shinzo-abe-media/

https://www.dw.com/en/why-japan-ranks-poorly-in-press-freedom/a-65549778

https://soranews24.com/2014/01/30/ghiblis-hayao-miyazaki-says-the-anime-industrys-problem-is-that-its-full-of-anime-fans/

Miyazaki on Nationalism:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/25/hayao-miyazaki-ponyo-cliff
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The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Sun Tzu said that. And I'd say he knows a little bit more about fighting than you do pal, because he invented it!