The Soft Power of Hello Kitty
On 31 January 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron published a photo on his Twitter profile announcing the launch of a culture bonus dedicated to young people between 15 and 17 years of age. In the photo you can glimpse a stack of books, in which, between a volume of the Mémoires of General de Gaulle and a book by Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, you can glimpse the #100 issue of One Piece, the very popular manga by Eichiro Oda. The question arises spontaneously: how did a manga comic arrive on the desk of a European head of state? Leaving aside inquiries about the French president's passion for manga comics, the answer can only be one: soft power.
The concept of soft power, developed in the late 1990s by Joseph Nye, refers to a new form of diplomacy and a new way through which a country can express its will to power without resorting to coercion. Soft power indicates the degree of attraction and fascination that a state manages to exert on others, managing to manipulate their tastes, behaviors and interests. In other words, the soft power a country has depends on the image of itself that it manages to project onto the international sphere, and therefore on the reputation that it enjoys. It is the ability to become and export a cultural model. And Japan is one of the most powerful countries globally in terms of soft power.
Through manga, it is all Japanese culture that is highlighted, so that we talk about Cool Japan (an expression coined in 2002 by Douglas McCray in his article “Gross National Cool in Foreign Policy”). Cool Japan modernizes the cultural image of Japan which until a few decades ago was limited to samurais, geishas and ukiyoe: manga culture, and kawaii – a term that can be translated as awfully cute, and the ambassador of kawaii is certainly Hello Kitty – are the pillars.
It is interesting to underline how the current Japanese influence in terms of soft power is not the result, at least not initially, of a specific and organic policy of cultural self-promotion undertaken by the government. Only in the second half of the 2000s did the Japanese government decide to use manga culture to promote its national image abroad. In fact, starting from 2007, thanks especially to the efforts of the then Foreign Minister Taro Aso, the promotion of soft power rose to the rank of cornerstone of the country's international strategy. Thus the Gaimu-shō (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) starts being a major sponsor of the World Cosplay Summit, the convention of cosplayers (people dressing in the costumes of the protagonists of manga comics, anime movies, and video games), which thus becomes an opportunity for exchanges and meetings under the sign of Japanese culture.
Manga have thus entered Western and Italian everyday life; it is no longer surprising that mainistream media give prominence to Lucca Comics&Games or to the releases of anime movies in cinemas or manga graphic novels in bookshops. Similarly, it is no longer a novelty to see trains or trams "dressed" with manga characters or temporary stores emerging in large cities that are devoted to manga merchandising.
An instance that is perhaps most illustrative of the penetrating force of Japanese soft power is represented by the fact that mainstream Anglo-Saxon culture - strongly in decline - is attempting to relaunch itself by riding on wings of manga popularity manga. It may suffice to say that one of Netflix's most recent successes is the live action adaptation of the One Piece story. The American film industry cyclically looks at manga characters and their franchises to revitalize its fortunes, with results that are currently more negative than positive (e.g. the live action adaptations of Death Note, Cowboy Bebop or even Drangonball), a creative lifeblood that between spin-offs, sequels, prequels and reboots it seems to have dried up.
Certainly, the relative decline of the United States in cultural industries has contributed to Japan’s success; at the same time the Japanese industry strove to adapt to the massification of cultural production and its instantaneous diffusion on a global scale.
translated by Alex Foti
