remember how korean dramas were the rage in japan a few years ago, apparently it’s swinging back the other way. then again, this is in a japanese paper, so consider the source.
S. Korea awash with Japanese pop culture
Akihito Teramura / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
SEOUL--South Korea is being swept up by a wave of Japanese pop culture--manga, novels, films and even “cosplay” cafes. Young people, in particular, seem to love entertaining works dealing with light themes.
On the other hand, the number of South Korean films exported to Japan has drastically declined, prompting the South Korean government to take steps to reinvigorate the industry.
Packed with small theaters, Seoul’s Daehakno district, which is known as the center of South Korea’s youth culture, has an atmosphere quite similar to that of Shimokitazawa, Tokyo.
“I started cosplay as a sixth-grade primary school student, wearing Sailor Moon costumes,” said Chong Tae Jong, an 18-year-old waitress at a cosplay cafe called Flying Needle. Cosplay is short for “costume play,” in which people dress up as their favorite anime characters.
The cafe provides its customers with costumes to dress up as characters from anime, manga and video games.
Opened six years ago, the cosplay cafe has been quite successful, attracting about 8,000 customers every month.
“Cosplay was born in Japan and developed into a global culture,” said Chong, clad in a maid’s costume.
Youth love Japanese culture
In 1998, the South Korean government lifted a ban on the sale of Japanese videos and publications as part of a gradual opening of the domestic market to Japanese cultural products.
Chong, who was 8 years old when the ban was lifted, grew up with Japanese manga and anime. Many of her generation are now keen consumers of Japanese cultural products.
Of 4,095 manga published in South Korea in 2006, about 70 percent were translations of Japanese manga. “Kami no Shizuku” (A Drop of the Gods), a Japanese manga about wine, was translated into Korean and published at the end of 2005. It sold more than 1 million copies and ignited a wine boom in the country.
Yang Chae Chol, who operates a liquor shop in central Seoul, is surprised by the work’s impact on wine sales.
“The percentage of wine sales compared to total sales went up from about 30 percent to 70 percent [after the work went on sale in South Korea],” said Yang, 53.
Cosplay, manga and anime are not the only cultural exports that have proved popular in South Korea. Many Japanese novels are loved by South Korean readers.
Of the 100 best-selling books at Kyobo Book Center, the largest bookstore in Seoul, the number of Japanese novels rose from 15 in 2003 to 42 last year, exceeding the number of South Korean novels on the list. In the whole publishing market, publications translated from Japanese accounted for 8.6 percent of 53,225 items published in South Korea in 2007.
“South Korean novels tend to deal with serious themes, such as state and politics, and lack in entertainment,” said Paek Won Kun, a researcher studying publications in South Korea at the Korean Publishing Research Institute. “On the other hand, Japanese works deal with lighter themes and can be read more easily.”
Films featuring Takuya Kimura and other popular Japanese actors are adored by many young South Koreans.
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Govt to prop up film industry
While Japanese cultural products are thriving in South Korea, what is known as hanryu, or the wave of South Korean pop culture that swept Japan following the 2003 airing of the popular soap opera “Winter Sonata,” has lost momentum in Japan.
According to the South Korean Film Commission, revenues from South Korean films exported to overseas markets are sluggish after peaking at about 75 million dollars in 2005. In 2006, exports of South Korean films to the Japanese market, which account for about 70 percent of total sales, declined to less than 20 percent of the previous year.
Lee Hae Ton, an official of the film industry team in South Korea’s Culture and Tourism Ministry, pointed out that the hanryu boom owed a lot to the popularity of a handful of actors. Lee also said the quality of South Korean films deteriorated as a result of the industry depending too much on actors’ popularity to attract moviegoers.
Nevertheless, the film industry is an important export industry for South Korea, where natural resources are scarce, Lee said.
In 2006, the ministry and other institutions concerned established a 300 billion won (about 28.4 billion yen) fund to help South Korean films get onto screens overseas and defray the cost of subtitling the films. The fund plans to invest in film productions.
The number of South Korean films based on Japanese novels and anime is also surging.
According to the Korean Film Commission, the number of South Korean films based on Japanese works increased from a total of three between 2001 and 2005, to three in 2006 and seven in 2007. Ten such films are currently being planned or are in production, the commission said.
“It should be easy to export such films to Japan because they’re based on Japanese works,” said Pak Chong Won, manager of the commission’s overseas promotion department.
(Mar. 19, 2008)
