Neojaponisme

I think it is important to note how well the animated series set this up and how they adapted an actual story, not an utterly unrelated side story (like the norm for properties like Dragonball). Considering the quality of TV in general, this might be a model that will be adopted. Oh, and unlike the vast majority of Anime serieses produced today, Kimetsu no Yaiba somehow manages to appeal to the mainstream. (This article, while old, really hit the nail on the head about how the non-mainstream was the only game in town for the longest time; http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/30/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-cul… -edit- I meant to link to this; http://neojaponisme.com/2011/12/01/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-cul…

For those fascinated on the subject of Japanese fashion trends, I'm pleased to recommend http://neojaponisme.com/category/fashion-2/

W. David Marx has been doing wonderful analysis of Japan and this phenomenon of trend adoption/synthesis/evolution—specifically with regard to fashion but he's covered many other topics as well—at http://neojaponisme.com for years now. Don't lose your weekend to the archive. Or, you know, do.

No condescension; I just said it's not hacker news, and indeed, it looks like it got zapped. Interestingly enough, there's another Japan story on the front page: http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-cul… Despite not being about startups or hacking, per se, that one strikes me as being much more on topic. It's more "deeply" (rather than shallowly) interesting, it's informative, and it tells you about something that most of us probably know little about. It's not political, it's not designed to anger you... it's just interesting.

A relevant example: > In the case of Japan over the last decade, we have seen a significant rise in popularity of inferior goods and a decrease in demand for premium goods. Japan’s most notable inferior good of the moment is “third-category beer” — a beer-like beverage with nearly zero malt content that sells for slightly less than real beer. Japanese consumers facing no economic constraint would choose Japan’s most iconic (and not particularly expensive) mass market beers such as Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori over third-category beer. So what does it say about the consumer market when Japan will soon have a majority “fake beer” market for malt-flavored beverages? Even with falling demand for beer-like drinks, third category beer is seeing growth. This is a sign that the consumer living standard considered normal just a decade ago has fallen dramatically into a new “basket of goods” that would once have be seen as only appropriate for the relatively destitute. http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japanese-pop-cul… linking to http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-621860

"Gyaru" is simply how "gal" is pronounced in Japanese, so it's an inconsistency in translation. However, kogyaru and ganguro are different styles. Gyaru is effectively a superset of the two, as well as some other styles. Néojaponisme has an interesting look back at the history of gyaru and the different styles (though unfortunately the pictures are rather few, and I have no idea where Part Four is): http://neojaponisme.com/2012/02/28/the-history-of-the-gyaru-part-one/

It's because Japanese society is backwards and unreformed when it comes to its dealings with the Internet. [1] 1. http://neojaponisme.com/2009/05/19/the-fear-of-the-internet/

Because there are benefits to this way of doing things, and not all of Japan is like this. As the link points out being incredibly careful with practices, and really ensuring the quality of a product is exactly the right thing in many situations. When building, say, cars. Huge amounts of training, careful procedures, and lots of time with senior engineers to help is often very useful. Further while a lot of the sales stuff seems completely ridiculous, there is benefit in having very personal interactions and understanding. Again, look at the link to see why. Japanese corporations are actually very innovative in a lot of ways, and often build extraordinarily impressive products, if often ones that are hampered by terrible design. Secondly, not all of Japan is like this. Japanese productivity is pretty weirdly bifurcated: For office work, Japan is terrible (well below the USA, Europe), for manufacturing Japan is world-class. Japanese companies build things really really well, with very few workers, quickly. They just can;t organize paperwork in any reasonable way. Here's a link to a nice brief summary of this stuff by an economist in the US whose worked on Japan before: http://neojaponisme.com/2014/01/15/japanese-economic-mythbusting/#comm…