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| Image: Flickr User - Monsieur_Ashiya |
By Matthew Brummer
How Japan’s “Creative Industrial Complex” is using manga to shape public perceptions.
With a reemerging China in great power politics, instability on the Korean Peninsula, ongoing territorial disputes with Russia, and the rise of non-state actors, Japan is recalibrating its national security calculus at a time of changing dynamics in the Asia Pacific. The reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow for collective self-defense and the accompanying structural changes to the country’s institutional fabric gives rise to the notion that Japan’s military industrial complex is poised to come into its own. But how will Tokyo manage its transition to what the Abe administration has termed “proactive pacifism” amidst condemnation from neighboring countries, internal push-back from both rival and coalition political groups, and a citizenry largely conditioned in a culture of non-militarism?
To sell the image of a non-threatening Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) at home and abroad, important both in terms of domestic politics and international diplomacy, Tokyo has and will continue to utilize a web of affective cultural and entertainment resources – the Creative Industrial Complex (CIC) – to influence perceptions of Japan’s military establishment. The alignment between the CIC and the JSDF is nuanced, storied, and important for understanding both how Japan sees its own defense identity and how the international community sees Japan’s military.
Read the full story at The Diplomat