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POP CULTURE |
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Relatively few Japanese will be able to recommend a No play or tell
you how to create an ikebana flower display. Ask them again to name
their favourite comedian or karaoke song and the response will be
instant. Popular culture rules in Japan and with 126 million avid
consumers to draw upon, its products and buzzwords are all pervasive.
The West's familiarity with contemporary Japan - Muji's chic "no-brand"
products, Sony's electronic gadgets, Godzilla movies, Yoko Ono - is very
slender compared to the thousands of other goods, cultural phenomena and
people that are unknown and totally mystifying to the average nama-gaijin
(raw foreigner). The following is a general A to Z primer for the
visitor who would like to appear clued up. More serious students should
avail themselves of the wit and wisdom in Mark Schilling's illuminating
The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture (Weatherhill).
A: AUM Shinrikyo (Aleph) and Aribi-ya
On March 20, 1995 members of the New Age cult AUM Shinrikyo planted bags
of the deadly nerve gas Sarin on the Tokyo subway. Twelve people died
and 5500 others were injured in Japan's worst terrorist attack.
In what is shaping up to be Japan's longest ever trial, several of the
cult's key figures have now been sentenced to death, but judgement on
the supreme leader, Asahara Shoko , is yet to be passed. Born Matsumoto
Chizuo, the virtually blind guru began the "Supreme Truth" cult in the
late 1980s - a period dubbed "rush hour of the gods" because of the
proliferation of new religions in Japan at the time. At its height in
the early 1990s, AUM had 40,000 members in several countries and nearly
a billion dollars in assets, earned from, among other things, one-million-yen
fees for rituals involving potions made of Asahara's dirty bathwater (called
Miracle Pond), his blood, and even his beard clippings.
When AUM failed to get its members elected to the Diet in 1990, Asahara
began to use his wealth and power for far more sinister aims. Suspicion
had long been mounting against AUM before the tragic events of March
1995, but even after the Tokyo attack it took the authorities two months
to arrest the elusive Asahara. In the meantime, the National Police
Agency chief was the victim of an attempted assassination, in broad
daylight, by an AUM member who escaped on a bicycle. Most of AUM's top
dogs were eventually arrested, several immediately confessing their part
in the terrorist attack. When the cult's compound near Mount Fuji was
raided, a vast arsenal of weapons and chemicals was discovered, as well
as Asahara calmly meditating in his pyjamas.
Most alarmingly, since the Tokyo massacre and the trial, AUM, now
renamed Aleph , has survived and continues to grow. It still counts 500
hard-core devotees who live in cult-owned facilities. Its earnings from
its chain of shops, selling cut-price computers, is in excess of ¥70
million. They've even started a pop band called Perfect Emancipations.
One business that has taken off during Japan's recent recession is that
of the Aribi-ya - or those who sell alibis. In a society obsessed with
appearances, aribi-ya provide all that's necessary if you want to be
seen as someone else. For example, if you need a fake business card, pay
stubs, receptionist to answer your nonexistent business phone, even a
fictitious boss to make a speech at your wedding, the aribi-ya can do
it. The idea is nothing new; for years cable-radio stations have been
providing alibi channels that, among other background noises, broadcast
the buzz of traffic so you can make believe you're calling from a street
telephone rather than a love hotel to tell the wife you'll be home late.
And if you forget the all-important omiyage (present) from that
out-of-town business trip you were supposed to have taken, then there's
always the gift shop at the major railway station stocking suitable
souvenirs from all over the country.
B: The Bubble Economy
The Bubble Economy began in the mid-1980s when low interest rates
fuelled booming land prices and a runaway stock market. It was believed
by many that the stock market, which at its height was worth over forty
percent of all the world's other stocks added together, would never
fall. Of course it did, but rather than suffering a cataclysmic blowout,
the economy took eight years to run down to an all-out recession, the
equivalent of a slow puncture.
Many small investors were encouraged to plough their savings into the
market, the most notorious being Onoue Nui , who became known as the
"Bubble Woman". At one point, Onoue was, on paper, one of the richest
people in the world, her share holdings, financed by stupendous loans,
worth ¥1.13 trillion. Even more incredible than the fact that the banks
were happy to lend such large amounts to a small-time restaurant owner,
were the midnight seances Onoue held with brokers to choose her stocks.
By 1990, the unthinkable was happening. Stocks were devaluing and the
extent of brokerages' perfidy - including dealings with gangsters and
guarantees of no losses to major clients - was becoming clear. Onoue was
one of the first to come a cropper, going bankrupt and standing trial
for fraud in 1992. The fallout from bad debts racked up by the banks has
since brought several seemingly impregnable financial institutions down
and continues to threaten several more. The most recent high-profile
crash was that of the venerable department store Sogo
C: Comedy
Spend one night watching Japanese television and you'll realize that the
stereotype view of the locals being a dour, unfunny lot is rubbish. The
Japanese love a laugh and have long enjoyed the skilfully told
monologues of rakugoka , traditional comedy performers. Even more
popular is the contemporary format manzai - a two-man team of comic (
boke ) and foil ( tsukkomi ).
The Kansai area around Osaka has traditionally produced the nation's
best comics . Internationally famous now for his movies is "Beat"
Takeshi Kitano , one half of the old manzai act The Two Beats, and still
a regular host and guest on quiz and light entertainment shows. The
current top performers are Ishibashi Taka-aki and Kinashi Noritake, aka
the Tunnels , who have recently eclipsed long-running stars Matsumoto
Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi, a comedy duo known as Downtown . They won
a loyal following for their dazzling improvisational show Gaki no Tsukai
ya Arahende!! (This Is No Job For Kids!! ). Other funny guys you'll find
hard to avoid on prime-time telly are U-chan and Nan-chan.
D: Doraemon and dango
One of Japan's most famous cartoon characters is Doraemon , a
time-travelling blue robot cat, and Nobita, his ten-year-old pal from
suburban Tokyo, both born in December 1969 in a series of educational
magazines. Nobita is always getting into scrapes and it's Doraemon who
helps him out, usually by producing a twenty-first-century gadget, such
as a helicopter hat to help them fly around, or the doko-de-mo door, a
pink wood gateway to "anywhere" in the world. Doraemon has since gone on
to star in many a comic book ( manga ), a TV series, a string of
animated film ( anime ) and feature on a host of products.
Construction is one of Japan's biggest businesses and has become a major
tool in economic planning since World War II, supervised by the Ministry
of Construction. So much public money is available for work that the
practice of dango , or bid rigging, is rife. Contracts are often carved
up within the industry with bribes to smooth the way. Even though the
Fair Trade Commission has tried on many occasions to stop the practice,
there have been very few prosecutions.
E: Enjo Kosai
Subsidized dating, or enjo kosai , is the catchphrase that has been
coined for the worrying phenomena of teenage prostitution, whereby
high-school girls date older men for financial compensation. Held up as
an example of declining moral values in Japan, enjo kosai has been
fuelled by the increase in "telephone clubs" where men pay to wait in a
cubicle for a call from a potential date. Female callers ring in on the
free-dial numbers often advertised on the free packs of tissues
distributed outside stations and on busy streets. The extent of the
problem is probably nowhere near as large as reported in the media,
although there's certainly more to it than the hoo-ha from a few years
back over schoolgirls selling their used underwear to sex shops.
F: Focus, Friday and Flash
The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, saw Japanese media rip into
foreign paparazzi , somewhat rich considering the weekly, high-gloss
scandal-mongering and intrusive behaviour of the best-selling magazines
Focus, Friday and Flash . A combination of News of the World and Life ,
these magazines are the antithesis of Hello , but equally addictive,
offering a regular menu of candid shots of the famous and not so famous.
Although they kowtow to Japan's strict laws when it comes to photographs
of naked bodies, masking over pubic hair, other shots generally leave
nothing to the imagination. There's certainly no squeamishness about
shots of dead bodies, or parts of them, as one famous photograph of a
railway employee carrying the head of a suicide victim away from the
tracks showed. Flash claimed its own victim in 1997 when film director
Itami Juzo committed suicide when he heard the magazine was planning an
exposé of his love life.
G: Games and Gyaru
Golf was the sport of the boom decade, but is in the bunker now that
recession is biting and casual players can no longer afford the
ultra-expensive membership and green fees. When Japan's corporate
warriors retire, as often as not they can be found down at the
neighbourhood park, mallet in hand, enjoying a round of gateball , a
form of croquet and a favourite pastime of senior citizens.
Japan's most popular game is baseball . While you'll hear a lot about O
Sadaharu, the Yomuri Giants player who broke the home-run record of
America's Hank Aaron, it's his old team mate Nagashima Shigeo who still
hogs the limelight and has earned the nickname "Mr Giants". Nagashima
had clocked up seventeen years as a star player by the time he retired
in 1974; he has since made his mark as the Giants' manager, a sports
commentator and all-round media personality.
If you want to catch the latest fads, check out the Gyaru , or Ga l,
movement of fashion-victim girls staggering around in atsuzoko butsu
(towering, thick-heeled boots), ultra-mini skirts, bleached hair, and
bizarre make-up (also see Yamamba ). This look is all the rage, despite
those platform shoes, some up to 25-centimetre high, being implicated in
several deaths as girls topple over on the street or fail to brake
properly while driving. The Osaka police have gone as far as to ban
people from driving in the boots.
H: Hello Kitty and Hanako
The Japanese have a fatal attraction for cuteness, which manifests
itself in a menagerie of cuddly toys and cartoon characters on
everything from bank cards to the side of jumbo jets. One design that
has made an impact on overseas markets is Hello Kitty , a white kitten
with a jaunty red hair ribbon. According to the official biography,
concocted by parent company Sanrio, Kitty was born in London, where she
lives with her parents and twin sister Mimi. The cartoon character,
whose image graces an astonishing 12,000 new products a year, also has
her own theme park, Sanrio Puroland, in the suburbs of Tokyo.
More trendy than cute is Hanako , the phenomenally successful
style-bible magazine of young urban women. The popularity of the
Australian pop artist Ken Donne in Japan is almost exclusively down to
his work being featured regularly on the cover of Hanako, whose articles
have whipped up a storm for many a consumer product or passing fashion.
I: Idols and iMode
Japanese idols ( aidoru ) are a polymorphous bunch, switching between
singing, acting and modelling careers, regardless of where they got
their start. An idol's time in the sun is usually brief but blazing,
their image staring down from a multitude of billboards as well as out
from countless magazines and a range of other media. Not to be confused
with TV personalities ( tarento ), idols are usually picked for their
looks rather than talent, although the best of them do have both.
The top male heart-throb is Kimura Takuya , a fresh-faced member of the
boy-band SMAP, who has gone on to star in many a trendy drama . Norika
Fujiwara , aka the J-phone girl after the ads she's made for the mobile
phone company, is the female idol of the moment, replacing the Okinawan
chanteuse Amuro Namie, whose star has faded a bit since she's become a
mum. The one true idol-survivor is Matsuda Seiko , a pop star of the
1980s who refused to give up her career when she married and has since
survived a high-profile divorce, becoming a role model for many
downtrodden housewives.
If you see people fiddling with their ketai (mobile phone) chances are,
these days, that they're using iMode . This service, offered by Japan's
largest mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo, is an ultra-sophisticated WAP
(wireless application program) Internet connection; once the phone is
on, you're online. There are over 4000 dedicated iMode services
(including ones in English), covering email, games, shopping,
horoscopes, restaurant guides and much more. Some ten million people
have signed up already.
J: Juku
Japan has one of the most highly educated populations in the world, but
its educational system is not without its faults. The pressure-cooker
atmosphere created by the need to get good grades to attend the best
schools and colleges has led to the development of a parallel education
system of juku or "cram schools".
It's estimated that some forty percent of children go to juku at some
stage, with attendance pretty much compulsory for those who wish to get
into the country's top universities. Kids start as young as five years
old at these cram schools, prepping for the "examination hell" to be
endured at each stage of their education until they reach university,
where they can finally relax (degree study is often treated like a
three-year holiday between school and career).
The pressure put on kids to get good results and to fit into the
homogenized society nurtured by the education system has led to the
disturbing phenomenon of ijime , or bullying, which results in several
deaths a year, often from suicide. There's also been a sharp increase in
incidents of violence at schools, and although the figures are low
compared to other industrialized countries, they're worrying enough for
the government to have made educational reform, emphasizing creativity
and respect for the individual, a priority.
K: Karaoke
The Japanese were partial to a good singsong long before karaoke ,
literally meaning "empty orchestra", was invented, possibly by an Osaka
record-store manager in the early 1970s. The machines, originally clunky
eight-track tape players with a heavy duty microphone, have come a long
way since and are now linked up to videos, screening the lyrics crooned
along to, and featuring a range of effects to flatter the singer into
thinking their caterwauling is harmonious. Not for nothing have karaoke
machines been dubbed the "electronic geisha ".
In the mid-1980s, the whole industry, which earns ¥1 trillion a year,
was boosted by the debut of the karaoke box , a booth kitted out with a
karaoke system and rented out by groups or individuals wanting to brush
up on their singing technique. These boxes have proved particularly
popular with youngsters, women and families who shied away from the
smoky small bars frequented by salarymen that were the original preserve
of karaoke. Amazingly, research has shown that the introduction of
karaoke has coincided with a significant drop in the number of drunks
taken into protective custody by the police, salarymen drinking less,
rather than more, as they relax over a rousing rendition of My Way .
L: Love hotels
There are around 35,000 love hotels in Japan, which rent rooms by the
hour to couples, often married, seeking a little privacy. Once called
tsurekomi ryokan (drag her/him in hotels), there's now a trend to call
them fashion hotels, in acknowledgement of the fact that it's usually
the more discerning, trend-conscious woman who makes the room choice.
All kinds of tastes can be indulged at love hotels, with rotating beds
in mirror-lined rooms being almost passé in comparison to some of the
fantasy creations on offer. Some rooms even come equipped with video
cameras so you can take home a souvenir of your stay.
M: Manga and Muji
All types of drawn cartoons, from comic strips to magazines, are known
as manga , and together they constitute a multi-billion yen business
that accounts for around a third of all published material in Japan. The
bestseller is Shukan Shonen Jump , a weekly comic for boys (but read by
all ages and sexes), that regularly shifts five million copies, but
there are hundreds of other titles, not to mention the popular daily
strips in newspapers such as Chibi Maruko-chan , about the daily life of
schoolgirl Maruko and her family.
Although there are plenty of manga that cater to less wholesome tastes,
with sexual violence against women being top of the perversions list,
comic books are frequently used to explain complicated current affairs
topics, such as trade friction problems between the US and Japan, and to
teach high-school subjects. Manga are targeted at all age groups and
it's common to see a cross-section of society reading them.
More than big business, manga have become a recognized art form, many
incorporating a startling quasi-cinematic style of close-ups and jump
cuts. Top artists are respected the world over. The "god of manga" was
Tezuka Osamu , creator of Astro Boy and Kimba, the White Lion in the
1960s, who went on to pen more challenging fare such as the adventures
of the mysterious renegade surgeon Black Jack and the epic wartime saga
Adorufu ni Tsugu (Tell Adolf) . Successful manga artists, such as
Miyazaki Hayao , have also helped boost the enormous popularity of
animated movies ( anime ). Miyazaki's biggest hit has been Nausicaä , a
sci-fi series set in a post-nuclear holocaust world.
One of Japan's top retail success stories is Muji , short for Mujirushi
Ryohin (No-brand quality goods), an offshoot of the giant Seiyu
supermarket group, with over 200 branches now around Japan and Europe.
Launched in 1980, the stores, which stock practical household goods,
clothes, stationery and foods in simple packaging and monotone colours,
prospered from the backlash against the designer-label craze that
gripped Japan during the boom years of the 1980s. The irony is that the
starker economic realities of the following decade, plus a rediscovery
of the beauty of simple design, have made Muji's goods desirable
commodities in their own right.
N: Nihonjinron
Nihonjinron is a bizarre nationwide phenomenon in which the study of the
specialness of Japan has been elevated to a high art. It has led to a
host of ludicrous pronouncements that wouldn't be given the time of day
anywhere else in the world, such as politicians justifying import bans
for certain foods and skis because Japanese intestines and snow are,
apparently, uniquely different. The fad for books analysing Japan was
sparked in the 1970s by a slim volume The Japanese and The Jews ,
written by a local scholar under the pseudonym Isaiah Ben Dassan. Since
then, real gaijin experts have climbed on the bandwagon of telling the
Japanese about themselves and some, who've taken the trouble to master
the language, have made TV tarento careers out of it.
O: Otaku and OLs
Nerdish characters who become obsessive about a particular subject are
known as otaku and Japan has millions of them, highly knowledgeable
about their chosen field, be it a particular cartoon character or
computer game. Mostly harmless, otaku were tarnished by the brutal child
murders perpetrated in 1988 by Miyazaki Tsutomu, a young printer whose
cruel behaviour had been fed by his vast collection of porn manga and
videos.
OL is short for office lady, the female clerical workers considered
"flowers of the workplace" by their sexist bosses, who need them around
to make tea and generally brighten the place up for dull salarymen. If
unmarried by the age of 25 and not safely tucked up at home, then an OL
is like a Christmas cake, useless after the holiday. It's not quite as
grim as this for career-minded women today, but the recession has not
helped increase their chances of promotion as businesses have chopped
back on hiring females in the first place.
P: Pachinko, Purikura and Pokemon
One of Japan's top pastimes and major industries, raking in a staggering
¥26.3 trillion a year, is pachinko , a pinball game of limited skill.
It's not difficult to spot pachinko parlours - they look like mini-Las
Vegas casinos on steroids, all flashing lights and big neon signs.
Inside, the atmosphere is no less in your face. The noise of thousands
of steel balls clattering through the upright electronic bagatelles is
deafening, yet rows of players sit mesmerized as they control the speed
with which the balls fall through the machine.
The aim of pachinko is for the balls to fall into the right holes so
more balls can be won. These are traded in for prizes, such as cigarette
lighters and calculators. Although it's illegal for the parlours to pay
out cash, there's always a cubbyhole close by where prizes can be
exchanged for money, a charade that the authorities have long turned a
blind eye to. The initial cost of indulging in this mechanized mayhem
can be as little as ¥100 for 25 ball bearings; just remember to take
your earplugs, too.
One of the latest consumer crazes that is firmly headed for pachinko
-like success is purikura (print club), digital photo booths which
combine your mug shot with a vast selection of designs on a sheet of
sixteen mini-stickers. Launched by Sega Corp in 1995, there are now well
over 20,000 booths around Japan, and no self-respecting teenager is
without their album of swapped stickers, with many adults getting in on
the act, too, jazzing up their business cards with the personalized
purikura . The machines, found in all major shopping areas, are well
worth searching out; for a couple of hundred yen you'll have a neat
pop-art souvenir of Japan.
Need we say anything about Pokemon ? In case you've been in a cave for a
couple of years, Pokemon stands for poketto monsty (pocket monster) and
as any eight-year-old can tell you there are some 150 of them, all with
silly names, such as Polywig and Wigglytuffs, and fantastic powers. It
all started as a video game and has flourished into a multimedia
phenomenon, now with its own shop (the Pokemon Centre, Kawasaki Teitoku
Building, 3-2-5 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo).
Q: Quiz shows
The combined travel and general knowledge quiz show Naruhodo za Warudo
(I Understand the World ), which began on Fuji TV in October 1981,
revolutionized the quiz show genre in Japan, with its lively
presentation and use of celebrity contestants rather than the general
public. Although the show was laid to rest after fifteen seasons in
1996, it has since set the format for a host of copy-cat quizzes packed
with bantering celebrities.
R: Rusu sokkusu and robo-pets
It's on the wane now, but you'll still see plenty of high-school girls
in rusu sokkusu (loose socks), baggy white legwarmer socks, worn as only
the most dishevelled granny would do. The socks, which are held up by
special glue, are believed to present plump calves in a more flattering
light. What they're actually about is a form of rebellion from the
strict uniform rules that students must keep to at school.
Much more trendy are robo-pets , such as Sony's Aibo ( www.aibo.com )
and Sega's Puchii. This logical extension of the Tamagotchi craze ,
combines the latest artificial intelligence software with a cute robot
animal that interacts emotionally with its owner - just like a real pet,
but without the mess and only the occasional battery for food. The
latest model of Aibo can recognize its own name and up to fifty simple
words, and even take photographs through a camera in its nose.
S: Salarymen and soaplands
The dark-suited salaryman is generally a clerical office worker,
although the term is applied to many other types of jobs. Guaranteed
lifetime employment and steady promotion, Japan's corporate warriors
during the boom years of the 1960s through to the 1980s only had to
watch out for karoshri: death from overwork. Nowadays, the fear is more
of their company announcing a "restructuring", a polite way of saying
there will be redundancies.
Although it's perhaps not discussed as openly in Japan as in the West,
sex generally comes with less hang-ups for the Japanese. One place a
frisky salaryman might turn to for relief is a soapland , or massage
parlour where the rubbing and other services are carried out by women
under the guise of a Turkish bath. Soaplands were once called Turkish
baths until the Turkish embassy complained that this was insulting to
their wholly honourable bathing practices.
T: Taiga and trendy dramas
Long-running soap operas are very unusual in Japan, the exception being
the public broadcaster NHK's taiga dramas . These epic historical sagas,
which screen every Sunday night for a year, began in 1963 and have
fallen in and out of popularity ever since. Usually concerning some
great warrior figure of the past (1997's was about the warlord Mori
Motonari), taiga dramas are pretty much a national institution.
The antithesis of these samurai epics is the even more popular trendy
drama , which run for a strict twelve-week season and concern themselves
with contemporary issues, such as the trials and tribulations of modern
career women or the risky (for Japan) topic of single mothers. One of
the most daring and popular, racking up a third of the viewing audience
when screened in 1992, was I Have Been in Love With You For a Long Time
, whose plot revolved around the complex emotional triangle between
uptight yuppie Fuyuhiko, his overbearing mother and Fuyuhiko's
arranged-marriage (yes, these still happen) bride Miwa.
U: Uyoku
The loud-speaker-mounted trucks of the uyoku , or ultra-nationalists,
are an inescapable and noisy feature on the streets of every Japanese
city. These mobile ghetto blasters, decorated with Rising Sun flags and
screaming slogans, blare out distasteful right-wing messages or stop
outside large companies and banks, broadcasting embarrassing statements
about them.
There are estimated to be around a thousand such ultra-nationalist
groups in Japan, and to a startling extent, the police turn a blind eye
(and deaf ear) to their activities. Politicians and the media who openly
criticize the ideals and institutions they hold dear, such as the
imperial household, set themselves up for some kind of nasty
retribution. To most people, though, uyoku are an embarrassment best
ignored.
V: Virtual pets and pop stars
The virtual pet game Tamagotchi is one of the most successful gizmos of
recent years, selling some twenty million units worldwide. Meaning
"loveable egg", the pocket game is an egg-shaped key ring with an LCD
screen. The aim is to hatch the chick that appears on the screen, feed
and nurture it - just like a real pet - over its life span of thirty
days so that it rises to heaven and turns into an angel. Now somewhat
eclipsed by robo-pets , the Tamagotchi still has its own Web site (
travel.teglet.co.jp ).
Death or ageing is not something that Japan's first virtual pop star ,
Date Kyoko, has to worry about. The computer-animated character was
created in 1996 to fit a precise marketing profile and had an instant
hit with her first CD. Although no more enduring than other bubble-gum
pop singers, Date's "talents" are an ironic comment on her flesh and
blood counterparts whose voices are as electronically altered and images
as carefully packaged as those of the cyber-songstress.
To confirm the craze, Date has been joined by a bevy of other
cyber-idols, including Ai, Shizuru and Yuki Terai
W: Worlds and Will
The length of Japan it's possible to visit many other worlds than the
one you're actually travelling in. These theme-park facsimiles of other
countries range from Canada World in Hokkaido through to Huis ten Bosch
in Kyushu, a painstakingly accurate replica of the Netherlands. Along
the way, you can also discover many other mini-nations, including theme
parks of old Japan, such as Meiji Mura near Nagoya. The popularity of
these parks lies in the safely packaged exotic escape they provide from
home without the inconvenience of long-distance travel, language
barriers and nasty shocks, such as crime and disease.
Toyota's cute Will Vi car, described as looking like "Cinderella's
pumpkin carriage", is just one piece in the marketing jigsaw that is the
Will concept. Designed to capture the attention of the lucrative
twenty-something female market, the car comes as part of a
colour-co-ordinated lifestyle package that includes household goods
produced by Matsushita, beauty products by Kanebo, even holidays and
cans of beer. Check it all out at the showroom on Tokyo's Omotesando or
their Web site www.willshop.com
Y: Yakuza and Yamamba
With membership estimated at around 80,000, the yakuza is believed to be
a far bigger criminal organization than America's Mafia. Organized crime
in Japan is exactly that: a highly stratified, efficient and
surprisingly tolerated everyday operation, raking in trillions of yen
from extortion, protection rackets, prostitution, gambling and drug
peddling.
Part of the reason that the seven major yakuza syndicates (who keep
offices, like regular companies) have prospered is that they have acted
as an alternative police force, containing petty crime and keeping
violence within their own ranks. Favours, financial and otherwise,
granted to high-ranking politicians and businesses, have also gained the
yakuza protection and their romantic, samurai -value image has been
boosted by countless movies.
It's highly unlikely that your path will cross with a yakuza , unless
you take to hanging out in the dodgier areas of cities like Tokyo and
Osaka. Younger gang members, called chimpira , can often be spotted by
their tight perm hairdos, dark glasses and appalling dress sense. Other
giveaway signs to look for are missing digits (amputation of fingers,
joint by joint, is the traditional form of punishment for breaking the
yakuza code) and full body tattoos.
Just as easy to spot, and not that much less scary, are the Yamambas ,
teenage girls who have adopted the Japanese witch-like look of bleached
hair, white face make-up and funky gear (catch those astuzoku shoes
again) . These same slaves to fashion might also have a baby in tow, in
which case they're referred to as yan-mamas (young mothers).
Z: Zoku and zodiac
Prior to the mid-1980s, Japan's media often reported the latest youth
subculture sweeping the country under the tag line of zoku (tribe). The
most enduring of these labels is the bosozoku (wild speed tribe) of the
1970s, originally a mild version of the Hell's Angels, greased-hair
bikers out for a loud time. Now, the term is more commonly used for
rebel teenagers.
Dobutsu Uranai (zoological fortune-telling) is the latest manifestation
of Japan's fascination with the zodiac and superstition. This twist on
the traditional zodiac symbols consists of twelve cute animal designs by
popular cartoonist Kubo Kiriko. His book has sold millions of copies and
been translated for markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. If you read
Japanese, the official Web site ( www.animarhythm.com ) can tell you
which animal you are and tell your fortune.
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