Why Do So Many Gacha Games Pretend to Be Japanese? || The East Asian War for Soft Power
...or, How Anime and Gacha Became Asia’s Soft Power Battlefield. A sequel (of sorts) to Kawaii: Anime, Propaganda, and Soft Power Politics.
---
If you've played any gacha games recently, you may have noticed that many gacha games pretend to be Japanese, or use a lot of Japanese aesthetics or even voice-acting, when the games themselves are directed, produced, and published in/by Chinese and Korean companies. Is this just a quirk of marketing, or is there something greater behind this decision-making?
Let's have a long discussion about gacha games, and anime more broadly: about how anime commercialized, how that has to do with cultural developments in post-war Japan mixed with economic realities, how that commercialization reached its final form with gacha games, and what that means for a Japan facing economic struggle and rising political adversaries.
---
At long last, the video is done! And you patrons get to enjoy it a day early. Do let me know what you think! And please enjoy. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Credit's Gag! :)
Comments (16)
Hi Moony! I saw your post about how this video is having low numbers on YouTube. I am not sure if you noticed, but the video is marked unlisted. I don't remember it being unlisted last week, is something going on? Perhaps this will affect the view numbers...
Hi bunch of frogs! The old one was copyright struck, and so to preserve the shorts, I manually cut out the evangelion sections (which now just awkwardly skip forward), and unlisted it. The updated director's cut has fewer views, and less engagement. But that's alright: it's been a good lesson for me on what to do and not to do, in the future.
I loved the section about the history of anime/animation and its evolution. It made me go on a rabbit hole of looking into the old Japanese/European/Canadian animated series of the late 1970s to 1980s, some of which had very complex stories and deep themes (others were just cozy or fun). There was a lot of cross-collaboration, which is interesting, and the amount of merchandization (so to say) was limited. It was very jarring for me when I first got contact with animated series like "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", which I never really got used to.
This is a great video, congratulations!
2:05:17 I'm listed twice as a supporter
Oh... oops. Thanks for pointing it out, Zwetschge. I edit that supporters list every video and its always frustrating trying to figure out what goes where. I have to streamline that process someday, especially as Patrons continue to come in!
Fauxmantic... Nice. Ya'll coining terms like Croesus coining coins...
This shit slaps brother
Great video as usual! I appreciate all the time, effort, and research put into this one (especially the Ben and Jerry joke). Also, while subtle, you had some great selections in the soundtrack. It has not gone unnoticed!
20:40 I WANT A 4 HOUR VIDEO MOONY!
Naive of you to assume people wouldn’t want a 4 hour video :)
Gimme 24 hours! I’m learning so much about things I thought I knew!
I can't wait to watch, I bet this is gonna be another killer video!!!
Thank you Qathrin! I hope that you will enjoy it!
Um...I think you may have forgotten to attach the video.
...so it seems. Oh dear. :(