J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Japanese Video Game, Western Users, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

To entice Japanese youth to use this pirate themed Japanese shooting game, a Western couple are shown enjoying its use. Don't Japanese people find this incongurous? Apparently not, and are on the contrary more inclined to identify with caucasians than with a Japanese couple. Other than the influence of caucasian images of beauty, another possible explanation for this use of Westerners is that the Japanese are more animistic, seeing bodies, mannequins and other human effigies, and even things, such as cups of noodles, as animate. If there were Japanese mannequins in Japanese shops then the shoppers might feel inclined to greet them, or wonder who they are. The use of Western bodily images therefore may depersonalise the image to the extent that, rather than being Taro Suzuki and Hanako Tanaka, it is just a body, with which the Japanese observer can identify and inhabit.

Labels: culture, japan, japanese culture, 日本文化

# posted by Timtak @ 12:34 PM