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Cultural globalization refers to the phenomenon by which customs, ideas, traditions, and cultural elements are spread across the world. Such globalization may lead to the homogenization of culture and reduction of cultural diversity. It can be caused by the glocalisation of products, the spreading of one mainstream culture from the origin to another place, or cultural imperialism, which is the imposition of the culture of a dominant group on another. Japan is an East Asian country known for their innovative technology, unique culture, and rich history. They’re located amongst a string of islands in the western Pacific Ocean. Factors like religion, pop culture influences, love for nature, inventive technology, appreciation for arts and culture, among others, is what makes Japanese culture so unique and influential worldwide. While cultural globalization does lead to the homogenization of culture, it also promotes the unique traits of each culture. The extent to which cultures lose all diversity and a global culture rises to prevail against other cultures depends on the economic power, media influence, and local resilience. In this visual essay, I will be discussing the film and fashion industry of Japan, and whether the Japanese culture is looking at its diversity, to understand whether or not globalization is causing us to become all the same culture.

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Above is a poster of the movie Rashomon (1950), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

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Pin 2 - film in Japan is being influenced by globalization

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Pin 2 - film in Japan is being influenced by globalization

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Hollywood is a transnational institution, who spreads their movies to other countries. In the early 1900s, they first started screening movies in Japan. However, their movies became more widely available in cinemas in the 1910s. Hollywood has been a key factor in contributing American culture diffusion to Japan, namely with films. World War II ended with Japan suffering a bitter defeat, and America being victorious. However, despite the bombing Pearl Harbour, many of Japan’s film production studios were left intact, and they were able to continue making films, even during America’s occupation of Japan (1945~1952). Surprisingly, many Japanese movie goers turned to American movies, even during the occupation. Hollywood saw an increase in the amount of moviegoers in Japan watching American movies. In a way, Hollywood helped bridge these two societies. Later on, major production studios started producing films that aligned with American ideology, namely focusing on the improvement of self, as well incorporating American film techniques into Japanese films. The fellow who started this trend would be Akira Kurosawa, who’s movie Rashomon (1950) started a Japanese Golden Age for cinema after winning the Golden Lion’s award in 1951. In Rashomon, Kurosawa used many western techniques, such as flashbacks to incorporate non-linear storylines.

However, since WWII didn’t end long ago, America depicted themselves as heroes in their movies, while depicting Japan, if Japan was a part of the movie, as enemies, or the bad guy. Thus, since Japan’s film industry was influenced by America’s, they started to depict themselves the way America did as well, and represent themselves in a negative light.

This would be considered globalization because America’s occupation of Japan had a great impact on the Japanese film industry. It not only affected how the filmmakers made and edited the movies, but also the themes and ideologies behind them. This would be an example of cultural diffusion, which in this context means that America spread their ideologies to Japan through Hollywood. The globalization of the American film industry negatively affects Japan, because in Hollywood, America is represented as the hero, the rightful protagonist, and thus America was also depicted this way in Japanese movies at the time. Therefore, American culture was represented as a sophisticated culture, where everyone had the power to improve themselves and climb the social ladder. Japan started taking on aspects of American culture, until the nation’s culture was becoming more and more alike to American culture. In other words, Japan was captivated by how free American’s were and the glory of the ‘American Dream’, and were motivated to create the ‘Japanese Dream’.

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Japan, Tokyo, Koganei, Kajinochō1 Chome−4−25 株式会社スタジオジブリ

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More than 6000 animes are being produced and spread throughout the world today.

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Pin 3 - film in Japan is being preserved

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Pin 3 - film in Japan is being preserved

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Japanese filmmaking officially began in 1896, “when several of Edison’s Kinetoscopes were imported into the country - only two years after the original Kinetoscope was introduced in New York.” (Dissanayake, 12) The beginning of filmmaking marked a significant shift in Japanese culture, with silent films being interpreted and commented on by a ‘benshi’, and the government censoring films that didn’t agree with Japanese nationalism. Such things homogenized the film industry to Japanese culture. Akira Kurosawa started Japan’s cinema Golden Age, however Nagisa Oshima, is most commonly credited for the beginning of the Japanese New Wave. Generally, he wanted to create a ‘new Japan’ that broke away from their gruesome past.

Nowadays, anime is one of the factors for spreading Japanese culture all around the world. Filmmakers loved the idea of animating movies, as animators could be creative with the cartoons they made in areas filmmakers couldn’t. During the 70s, anime really started taking off when more people started liking manga. Manga seemed to be a starting point to make anime, as animators could take the storyline and characters from mangas and adapt them into animated films. Fast forward to modern times, and anime is still largely received worldwide. Rie Koga is someone who has worked in the industry in both America and Japan, and she observed how the two had very different styles of animation. “Japanese animation has a bigger story arc,” says Koga. “Sometimes the characters die, even in kids shows. I got so scared by kids' shows in Japan, but it’s a very normal thing.” (Keyframe, 2020). She also notes how America has been influenced by Japanese in terms of animation, as for example, in Steven Universe, she admits the styles are more cartoony, however the cartoon features a big story arc and having weightier themes, like Japanese animation.

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A picture taken during the Showa Era (1926~1989) of emperors Hirohito and Akihito with their wives. They’re dressed in western attire.

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Pin 4 - fashion in Japan is being influenced by globalization

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Pin 4 - fashion in Japan is being influenced by globalization

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Japanese fashion has a history of being both the influence and the influencer. However, at the beginning of the Meiji Era (1868~1912), traditional Japanese attire absorbed other culture’s clothing styles, particularly America’s. The government and the army were the first to switch to western clothing. In fact, “A regulation of 1872 ordered the substitution of Western dress for the ceremonial robes of court nobles, and even the Emperor had appeared in Western dress in 1870.” (Japan Experience, 2012) Basic clothing, however, did not change until later on. This would be due to high costs, and also it was impractical for the Japanese aspects of living.

“Western culture caught Japan’s curiosity, and its influence started to become evident.” (Fibre2Fashion) America’s influence on Japanese clothing seemed to be due to the constant exposure to American designers, thus their style shifted to western clothing. Seeing this change in demand, local designers began to follow the latest western trends at the time. Men’s clothing became more westernized by the Shōwa period (1926~1989), and later on western clothing had a profound influence on women's fashion as well.

The influence of Western fashion on Japanese fashion is an example of globalization because Japanese fashion was heavily influenced by western fashion due to constant media exposure. And while the application of fashion was minimal at first, it soon became attire that the Japanese wore no matter the situation.

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This is the magazine cover of the 1997 magazine ‘FRUiTS’ by Soichi Aoki, which started a worldwide phenomenon of unique styles of street fashion.

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Pin 5 - fashion in Japan is being preserved

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Pin 5 - fashion in Japan is being preserved

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n the 19th and early 20th century, Japanese fashion seemed to be constantly influenced by that of the west. However, soon after World War II, Japan re-establish its title as a creative powerhouse, and Japanese fashion designers began to take over the world of fashion.

While western designers were heavily inspired by traditional costumes from Eastern countries such as China, Japan, and Indonesia, Japanese designers were inspired by their roots. Japan’s fashion was and is currently known for their unique fashion styles, and this could be credited to their implications of ‘wabi-sabi’, finding beauty in imperfection, as an aesthetic in clothing. This became a major fashion movement from the 1970s onwards.

Japan had quite the collection of talented fashion designers who seemed to always start new trends. “Yamamoto said he wanted ‘to make men’s clothes for women’, Miyake famously made a collection from a single piece of cloth, and Kawakubo introduced black, uneven female body shapes to western runways.” (Fashion United) Japanese designers seemed to be key to influencing worldwide trends. For example, japonisme, a word invented by French fashion designers, refers to the applications of Japanese motifs such as waves, birds, flowers, dragons, etc into fashion design. Japonisme, along with kanji and kana symbols, is in fact present in the clothing in many international brands, including Nike, Adidas, Uniqlo, and so on. Street fashion has also been big in Japan. Street fashion is a form of expression of one’s personal values and interests through their outfit. Another example of the influence of Japanese fashion would be the magazine publications by Soichi Aoki, a Tokyo-born photographer, who captured the unique styles on Japanese streets in “Street” (1985) and “FRUiTS” (1997). He started a worldwide phenomenon of unique styles of recognised subcultures of fashion, and inspired western teens to learn and recreate such styles. Japan has a lot of different fashion trends in street fashion, and it continues to shift throughout the decades, and influence global fashion as well.

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Throughout history, Japan has been both the influenced and the influencer, whether it involves the fashion industry or the film. In this visual essay, I looked at how globalization from the west had affected Japan’s film and fashion industry in order to consider the following question:

Is globalization causing us to all become the same culture?

The truth is, regardless of the country, I think the idea of cultural homogenisation is entirely unrealistic. While there is a possibility for globalization to cause different cultures to lose diversity, I also believe that experiences and traits will still remain unique to different cultures. My research with Japan supports this to an extent. Japan has been influenced in both the fashion and film industry, causing them to take on aspects of western culture and incorporate it into their own developments. This would be an example of cultural diffusion and hybridization, because Japanese and western culture mixed to come up with new developments, however alike to American culture. However, Japan soon regained its status as a creative powerhouse, and started producing films and designing clothing that is inspired by its roots and culture. Nowadays, Japanese fashion is widely known and influential, and anime is loved all across the world.

Essentially, due to Japan wanting to regain its identity and break away from its past, they’ve found their underlying culture once more and emphasized on it, thus making it more worldwide. However, while Japan is doing an excellent job of preserving its own culture by expressing it through their films and fashion, they are also spreading their culture worldwide, which may lead to cultural diffusion and hybridisation. Japan is widely known for their unique culture, and it seems that they won’t be forgetting who they are again any time soon. So, the real question isn’t whether Japan is losing cultural diversity to the west, but rather are different cultures becoming more like Japan, due to the exposure to Japanese film and fashion trends?

I think that question is something that can only be correctly answered far into the future. Because, my opinion still stands: losing diversity in cultures is possible, however each culture still holds their own experiences and traits. Japan is who they are today because they re-embraced their own roots, thus regaining their identity. They show that cultural homogenisation may depend entirely on local resistance against the imposition of other cultures. In a way, we can all learn from Japan.

So, to answer the question, is globalization causing us to all become the same culture? Well, Japan today shows the answer: no.