Cute Girls and Soft Power:
AKB48's role in Japanese pop cultural diplomacy at home and abroad

Introduction

In this age of widely accessible information technology, conceptualizations of global power structures are rapidly evolving. No longer are our impressions of distant lands and people filtered through the words and cameras of a select few; on the contrary, many individuals in the developed world possess the capability to occupy international cultural spaces via the internet. This capability places increased importance on soft power in international affairs. Soft power, a term coined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, is defined by US Foreign Service officer Hanscom Smith as “the use of culture, political values, and foreign policies to attract or influence, rather than coerce or induce, the behavior of others” (118). Nye himself defines culture as “the set of practices that create meaning for a society,” and identifies one possible manifestation of culture as “popular culture, which focuses on mass entertainment” (96). This manifestation is exemplified through the globalization of Japanese pop culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Cultural exports such as manga, anime, video games, and music not only expose the international community to the values of Japan, but contribute to the formation of hegemonic national identity both within Japan and abroad. According to Koichi Iwabuchi, sociologist and professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Waseda University, “increased media connection in Asia has encouraged people to critically and self-reflexively reconsider their own life, society and culture as well as socio-historically constituted relations and perceptions with others” (425). On the other hand, Iwabuchi also asserts that Japan’s pop culture diplomacy may garner “indifference, othering and antagonism” from international audiences (425). Therefore, it is most beneficial to examine Japan’s pop culture diplomacy through the lens of one specific export at a time so as to analyze in detail both negative and positive implications of domestic and international cultural impact.

Girl groups have been a staple of Japanese pop culture since the 1960s. In 1964, The French film “Cherchez L’idole” (Searching for an idol/ aidoru o sagase)’s depiction of young singer Sylvie Vartan popularized the term “idol,” transliterated into Japanese as aidoru. The decades since the film’s arrival have seen the rise and fall of numerous female pop idols, both as solo acts and in groups. Groups such as Candies, Pink Lady, Onyanko Club, Speed, and Morning Musume saturated the entertainment market with their catchy music, cute faces, and likeable personalities (whether genuine or performed.) In 2005, Onyanko Club producer Yasushi Akimoto founded a new concept for a locally-based idol group with a permanent theatre in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, a neighborhood famous for its underground popular culture. The group was named AKB48- AKB representing AKiBa, Akihabara’s nickname, and 48 representing the intended number of members. The group’s early years saw modest success, but it was not long before CD sales increased exponentially, allowing the group to surpass all other active idol groups in popularity. In fact, not a single one of the group’s singles has sold less than one million copies since 2011, and they are the highest selling musical act of all time in Japan (Kiuchi 32). However, music is not all they sell, and thus music is not their only contribution to Japanese pop culture. With a system of graduations and auditions, member popularity elections, in-person handshake events, ban on dating, and aesthetic which sexualizes girls as young as middle-school aged, AKB48 has a heavy influence on Japanese pop culture, but can be a difficult phenomenon for someone who is not familiar with Japanese pop culture to understand. Either way, the group’s incredible commercial success endows it with an immense capacity for cultural influence, leading to the question: what role does AKB48 play in Japanese pop culture diplomacy, and how does it impact contemporary interpretations of Japanese identity both within Japan and around the world? To answer this question, I will first examine the role AKB48 plays in the creation of Japanese national identity through analysis of their graduation and audition system, general elections, member sexualization, and ban on dating while in the group. I will then connect these topics to international interpretations of AKB48 through the lens of western news media case studies and the activities of overseas sister groups in order to evaluate the group’s success as “cultural diplomats” and interpret the image of Japanese culture it communicates globally.

Music Video for AKB48's 2009 single "River" (English closed captioning available)

General Elections

Hanscom Smith claims that Japan’s culture “boasts enormous strengths that have little to do with AKB48 and Naruto. The country’s most obvious—and oddly, mostunsung—attribute is a remarkable record of peaceful democracy” (119). However, this statement overlooks the role of democracy in the success of AKB48. Perhaps the most unique and innovative part of the 48 Groups is the senbatsu sousenkyo, or general election. Every year or two, fans are given the opportunity to vote for their favorite member. The members who choose to participate are then ranked from most to least popular, and members of different tiers of popularity are given different levels of opportunity to participate in promotional activities. While this sort of election holds little to no literal political significance, the cultural significance of incorporating democratic activity into the entertainment industry should not be underestimated. If Japanese citizens are disillusioned with national politics, the AKB48 election system gives voice to public opinion without the stress and conflict that often comes with the elections of political leaders, thus incubating national support for democracy. Voting is not free, however; each purchase of a designated CD grants the customer one vote. Mega-fans and those with cash to spare may invest in their favorite girl by buying hundreds, maybe even thousands of CDs. For example, one fan “reportedly spent US$6700 to secure 2700 votes in online auctions” to support his favorite member during the 2012 election. (McCurry). The graph below shows the number of CDs sold for each of the 57 major label singles the group has released. The large pink data points represent the singles preceding senbatsu elections, displaying a significant increase in sales when members’ status is at stake.

The commercial success of AKB48’s general elections suggests a cultural importance placed on democracy as a whole, and encourages individuals to uphold democratic principles outside of the political sphere. However, the costly nature of the elections has drawn criticism within Japan. A 16-year-old student interviewed by Asahi Shinbun compared the senbatsu sousenkyo mega-fans to “shareholders who have a bigger say if they invest more. It's not a genuine election."(McCurry). Even if this statement is true, it displays a potential positive effect of the elections: education about political and economic corruption.

Sexualization

While the members of AKB48 range in age from pre-teens to late twenties, the typical fan is a man old enough to be the members’ father or even grandfather.  Many older male fans describe their relationship to the group and its members as similar to that of uncles supporting their young nieces. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the Korean pop music industry;  Yeran Kim, associate professor at Kwangwoon University’s School of Communications, claims that through the use of this title  “the male’s gaze at young female bodies is legitimized and normalized as the voluntary support and pure love of uncles for their nieces...Thus, with the pretentious reformulation of the male gaze into an uncle’s familial support, the male consumption of girl bodies becomes relieved of the predictable blame for pedophiliac abnormality.” (340) The suggestion of a familial relationship between fans and idols is complicated by the often sexual nature of the group’s activities.

 Many of AKB48’s summer-themed music videos portray the members dancing in bikinis on various beaches. The 2010 music video for “Ponytail to Shushu,” embedded on the right, teases audiences by suggesting the girls’ nudity in a school locker room but always blocking them behind moving objects. Another music video released the same year promoting the single “Heavy Rotation” went a step further by including scenes of many of the members wearing lingerie at a slumber party and occasionally kissing each other. Outside of their musical promotions, many members model in magazines or photobooks. Some of these photoshoots are obvious gravure  as their wardrobes include the aforementioned bikinis, lingerie, and other revealing outfits. On the other hand, photoshoots that appear to be innocent may sexualize innocence itself. The Japanese school gym class swimsuit is modest, but photography that emphasizes the subject’s age by picturing her in such a swimsuit is anything but. Japanese girls and women struggle with sexual harassment and assault, leading to the creation of female-only subway trains where girls can commute to school without fear of being groped. Although most Japanese public schools have strict uniform rules such as minimum skirt length and required hairstyles, sexualization of the uniform prevails. AKB48’s uniform wearing blurs the lines between student and performer, school and sex, child and adult, and normalizes the overlapping of these distinctions in Japanese pop culture as a whole.

Western News Media

  As I mentioned in the introduction, Koichi Iwabuchi claims that  “Indifference, othering and antagonism” from international audiences toward Japan “might also be generated by the spread of Japanese media culture” (425).  In the case of AKB48, the novelty of the group’s activities can easily be described through ethnocentric perspectives in a way which undermines their potential to spread pop cultural soft power. Joseph Nye asserts that “soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others,” and therefore AKB48’s influence has the potential to be subverted by international media outlets (95). Nye goes on to say that “attention rather than information becomes the scarce resource” in a society with widespread access to information via the internet (99). Considering the likelihood that most western audiences do not speak Japanese, English-speaking journalists possess the power to redirect attention to certain aspects of AKB48’s activities and construct their own narratives. In this section, I will examine cultural antagonism as expressed through news articles published in a few major English-language news websites- CNN, The Atlantic,  and The Independent.

The first common trend I observed among these articles was the use of militaristic language to explain the concept of AKB48. In CNN’s account of Minami Minegishi’s head-shaving scandal, author Peter Shadbolt described Minegishi as a “disgraced samurai” who broke the group’s “‘no-romance’ bushido.” These language choices are rooted in history dating back to the feudal era of Japan. By referencing the samurai, or feudal military nobility, and bushido, the code of honor that the samurai followed, Shadbolt draws a connection between a present-day twenty-year-old woman and ancient warriors. While these references acknowledge potential historical cultural influences which may have led to the formation of modern idol culture, they do not provide any further explanation. Shadbolt goes on to refer to AKB48 as a whole as “J-pop’s standing army,” claiming that “The bubblegum empire even has foreign territorial ambitions.” These militaristic metaphors are a sensationalist tactic which bring the reader forward in history to the era of the Second World War, a time which many in the English-speaking world already have strong associations with and emotions related to. However, Japan has not had a true army since the United States formulated their current constitution; the country does not hold the imperial power it once did, nor does it have any immediate foreign territorial ambitions. The author creates a narrative that soft power cultural exports are somehow equivalent to true military power and frames the young women of AKB48 as the aggressors. Other news organizations utilize similar language- name here of the Independent accused AKB48’s producer of “trying to export his empire abroad,” and David McNeill of The Atlantic titled his article “The 48 Japanese Schoolgirls Aiming to Take Over the World.” These language choices suggest that a prevailing association of present-day Japan with World War II-era Japan exists in western cultures. The application of these ideas to AKB48 also suggests that the group may not have the power to influence these interpretations or change them in Japan’s favor.

In addition, some of these articles’ descriptions of AKB48 border on insulting the group, its members, and its fans. Patrick St. Michel of The Atlantic describes their music as “unremarkable” and “the worst tendencies of Europop fused with dinner-theater cheesiness.” This opinion is fair enough in itself, but the article does not consider the possibility that some people do enjoy AKB48’s music or that their music could contribute to their commercial success. He also refers to the members as “48 adult women dressed as school girls,” which is simply not true, as a large percentage of the members are actually middle- and high-school students. The Independent cites Tokyo-based music journalist Steve McClure, who states that “Their music, with its emphasis on group vocals and lack of harmony, ironically reflects the premium placed on group harmony and non-threatening mediocrity by Japanese society and the mass media.” This brief statement makes an overarching claim about Japanese society as a whole without any elaboration within a non-academic context, thereby oversimplifying Japanese culture to an audience who may not care to or have the ability to critically analyze the assertion. Again, AKB48’s potential soft power is subverted by the journalists through which information about the group is filtered. In addition, these statements contain negative implications for Japanese culture as a whole, potentially resulting in AKB48 having a negative impact on western interpretations of Japanese identity.

Influence Throughout Asia

The United States is not unique in its complicated history with Japan; many other countries, especially those located in East and Southeast Asia, have seen great suffering due to the actions of the Japanese imperial army. In fact, the negative feelings harbored toward Japan within these countries often exceeds those felt in the English-speaking world. However, Japanese pop culture exports appear to be largely accepted by modern populations in these regions. Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin, East Asian Studies lecturer and research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, notes that “Although people in East Asia today may not be completely ignorant of Japan’s past wrongdoing and might still be critical of the Japanese government,” Japanese pop culture exports such as anime, manga, and music are readily consumed in locations such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Taiwan, causing young people living there “to associate Japan as home to a dynamic and prosperous cultural industry, rather than just an industrial superpower or an ex-military aggressor” (3). This increase in positive feelings toward Japan exemplifies the potential for pop culture exports to increase Japan’s soft power, and AKB48 is one such export.

Aside from the flagship group and Japanese sister groups, AKB48 has many international sister groups which are either currently active or in the process of beginning activities (likely what Peter Shadbolt was referring to in his mention of “foreign territorial ambitions”). The groups include JKT48 (Jakarta, Indonesia), BNK48 (Bangkok, Thailand), MNL48 (Manila, Philippines), AKB48 Team SH (Shanghai, China), SGO48 (“Saigon 48,” Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), AKB48 Team TP (Taipei, Taiwan), CGM48 (Chiang Mai, Thailand), DEL48 (Delhi, India), and MUB48 (Mumbai, India). The members of these groups are typically native to the countries in which they are active, and songs are recorded in the native language of each respective group. However, the links to Japan and to the flagship group are continuously emphasized in each group’s activities. The international sister groups do not typically produce original music, but rather re-record original AKB48 songs in their own languages, often still including references to the original Japanese lyrics. DEL48’s website immediately opens with the statement “DEL48 is the sister group of the Japanese idol AKB48,” suggesting no desire to distance themselves from the flagship. In addition, JKT48’s 2012 joint concert with AKB48 in Jakarta was sponsored by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy of Indonesia, displaying desire from the governments of both countries to foster friendly cross-cultural relationships (Burhani).

 On January 27, 2019, AKB48 held its first concert event involving 76 members from seven sister groups in Bangkok entitled “AKB48 Group Asia Festival 2019.” During the concert, AKB48 veteran Yui Yokoyama made a speech in which she said “We all came from different regions with different cultures and activities, but I believe we are on one team” (MNL48 Philippines). MNL48’s official website claims that the event was very successful and therefore will be followed by more international crossover events in the future. Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin claims that these sorts of activities “might build new circles of allegiance” among individuals from different cultures (16), so perhaps the cooperation between AKB48 and its overseas counterparts will result in the formation of more positive relationships between individuals from their respective countries in the future.

JKT48's Indonesian adaptation of "Heavy Rotation"