I decided to Google it and found this interesting article called "Why it was so easy for Korea to overtake Japan in the pop culture wars". The article may be written in late 2012 but it says a lot for me. There are six reasons but I decided to focus on the first and fifth reasons to at least write from a business, innovative perspective.
Competition resulting in innovation in the international market
Here's something to think about Japanese products and their tendency for "exclusivity":
Reason 1: These days, Japan makes stuff mostly for Japan.
Japanese pop culture, like the Japanese archipelago itself, is too isolated from the rest of the world to have remained a sustainable global influence. This is evidenced by the neologism “Japan Galapagos Syndrome,” which compares Japan to the South American island that has its own species and ecology. In 2010, Japanese electronics company Sharp launched a tablet in Japan that was initially sold nowhere else in the world, appropriately called the Galapagos tablet. Similarly, many of Japan’s videogames are for the Japanese market only.
Some say the problem is Japan’s reluctance to learn English and its negative population growth. Others point out that Japan, whose population is 127.8 million, is a huge enough consumer market as it is, and Japanese retailers don’t feel the need to take the huge risk of launching an overseas marketing campaign. (South Korea’s population is less than half that, at 49.8 million).
This reminds me of the time I actually wrote an article called "How Competition Brings Forth Innovation". I think the whole idea of competition influences innovation plays a big factor. How are South Korea and Japan reacting to competition on an international scale? Okay, Japan is open to foreign direct investment (FDI) as much as South Korea. The big difference between South Korea and Japan would be their attitude towards the foreign market outside their countries. Japan, for a long time, has been actively playing in the foreign market. However, I really do still have the beef against Japanese products made for Japan only. Like, why aren't English versions of Toku-based video games available or why did it take a LOOOOONG time for an English translation for Super Robot Wars? Honestly, I still can't get over how I went O_o over that. I wanted to play the Kamen Rider game on PS3 but guess what - NO ENGLISH! I mean, why did it take long for Shout! Factory to give a legal Super Sentai DVD for non-English speakers? Then, shouldn't Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, or whatever similar shows to be on Netflix? Why are there Japanese games made only for JAPAN? Come on Japan, you've got fans out there!
Meanwhile, South Korea is becoming more open to aggressive overseas marketing. Take a look at Netflix for instance. South Korea is now adapting the same style from Taiwan and China more or less. They are aggressively promoting a lot. That means they've got to think of new ideas not just for the sake of it. Now, it's time to do my own simple analysis. If Japanese companies will do that they can certainly take the spotlight back!
How did K-Pop's aggressive approach work? They are forced to constantly go beyond the ideas of their home country. They are now thinking about sorting out ideas in a trial and error process. By making South Korean products for a world market - they are actually coerced to do better if they want to get more of it. You can think that going for platforms like Netflix and i-Flix will always go beyond, "What new stuff will be introduced?" to "What new stuff will be introduced to go against the foreign competition?" If Japanese big corporations will stop producing Japanese-exclusive products and focus on the WORLD MARKET (and make sure there are translations for EVERY country they get into) can they get better again? Apparently, South Korea's entertainment industry has used the Japanese-used tools for the better as a result of aggressiveness!
South Korean entertainment industry's wise use of the Japanese-inspired quality maintenance system
We can also learn from the management innovative system of K-Pop from the same article:
Reason 5: The South Korean recording industry is run like Hyundai and Samsung.
The Korean pop industry is run like Korea’s chaebols (giant Korean conglomerates). Hyundai and Samsung are much closer models to Korean music companies than are EMI or Columbia records. There are only three big Korean recording companies (SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG entertainment), and they own all the distribution channels and every point of entry. Independent talent agencies are insignificant; record labels do all their own recruiting.
They don’t find the star; they make the star. Tiffany, a member of Girls’ Entertainment, was discovered in a California mall and trained for three years and seven months before ever appearing in public.
Like the Monkees or Menudo, the bands exist before the members are picked. There is virtually no room for a Bob Dylan type to start out strumming in coffeeshops and rise out of obscurity.
No US record label would invest the resources to train performers for that many years. A lot can happen to a teenager between the ages of 14 to 18: they could go to another label or turn to drugs. The Korean recording contract, by contrast, is airtight. The performers in K-pop bands are usually not even allowed to date. At all.
The structure of the J-pop industry is superficially similar to that of Korea, but it’s always had one major difference: Japanese pop music is much more experimental and often avant-garde (think of the Plastic Ono Band). They even went through a rockabilly stage in the 1960s (“rokabiri”) and play around with cross-cultural hybrid sounds. South Korean tastes, meanwhile, are factory-made and conventional: the country has never had a hair band.
What can't be denied is that experimentation is important in innovation. Airtight contracts can also translate as "STRICT. QUALITY. CONTROL." That was something the Japanese business pioneered for a very long time but the Japanese entertainment industry seems to have lapsed away from its vision. My recent disappointment has been like how Tekken 7 a game produced by a high innovator like Namco ended up less spectacular than its earlier predecessors. Yes, Tekken 7 was meant for the international market but I guess a lot of Japanese companies got complacent. Also, Street Fighter V was released rather broken and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite actually deserved longtime fans of the franchise to get angry. I feel like everything good I love about Japanese entertainment back then is now better used by South Korean entertainment.
I really thought about watching J-Drama and K-Drama on Netflix. One thing I can say is that the J-dramas as of late tend to be weaker than they used to be. Sure, I can still say that Boys Over Flowers is a terrible South Korean remake of Hana Yori Dango. However, a lot of recent Japanese-inspired shows from South Korea have been good. For example, Gu Family Book takes inspiration from the Inuyasha franchise and made it come to life in its own way. I was also thinking about how K-Drama action shows have had better camera angles than J-Drama action shows. I mean, didn't Japan pioneer a lot of these action shows too aside from Hong Kong and Taiwan? I guess it's time for Japanese entertainment companies to take notes too. I could imagine how companies like Toei Ltd. could actually do better if they decide to be more aggressive with the international market than they already are. That's why I've become more inclined to watch South Korean drama even if I still don't really enjoy K-Pop.
Pretty much, I'm still into Japanese entertainment even if some of its players are in decline. I'm still watching Kamen Rider Zero One though I'm starting to feel a little less excited about Masshin Sentai Kiramager considering that Naruhisa Arakawa may be at a burnout. Then again, maybe it's because Uchu Sentai Kyuranger and Kaito Sentai Lupinranger vs. Keisatsu Sentai Patranger were way better for me? I also think that whole Toei Ltd. has been allowing Super Sentai to be aired as "Power Rangers" (which I feel is just wrong) in South Korea - they might consider getting more aggressive in promoting it again near neighboring countries and other countries. Let Super Sentai get into Netflix and other similar platforms starting with Asian countries and other countries where Toei has a foothold. Maybe, they could actually slowly incorporate Korean filming techniques into Tokusatsu. Hopefully, Kamen Rider Saber will be the start of that the next step of the Reiwa era. Maybe, give Super Sentai a year or two to rest and think about how they can reboot the franchise learning from the Korean entertainment industry.
_____________
I guess it's Japan's turn to learn from South Korea now when it was the other way around earlier. Just think sometimes the teacher will eventually learn from the student. South Korea was that student. Japan was that teacher. Now, it looks like Japan as that teacher will have to learn newer stuff from South Korea. After all, Lotte was a company founded in Japan by South Korean businessman Shin Hyuk Kyo. I think one can say Shin learned a lot of Japanese business principles and may have taught South Korean principles along the way. Korean electronics wouldn't be where they are without the Japanese inventions. I still feel confident that Japanese entertainment can become a bigger worldwide brand. However, it needs a similarly aggressive approach like the South Korean entertainment industry. I'd love to see Japanese entertainment do that while South Korean entertainment exists as its competing force. It's the competition that drives companies to innovate after all.
Here's me crossing my fingers hoping Japan takes a new direction to increase the competition between K-Pop and J-Pop. It's all about competition and learning from it, right?
Comments
Post a Comment