477
Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:40 pm
Kagoshima, JPN
Early Access Curios
Helldivers perennially, knicknacks, paddywacks, dog bones.
137
Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:44 pm
RPG, Weird, Thinky
Dark Souls, Jagged Alliance 2, Uncharted 3
Alex Connolly wrote:Calin is my Agent John Doggett, simply because he used the phrase 'Dollars to donuts'.
*highest of fives*
325
Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:22 pm
Man I don't know.
Fallout 4
137
Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:44 pm
RPG, Weird, Thinky
Dark Souls, Jagged Alliance 2, Uncharted 3
RedSwirl wrote:A little more on Japanese indies: The issue with Kickstarter as I understand it is it isn't really available to developers outside North America. There is indiegogo but it isn't as well-known and thus probably doesn't get as many pledges.
There have been a couple instances where Japanese old pros have linked up with western companies to get on Kickstarter with varying results. There's that mobile card game from the creator of Final Fantasy Tactics, not sure how that's going along. Another Japan/US team tried but failed to Kickstarter an old-style JRPG about an immortal spirit that lives through the dawning days of the United States. And so-on.
The most notable Japanese indiegogo project I know of however is Yatagarasu. It's pretty much the same story as a lot of these pro-level Kickstarters: Some ex-King of Fighters devs built a public alpha for their own game around 2011-2012, then successfully crowdfunded a full expansion/sequel a little while after that. A backer beta has been going on since last year and people are hailing it as the 3rd Strike sequel we never got.
Again, check Comiket the next time it comes around.
325
Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:22 pm
Man I don't know.
Fallout 4
As regular consumers exit the market and leading-edge consumers are forced back underground, “marginal segments” with highly concentrated buying power — particularly, the otaku, yankii, and gyaru — have taken a leadership position in setting tastes and trends. Over the course of this five-part series, we explain this process and also demonstrate the degree to which Japanese pop culture now caters to specific niche audiences rather than reflecting a “mainstream” set of values. Japan may have become the world’s first consumer market without a mass core — and this has significant implications for the future of its cultural exports.
Otaku and yankii had strong outcast communities, but they essentially had to live on the fringes of pop culture. Yankii and otaku spent their formative years as true social outcasts — blamed as juvenile delinquents and sociopaths.
In times of a substantial and profitable mainstream consumer market, large companies were justified in ignoring the yankii and otaku segments as potential customers.
Japan’s culture industry — dominated by educated upper-middle class counter-consumers — worked hard to appeal to Japan’s large middle class. Tokyo’s powerful consumer base and Tokyo as industry center of cultural production made the wider culture gravitate towards the specific tastes of Tokyo upper middle-class youth. This, however, has drastically changed in the last decade with the fall of middle class consumerism.
The yankii and otaku have never traditionally been blessed with high incomes nor high future earning potential, and in pure homo economicus terms, should be cutting back even more than middle-class consumers. We must understand, however, that for the otaku, yankii, and gyaru, shopping is not merely a form of leisure nor has it even been an attempt to buy into a larger society-wide consumerist message. These groups use consumerism as a therapeutic solution to their psychological and social problems.
The otaku spend their time as avaricious collectors of goods and trading information with other otaku. In shunning away from mainstream standards of sociability, sexuality, and career success, the act of maniacal consumption becomes their raison d’être. They cannot relate with other people if not commenting upon these cultural goods. Culture — most of which must be purchased and enjoyed as object (even when it is just physical media holding content) — is the great satisfier of their deepest desires.
The end result is that the otaku and yankii have an almost inelastic demand for their favorite goods. They must consume, no matter the economic or personal financial situation. They may move to cheaper goods, but they will always be buying something. Otherwise they lose their identity. While normal consumers curb consumption in the light of falling wages, the marginal otaku and yankii keep buying. And that means the markets built around these subcultures are relatively stable in size.
So as the total market shrinks, the marginal groups — in their stability — are no longer minor segments but now form a respectable plurality in the market. In other words, if otaku or yankii all throw their support through a specific cultural item, that item will end up being the most supported within the wider market.
Mike Williams on NeoGAF: Basically mainstream consumers pulled back in hard times, but otaku and other subcultures are literally defined buy the entertainment they consume and purchase, so they don't pull back. (Like gamers, btw) They represent steady business, so content creators aim at them. The problem is these niches aren't mass market, so Japan can't export most of this culture.
Mass market anime like Naruto and Gundam are relatively easy to export as they were built for “normal” youth. That cannot be said about moe titles that are meant to satisfy older men obsessed with two-dimensional elementary school girls. Similarly, no gyaru clothing brand has more retail stores overseas than the avant-garde Comme des Garçons, despite gyaru clothing’s huge business in Japan and CDG’s highly-limited audience. At least from what we have seen from the big subcultural moments in the last decade, the culture of Japan’s marginal pluralities is almost unexportable.
In most countries with growing economies, educated upper-middle class consumers still spearhead the consumer market. They have the most disposable income and the most interest in cultural exchange. And those consumers, whether it’s Taiwan or the U.K., are the ones most likely to be willing to follow and purchase foreign cultural items.
Currently, however, the most conspicuous Japanese culture of otaku and yankii represents value sets with little connection to affluent consumers elsewhere. Most men around the world are not wracked by such deep status insecurity that they want to live in a world where chesty two-dimensional 12 year-old girls grovel at their feet and call them big brother. The average university student in Paris is likely to read Murakami Haruki and may listen to a Japanese DJ but not wear silky long cocktail dresses or fake eyelashes from a brand created by a 23 year-old former divorcee hostess with two kids. Overseas consumers remain affluent, educated, and open to Japanese culture, but Japan’s pop culture complex — by increasingly catering to marginal groups (or ignoring global tastes, which is another problem altogether) — is less likely to create products relevant for them.
477
Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:40 pm
Kagoshima, JPN
Early Access Curios
Helldivers perennially, knicknacks, paddywacks, dog bones.
325
Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:22 pm
Man I don't know.
Fallout 4
Alex Connolly wrote:All true, and remains so. But one must be wary - as with anything else anwhere - not to lump the entire country into the hyper-microcosm of Tokyo or Osaka. Anything looks large under a microscope.
Not sure why Yankii subculture is being touted as something special or market-driving, though. Every country has their raw, jagged underclass.
Site Admin
342
Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:54 am
Arthouse, conceptually audacious, thinky, polarizing, masocore
Witcher 3, Axiom Verge, Monster Hunter 4 (STILL), Invisible Inc.
Site Admin
342
Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:54 am
Arthouse, conceptually audacious, thinky, polarizing, masocore
Witcher 3, Axiom Verge, Monster Hunter 4 (STILL), Invisible Inc.
325
Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:22 pm
Man I don't know.
Fallout 4
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