The Two-Way Cultural Street: The influence of US popular culture in the Korean Wave and Japanese anime and viceversa

Abstract

The history of colonization has been marked by the Orientalist rhetoric used by Eastern empires to justify the invasion and colonization of the West. In the 20th century, the United States recycled this rhetoric to exercise their own version of imperialist rule through military occupation. Two of the earlier examples of this new form of imperialism are South Korea and Japan. As a result of the United States’ domination, these countries’ societies were remodeled according to the American ideal. They also received a constant flow of American culture that came to influence their own cultural productions. Today, thanks to their knowledge of US popular culture, Korean and Japanese cultural industries are able to manufacture products that specifically target US audiences, but differ in their strategies. On the one hand, Korean products portray their country as an outcome of US influence, by introducing references to US culture along with allusions to the Korean one. Depicting Korea as culturally hybrid has resulted in an acceptance that can be seen in the widespread popularity of Korean products, a popularity termed “The Korean Wave”. In the US, the most famous product of this Wave is K-Pop, as represented by the success of the band BTS. On the other hand, Japanese products are culturally odorless, i.e. they lack any trace of their Japanese origin. This is the case of anime, whose characters and themes have a transnational nature that favors self-identification regardless of nationality. Because of this, anime shows were very popular in the US and have become a major influence for the evolution of American cartoons. These went from mere copies of animes, to original anime-influenced productions, as displayed by long-term franchises like Voltron. Nowadays, these products flow into US markets through the connection established during occupation days, effectively turning US cultural relations with South Korea and Japan into a two-way street.

Language: English