Japanese Cinema and America

Japanese cinema has invaded the Western hemisphere, and most Americans don’t even realize it. Every year it seems there are more Americanized remakes of Japanese horror or science-fiction films, and not long ago samurai movies were a popular source of material for Western flicks. More anime and manga titles are translated and distributed every day, and the rising popularity of these mediums attest to the appetite Western audiences have for Japanese creations. That said, many Americans don’t even realize that what they see on the screen is Japanese in origin. When asked to name a Japanese movie, most Americans would answer Godzilla, but would be unable to name more than two or three movies out of the dozens in the franchise.

How could Japanese cinema permeate Western markets without Westerners being aware of it? To start with, many films brought over to the United States are remade to give them a more ‘American’ flavor, and since the majority of Americans aren’t aware of the Japanese film industry in the first place, these remakes fly under their radars as new movies by new directors. With the release of The Ring, this disregard for the original Japanese films began to dissipate. The American version was so popular and so incorporated into mainstream American cinema that the audiences began to wonder about what Ringu, the original, must be like. Though the popularity of the sub-titled Japanese film never quite rivaled its English-language remake in the States, Americans came away from both movies with a new awareness of the presence and quality of Japanese films (Mes, 261).

The most recognizable film product to emerge from Japan is, of course, Godzilla. Toho Studios, the same company that released such estimable titles as Seven Samurai and Spirited Away, found a cash cow in the King of Monsters. Godzilla has starred in nearly thirty films, including one released in America (Schilling, 20). Despite this proliferation of titles and Godzilla’s worldwide recognition as a huge Japanese success as well as his status as a popular character in Western pop culture, relatively few Godzilla titles have been translated into English or subtitled for release in America, and the American film based on the King of Monsters faced ridicule and critical reviews from the start. In fact, the entire franchise has become so well-known and been spoofed so often in Western culture that the films have unfortunately lost face. Few cinematic scholars will approach seriously the subject of the world’s most famous kaiju eiga (giant monster film) due to the stigma of pop culture (Mes, 309).

New movies with Japanese origins are released in the United States every year, from old classics like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Rashomon to newer releases such as Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and Hayao Miyazaki’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle, and even more movies are remade for mass release in American theaters, including titles like Dark Water and One Missed Call. Japanese movies abound in modern American culture, indicating that there is something about these films that speaks to a part of American audiences that is otherwise ignored by Western filmmakers.

Works Cited

Mes, Tom. The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005.

Schilling, Mark. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999.

This was a small (2 page, double spaced) essay for an anthropology class. Not my favorite thing I ever wrote, but it was pretty fun to look into the history of Japanese film. I just wish I'd had more room to play with it!