“Fresh Japanese Wave Threatens Korean Pop Culture”
The Chosunilbo is carrying a story about the “Japanese Wave” and it’s potential to overcome the “Korean Wave”. To keep the bad metaphor alive, I like to refer to the “Japanese Wave” as the “Japanese Tsunami”.
The article worries about the lack of creativity in home-grown Korean stories that has led to some of the more recent popular TV Drama’s and Movies to be remakes of Japanese one’s and how this is showing a decline in the “Korean Wave”.
But I don’t see this as a bad thing. Most Japanese TV Drama’s and Movies are based on Japanese books and Mangas, just like the Korean one’s that are being discussed in the article. There are a lot of quality stories being conceived and written in Japan, but as most anyone who lives here in Japan knows, Japanese produced TV Drama’s and Movies greatly lack in quality.
The situation is almost the exact opposite of that in Korea where Movies and Drama’s are very well produced, however can be lacking a quality story. To me, Korean produced Japanese stories seems like a perfect combination where everyone wins. The Koreans can produce a much better product then the Japanese could, thus giving us the consumers a better product to enjoy. A great example of this would be Old Boy, a great Korean movie originally based on a Japanese manga of the same name. Had a Japanese production company made that into a movie it probably would have sucked, but the Koreans pulled it off beautifully.
As a consumer, this is a welcome trend and not something to be apprehensive about. The article ends with Bae Won-keun, a researcher at the KPRI, saying, “the entertainment industry should make more effort to cultivate young writers with fresh ideas.” And while I agree there should always be made an effort made to keep young people creative, I would hardly call it a shame that Korean production companies are working with Japanese authors. If anything, the act of using Japanese stories is creative business, and something that is only possible in free economies such as what can be found in Japan and Korea.
HT: Japan Probe
