Japanese Pop Culture and Entertainment

Haha. Just my little joke, gentle readers. When thinking about what on Earth I was going to include in my "Japanese pop culture and entertainment", the first thing that popped into my brain was "well, it's really bloody expensive". But it's okay, they're "hammering down the prices"! No, really what I want to speak about in this post is 宝塚歌劇団 - that is, Takarazuka Revue. Takarazuka Revue is an all-female troupe of actresses who produce the most wonderful, sparkling shows. From what I have researched, and from the experience of seeing one of their performances recently, they are a veritable phenomenon in Japan, mainly among women. According to this article from the Japan Times, the Takarazuka Revue theatres sell two million tickets per year, with an astounding 95% attendance rate. This drives home to me the point that Takarazuka Revue really is something special in Japan. As you can see in the picture below...



...the theatre is amazing in itself. Walking from the front gate to your seat can take 10-15 minutes, such is the theatre's size. It's all a part of the Takarazuka Revue experience! People crowd for pictures against the most iconic features - the self-playing piano, the photos on the wall of the stars of each troupe (there are five: Flower, Moon, Snow, Star and Cosmos), and of course the grand, red-carpeted staircase.



I was glad I could capture this moment. This girl was looking up to her idol (Sei Matobu, the provocative, sexy otokoyaku - that is, she was playing a male character) while her mother took a picture on her cellphone. I did ask for permission after I took the picture. There does seem to be a lot of idolisation amongst Takarazuka fans - who themselves are many and passionate. There have been discussions (here, for instance) in which it's mused that Takarazuka Revue is, for many woman, an escape from the male-dominated society of Japan; that it's a place and a time where they can be who they want to be and in way, through the characters on stage, explore their own sexuality more than is allowed within the boundaries of Japanese gender relations.

Reading this blog, it's interesting that when Takarazuka exploded into the Japanese cultural mind in the early 19th-century, it wasn't originally intended to be such a blatant and flagrant sexually-charged and gender-role-challenging group, but anti-homosexual propaganda was rife at this time, and "Takarazuka became a huge site for female-female desire, both onstage and off".

However, as the site notes, "the shows are threatening in many ways, and this seems to be the tension that has kept Takarazuka a live wire for over 90 years". So maybe it's this frivolous frisson of taboo (amid all the fabulous, glitsy, cross-dressing showbiz that I so immensely enjoyed) that gives Takarazuka Revue the popularity it enjoys today.

Neighbourhood Kuzuha

This week's theme is "Neighbourhood", and the aim was to produce photos relating to the area in which we now live, here in Japan. I, myself, live in a homestay situation very near Kuzuha station, so I guess my neighbourhood is Kuzuha. However, a problem that I've found with Kuzuha is that…whenever I'm out and about, either on my way to university, or on my way out to meet friends, or whatever…nothing really seems to be happening. More often than not, the little area of Kuzuha in which I live (Nishifunabashi) is entirely deserted. Therefore, this week, despite my best efforts, I feel this is going to come off a little weakly. Nevertheless, here are my observations.

One morning I got up very early to go to university, and as I was walking to the railway station, I came across these confusing blue things at every intersection in Nishifunabashi.



Confounded by the early hour, I had to get a lot closer to ascertain that they were not egg sacs dropped by an immense blue alien during the night, but in fact blue nets full of rubbish. This was quite interesting to me. In the UK, there is no such community cooperation. The bin-men come round once a week and the most people will do (if they do anything at all) is to put their bin bags by the front door or front gate. However, here in Japan there is this common banding-together of rubbish. Additionally, although I didn't get close enough to the refuse to say for sure, I'd bet my bottom dollar that most of that rubbish in there was either plastic, or paper, or burnable rubbish – that is, separated. I was (and still am) quite surprised at how much of an effort Japan seems to be making to recycle as much rubbish as it possibly can. I found an interesting article while researching about Japan's "rubbish culture", behold: How Do Japanese Dump Trash? Let Us Count the Myriad Ways

Another thing I've observed while wandering Kuzuha – and indeed, anywhere in Japan, really:



Wires. Wires everywhere. I have to say, it took me a while to notice them. I mean, I saw them, but I didn't really appreciate their absolute ubiquity until a few days after I arrived. Once I did, I couldn't help but start to think of them as an eyesore. Everywhere I've gone, they've spoiled views of fabulous temples and marred beautiful countryside vistas. However, as I'm now noticing them all the time, I accept them as a kind of natural part of Japan, and in some ways even a part of its essential beauty. Sure, they wouldn't have been here in the time of the samurai, but now they're a part of everyday adventure in Japan, and as such they no longer present as an eyesore to me in my photography.



While researching I found here, looks like they're wanting to put high-speed internet into Japanese homes over these lines. Maybe I'll stay in Japan a little longer…

Early Impressions of Japan

My first two weeks in Japan have yielded some interesting experiences, and not always the experiences I thought I would have. Certainly, I have seen cute characters on otherwise severe street signs; amusing Engrish; Japanese people have laughed at me and stared at me and bowed at me and I, standing at my lofty 1.90m, have received a lot of 「わぁぁ！背が高いねぇぇ！」 ("Whoa, you're so tall!"). Thus far it has been - as I really ought to have been able to predict - a bewildering, oftentimes tiring, charming and fascinating experience. I am so excited about this opportunity to start bringing my experiences in and observations of Japanese people and culture to life and to light with my photography.

Each week I am to submit two photographs for the class, upon a given theme. The theme for this week was "Early Impressions of Japan". A couple of apologies before I go on - never a great start: firstly, I have three pictures this week, not the required two. This is mainly as I love these three pictures so much that I couldn't choose. Secondly, as this is only the second week of this semester, and as such we have neither read much nor had very much time to research, the comments I'm about to make are mainly my own thoughts and observations. On that note...



I am so pleased that I managed to capture this moment. I was standing at Kuzuha station, waiting for a train to Kyoto, this train happened to stop, the door opened in front of me and there stood three Japanese people in traditional dress: two men in hakama and one woman in a kimono. I had my camera out anyway so I snapped this shot.

This photograph, I feel, is quite representative of my early impressions of Japan. As someone who has never been to Japan before, has only studied Japan from afar and as such can only have based my expectations of Japan on my studies and what I had seen in the media. What I expected, and what I see here, is a country which constantly mixes its past, present and (in a way) future. Here, we see three people dressing in the costumes of their past, travelling in the clean, fast and extremely efficient public transport of their present - perhaps with the man on the right holding the future in his little pink bag? To me, this is a true clash of the ancient and the current.



This picture was also taken at Kuzuha station, while waiting for my train to Kyoto. The platform was now clear, most people having filed on to the previous train, and alone on the platform were myself, and this other man, standing near me. I jumped at the chance to take this picture.

This picture, for me, confirmed my expectations that Japan is a place of beauty amongst the ugliness - and vice versa. Allow me to explain. From the pictures and videos I had seen of Japan, the (natural) scenery is beautiful and dramatic, flat plains of rice paddies and fields, leading to hills and mountains swathed in green trees. Amongst all this, pylons and powerlines and concrete jungles haphazardly mar the otherwise striking landscape. This is what I see in this picture. And in front of it all, this man, standing alone, in silhouette. I still can't decide whether this picture is beautiful or lonely. Maybe it is both. Despite the fact that (at least now, so early on) living in Japan can sometimes feel like you're living on a different planet, amongst so many crowding people, loneliness exists here, too.



Finally, a photograph I took on a street in Namba, Osaka. Japanese people hurry by in the foreground, while a taxi waits patiently in the middle distance, and in the background, the bright neon lights that are so inextricably associated with Japan. They speak of new technology, cloying advertising and a whole lot of electricity consumption. I almost feel as if that green light is beckoning me to go, onwards, into the experiences I am yet to have. So that's exactly what I shall do.

写真、撮っていい？

Good afternoon!

My name's Jerrard, I'm 23, and from now until mid-December I'm undertaking study on the Asian Studies program at Kansai Gaidai university in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. In my programme of study I'm taking a module called "Visual Anthropology of Japan", and for this class I have the opportunity to keep a photo blog for the course, to include pictures which depict cultural and anthropological themes, each week. It is here that I intend to do this.

As such this blog is for educational purposes only. All photos posted here are taken by myself unless otherwise noted. If any problem with the posting of a particular photo is brought to my attention, I will earnestly review the problem and remove the photo if necessary.

With that said, let the blogging commence!


Portrait taken by Becca Toop. Thanks, Becca!

PS: If you're reading this, and you can't read the Japanese name of my blog, it says "Shashin, totte ii?" which means "Can I take a picture?". :]