The Winter Sonata Boom / The Kanryu Wave

[Aaron Gerow]

Thanks to Markus for bringing up the issue. There are several questions 
floating around here.

First, of course, is whether the kanryu wave really signifies any 
change in how the majority of Japanese view their nation in relation to 
Korea and the world. After years and years of sometimes virulent 
discrimination against Koreans, have Japanese finally overcome that 
prejudice? Is Japan now finally open to the world and to difference? 
Some connect the kanryu wave to earlier booms in Asian products, such 
as Hong Kong movies and singers (the Leslie Chan phenom), and then the 
World Cup. Korean movies were also getting quite popular before 
Fuyusona hit the airwaves and Kusanagi Tsuyoshi developed his Korean 
character long before Yon-sama appeared. But do these series of booms 
signal any real shift in national attitudes, or is this simply some 
surface manifestation of shifts in global flows of consumer 
consumption? Since I've already criticized such "international" 
Japanese films as Iwai Shunji's Swallowtail Butterfly in print before, 
I am still suspicious of the ways consumption and commodification can 
replace real encounters or self-criticism. What will those obasama fans 
of Yon-sama really do when their daughter comes home and says she wants 
to marry a zainichi or Korean man? Has the popularity of Korean drama 
had any effect on the box office of a much more critical film on 
Korea-Japan relations, Sai Yoichi's Chi to hone (are Yon-sama's fans 
seeing the film and if so, what do they think of this Korean man versus 
their ideal)? Is the kanryu boom intertwined so much with issues of 
family, masculinity, romance and melodrama that the fact these are 
Korean actually means very little?

Because of my suspicions of this form of consumption, I am more 
interested in what this boom has to say about the social and political 
functions of melodrama in Japan and issues of gender, masculinity, and 
romance, than about what it means internationally (though I don't want 
to ignore that). I don't think it is any coincidence that this boom is 
going on at the same time that there has been a revival in what some 
call more "traditional" tragic love-romances in both literature and 
film which have nothing to do with Korea. This involves anything from 
internet novels like Deep Love to the big live-action film hits of this 
year, Sekai no chushin ni, ai o sakebu (dir. Yukisada Isao) and Ima, ai 
ni yukimasu (dir. Doi Nobuhiro). Tear-jerkers are in, and if 
border-crossing is an issue, it's one where the appearance of a Korean 
and the appearance of a dead loved one (usually involving Takeuchi 
Yuko!) are not dissimilar. A full analysis of the content for Fuyusona 
is warranted, but my wife's general reaction upon seeing it was that it 
strongly reminded her of Japanese TV melodrama from the 1960s, 1970s or 
early 1980s (that is, before the trendy dramas appeared). Note also 
that remakes of dramas from that era are popular recently (Shiroi 
kyoto, etc.). Perhaps this tells us this is a rather reactionary or 
nostalgic phenomena, and explains the age of Yon-sama fans. But I 
personally don't think this is just an age issue, because many of these 
internet love stories have mainly teenage fans. (Though issues of 
reception are important: media commentators say that TV dramas are just 
not as popular as they used to be because of shifts in living 
patterns--perhaps middle-aged women are now the main TV drama audience 
and younger people are shifting to internet literature?) Given what 
Mitsu and others have written about the national functions of melodrama 
in the 1950s, what are we to say of it in the first decade of the 
2000s? Given that Kinoshita Keisuke molded much of TV melodrama of the 
60s and 70s, perhaps more research in his work is warranted?

Finally, another issue has been raised that is not necessarily related 
to the kanryu phenom: NHK and Kohaku. First, the decline of ratings for 
Kohaku is not new, and the detailed analysis of the ups and downs in 
ratings by the minute is a yearly phenomenon in the geino press. Kohaku 
used to have ratings in the 60s, 70s and 80s percentiles, and thus was 
one program that one could call truly national. It thus represented how 
TV had become the chief purveyor of the imagined community. But now, 
with the long decline in its ratings and it's average rating this year 
not topping 40% for the first time in its history, there are 
speculations about whether such national TV festivals really exist 
anymore, whether TV can fulfill such national functions anymore, and 
whether the nation itself can be imagined in such ways. There are 
certainly real shifts in the range of options for televisual and audio 
consumption. One reason Kohaku's ratings are going down is because 
extremely popular singers like Utada Hikaru and Hamazaki Ayumi are 
refusing invitations for various reasons, one probably being that they 
want more individual power over the events they appear in. But you also 
have to note that one big reason why Kohaku's ratings were so bad this 
year was because of all the scandals at NHK, many of which revolved 
around embezzling of production funds. Many people are mad at NHK and 
refusing to pay NHK fees and the president of NHK is probably going to 
have to resign. Some then speculated that Bae refused the offer to 
appear on Kohaku not because he was biting the hand that fed him, but 
because he didn't want to get involved in what is often a big 
celebration of NHK. Also, programming of Kohaku has been rather 
defensive in the last few years, especially with NHK picking its own 
announcers as shikai, mostly in order to promote them, instead of the 
geinojin announcers that bring in more ratings. I do think that if NHK 
can clean itself up, be a bit more imaginative about programming Kohaku 
(staging it as a live "event", not just a series of often-heard 
songs--that staging of "events" is why the K-1 and Pride shows did 
well. This is one of the main ways variety shows become popular, and we 
shouldn't forget that one of the kakutogi shows featured a character 
from a variety show), Kohaku's ratings will rise again somewhat. But 
that is a big if and Kohaku will never be what it was.

Comments? Opinions?

Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu