Tamaki Cool Japan AJPS Final.pdf (353.36 kB)
Download fileRepackaging national identity: Cool Japan and the resilience of Japanese identity narratives
‘Cool Japan’ is an instance of Japanese government's nation branding exercise as part of its soft power projection in which the unique selling point is identified as Japanese national identity. In this paper, I examine the relationship between Cool Japan and Japanese national identity and highlight a tension in the construction. Cool Japan is about emphasizing Japan's attractiveness for public diplomacy, while the top-down nature of the branding undermines the imagery that the branding is designed to convey. I show that policy elites resolve this tension by invoking the traditional Japanese identity narratives that construct Japan into both a non-Western and an un-Asian entity, reproducing the myth of Japanese uniqueness. I argue that the elite narratives surrounding Cool Japan readily replicate the language reminiscent of prewar identity construction. Despite the contemporary popularity of manga and anime, the purported ‘coolness’ of these products are framed within older constructions of Japanese Self that can trace their pedigree back to the nineteenth century. Using the minutes of committee meetings, policy documents, as well as media interviews given by policy- and business elites, I show that Cool Japan is effectively a twenty first century rendition of the familiar Japanese identity construction.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Politics and International Studies
Published in
Asian Journal of Political ScienceVolume
27Issue
1Pages
108-126Citation
TAMAKI, T., 2019. Repackaging national identity: Cool Japan and the resilience of Japanese identity narratives. Asian Journal of Political Science, 27(1), pp. 108-126.Publisher
© Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Asian Journal of Political Science on 9 Mar 2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2019.1594323Acceptance date
2019-03-09Publication date
2019-03-19Copyright date
2019ISSN
0218-5377eISSN
1750-7812Publisher version
Language
- en