2013. Yasufumi Ono made comments about the state of Japanese gaming at the Infinity Ventures Summit in Kyoto. Currently, Japan controls a mere 30% of the market share in North America and only 13% worldwide. The horn of plenty has become a trombone of self-doubt. Why isn’t the world buying Japanese games anymore? Has Japan lost its touch?

There are several factors at play here. When Japan swooped in to grasp the field mouse that was U.S. gaming, that mouse was dead. Thankfully Japan brought the mouse back to life and became the sole devourer of its innards. Today there is more than one falcon-country eyeing those rodent intestines, namely the U.S., South Korea, and Finland.

Also, Japan doesn’t make the games that western countries presently want to play, games in the “Call of Battlefield: Ghost Ops II” category. Japan makes games more along the lines of Dungeon Monster DX: The Fire! Time was, you could take your Dungeon Monster games and package them so your average Todds and Brandons would buy them. That’s been a challenge Japan has yet to surmount in this modern era. But why is this such a challenge if it wasn’t before?

Instant Connection

When we hear a story, our mind does its best to connect us to the story’s main character. We want to get to know that character so we can become the hero and experience the tale explicitly. In traditional storytelling, this is no easy task. It takes a witch’s brew of situation, exposition, and time to make a character connection with an audience. And few writers ever know what’s going to work in a given story.

Video games don’t have this problem. It’s a unique storytelling medium. The connection a game character has to the player is almost immediate. My go-to storytelling guru, Scott McCloud, best explains why, by summarizing philosophy first put forth by Marshall McLuhan:

When driving, for example, we experience much more than our five senses report. The whole car—not just the parts we can see, feel and hear—is very much on our minds at all times. The vehicle becomes an extension of our body. It absorbs our sense of identity. We become the car. If one car hits another, the driver of the vehicle being struck is much more likely to say: “Hey! He hit me!!” than “he hit my car!” or “his car hit my car,” for that matter.

So, in touching and controlling the car, your mind makes the car an extension of yourself. The same happens when playing a game. That touch of the controller and your control over the avatar gives your mind the same connection. The hero is a virtual extension of you. You become the hero as soon as you start the game.

This explains why games with subpar stories can still be great games. Your connection to the experience is immediate and doesn’t require a fantastic story to draw you in. If the game is enjoyable, you keep playing because you like your role as the hero. But what happens when you don’t like the hero you become?

Different Heroes For Different Hemispheres

Back to the Inifinity Ventures Summit (we were talking about that, right?). Some interesting statements were made by Sega/Sammy president, Hajime Satomi. Read below his hypothesis on why Japanese games fail to make an impact in the U.S. And Europe:

Europeans and North Americans like strong people, so the main character has to be a fully-grown, middle-aged man. On the other hand, in Asia, people like stories about middle or high school students growing up or becoming stronger. As you make games for more dedicated players, I think you have to be aware of those differences.

This makes sense when you consider characters from best-selling games in the U.S. from the past ten years: Kratos, Nathan Drake, Master Chief, Niko Bellic, Marcus Fenix, and that hooded guy from Assassin’s Creed. All severely grizzled, middle-aged combat types.

Compare that with some of Japan’s top character picks, plucked from a Famitsu poll of readers’ favorite characters: Link, Sora, Yuri Lowell, Sakura Shinguji, and Cloud Strife. All very ungrizzled and full of youthful optimism for the adventures of life (until they enter the job market).

There is some crossover, of course. Both east and west love Chris Redfield, Solid Snake, Link and Cloud. But there is something to Satomi’s ideas. There is clearly a difference in hero preference between hemispheres.

So if Japan once ruled the western gaming market, they must have created games with middle-aged heroes. Not necessarily.

Let’s Compare Some Box Art!

This is a simple exercise. I will present three games released both in Japan and the U.S. We will observe the in-game pixelated sprites that represent the main character(s) and the art on the boxes for the Japanese and U.S. releases of the game. Let’s begin.

DOWNTOWN NEKKETSU MONOGATARI vs. RIVER CITY RANSOM

The in-game character looks pretty cartoony. Could be any age.

Japanese Box Art:

The Japanese release of the game suggests the characters are young high school students.

US Box Art:

But the U.S. release suggests they are weird 36-year-old dudes! Despite that “River City High School” sign behind them, these two are clearly just there to pick up their kids from baseball practice.

ROCKMAN 2 vs. MEGA MAN 2

The age-neutral Mega Man sprite we know and love.

Japanese Box Art:

Japan gets some great art that actually looks a good deal like our robot friend on the screen.

U.S. Box Art:

America gets a welder with a broken foot and ray gun. He’s a weirdo, but he’s a grown-up combat weirdo!

DRAGON QUEST II vs. DRAGON WARRIOR II

Here’s the in-Game Characters – Japan & U.S.

These in-game characters could be impetuous teens or seasoned adventurers.

Japanese Box Art:

The art for Dragon Quest II features Akira Toriyama’s youthful depictions of the heroes, which have become a staple of the series.

U.S. Box Art:

The American release of Dragon Warrior II is, again, a band of fully-grown adults. These heroes promised each other in college that when they turned 40, they would reunite for a quest to Las Vegas.

Finding Ourselves

So what does this box art comparison mean, exactly? I’ll get to that in a second.

The heroes on our TV screens during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras were less defined and more iconic, and thus more easily interpreted. I touched on this in my article about Hello Kitty, so for a more detailed and Tom Hanks-oriented explanation of icons.

But there was another force at play, helping us interpret our pixel friends. That force is confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the psychological effect of your mind to favor information that coincides with your preconceptions. Traditionally, confirmation bias is used to describe how we gather information to make rational (or irrational) decisions. Recently, however, a young philosophy blogger named Sam McNerney introduced this idea:

If we are defining confirmation bias as a tendency to favor information that confirms our previously held beliefs, it strikes me as ironic to think that it is almost exclusively discussed as a hindrance to knowledge and better decision-making…With such a broad definition, I think it also explains our aesthetic judgments… Put differently, confirmation bias influences our aesthetic judgments just as it does any other judgment.

Since the pixelated hero images transmit so little information as to what they are, players needed the box art to confirm their bias of what they wanted to see, in this case, their bias of what they think, aesthetically, a hero should look like. Japanese gamers’ biases said, “this pixelated image is a youngling,” and the box art confirmed their bias. Western gamers’ biases said, “this pixelated image is muscular manbeast,” and their different box art confirmed their different bias.

Since video games, as we said earlier, offer an instant connection for the player, it is imperative that the player like that connection. Giving players the chance to connect to the heroes they wanted to be helped to ensure they would not put down the controller and, furthermore, keep buying games.

The Beginning Of The End

So that’s it. Everyone was happy, and all it took was paying two artists to do the same job. It’s easier to sell people what they expect than to challenge their perceptions. Unfortunately, this box art trick got harder to pull off as console gaming entered the world of polygons in 1995. Keeping the hero’s in-game appearance ambiguous got a little trickier.

Such was the case with The Legend of Zelda‘s transition from 2D to 3D. For the most part, early polygonal models could still be interpreted by both cultures as the heroes they wanted to be. And so it was with 1998’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64. EVERYONE loved this game. The main character, Link, started out as a kid but later grew into an adult. But what kind of adult? A grizzled one, probably.

How old is this adult Link? Fifteen or thirty-five?

When the first Zelda game for the 128-bit Gamecube was announced, Americans eagerly anticipated their powerful adult Link to appear in new, beautifully rendered 12 million polygons per second! It was at this point Nintendo thought it would be a good idea to have Link represented as a very cartoony boy child in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Americans went nuts. Angry nuts! Link had always been an elfin lad since the very beginning, according to the series’ story, but in pixel world and the American mind, he was nice and grizzled. For the first time, gamers were faced with a Link they could not interpret to their liking. Despite The Wind Waker being a gaming triumph, it sold a mere 3.07 million copies worldwide, compared to Ocarina of Time’s 7.6 million.

It was around this time, Japan’s control over the gaming industry began to wane. Of course, it was not solely due to the unambiguous heroes. The Xbox launched with incredible success in 2001, eating away at a large part of the North American market share previously held by Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. American video game companies, having learned from two decades of great Japanese games, started making games just as good or better. The spike in popularity that Japanese pop culture saw in 1999 was diminishing by the mid 2000’s, banishing anime from general acceptance back to the cavern of the nerds, which also meant the unmistakably Japanese video game heroes were banished as well (unless they were grizzled).

In our modern era, we have our two camps making games for themselves. American game companies churning out gritty power lunks and Japanese companies churning out sleek action teens. And we like it that way, apparently. Only a small fraction from each side is interested in games from the other.

The Sun Also Rises

2014. In a few months, the next Infinity Ventures Summit will be held in Sapporo and the Japanese gaming industry will gather once again to discuss the future, the past being a non-issue. The truth is, Japan will likely never again rule the video game world as it once did. The special circumstances of an evacuated market and technology that was easily localized is gone forever. Global competition and the advent of mobile/social gaming has changed the industry so nobody knows what to expect anymore. (BIRDS being angry at PIGS?! Nobody saw that one coming.)

But that’s okay. Industries change. When Georges Méliès and the Edison Trust dominated the film industry, it was only a matter of time before other artists from around the world said, “I want to do that, too!” Film expanded until people loved it so much that certain individuals began making films simply as artistic expression.

The Infinity Ventures Summit is a gathering of companies, so their primary concern should be how to sucker people out of money (using video games, hopefully). But games are made by artists, so I hope when these artists gather in May, they will talk, at least individually, about how to move video games forward as medium, how to push boundaries and make something people have never seen before. There will always be success in giving people what they expect. But there is a truer reward in creating something that changes peoples’ minds.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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Sources:

• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
• Why doesn’t Japan like first-person shooters? Old characters and World War II, says Sega exec, by Casey Baseel
• Confirmation Bias and Art, by Samuel McNerney
• LVLs. Cultural Anxiety Features
• Famitsu’s Top 50 Video Game Characters

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Anyone living in Japan can tell you that the words internationalization (国際化›) or globalization (グロバール化) are popular catchphrases now. Schools, companies and wider society are all caught up in this great wave called “Go Global”.

As a foreign student in Japan though, I can’t help but wonder – for a term that has gained such traction, no one has actually defined what  “internationalization” means. At first glance, it may seem like there are many credible attempts at increasing the international input in Japan but the inside story is far more mixed.

In essence, does my presence make my university make it a global institution? Does a good TOEFL score make someone a more global person? Do companies with many foreign employees automatically become global enterprises?

The Background

Right Outside the United Nations University in Tokyo

Let’s start at the background first. The current wave of  internationalization started a few years ago and has been first and foremost driven by economic reasons.

While Japanese car makers have still been doing relatively well, electronics makers have been doing very poorly. Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and Fujitsu have all been facing losses in recent years. The problem is even clearer when contrasted to the successes of Apple, Google and other silicon valley enterprises in the US and Samsung in Korea. After all, while Japanese phones used to be considered as the best – now the the best selling phone in Japan is the iPhone.

Other economic reasons include increasing moves towards free trade (like for example the Trans-Pacific Partnership) which Japan is negotiating about. In addition, a shrinking population has increased the need to increase overseas business for many Japanese firms.

Outside economics, Prime Minister Abe has also stated that it is his aim to put at least 10 Japanese universities in the global top 100 rankings by the end of the decade. The lack of international faculty and a sizable international student body hampers this. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are also another reason for the sense of urgency in internationalization.

So What’s Being Done?

Mikitani Hiroshi, CEO of Rakuten

Japan as a country has realized (belatedly) that a long reliance on a large domestic market, the homogeneity in the workforce and poor language skills have been reasons for stagnation and poor competitiveness. It is because of this that many Japanese firms are increasing their attempts at hiring non-Japanese employees.

Some parts of the business world have also been expanding their operations overseas – and I don’t mean just shifting manufacturing to where it is cheaper. Rakuten’s buying of Viber, Softbank acquiring Sprint Corporation and LIXIL acquiring multiple overseas companies are all examples for a recent trend where Japanese companies purchase foreign ones.

Rakuten in particular deserves special attention because they have made their company language English. As Japan Times reported, even internal meetings are to be held in English. Both praise and criticism have been directed at it though – Honda’s (yes the car maker’s) president once called the plan “stupid”.

Universities have also come under pressure to develop  global leaders and “internationally capable manpower”. Many have for example, made taking the TOEFL (an English proficiency tests) compulsory for all enrolled students – even to the extent that my American friend studying in Nagoya had to take it.

Some universities have also implemented degree programs in English to increase the international study body. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has also been supporting these programs with their Global 30 program.

Similarly, there have been increasing attempts to increase the number of Japanese students going abroad for their studies – which is at the moment far fewer than the number that South Korea and China send. Including for example, this video produced by AKB48 in conjunction with the MEXT to encourage people to go overseas to study. (My school makes an appearance too!)

In addition, MEXT also announced that they would be revamping the much criticized English education system in Japan – because if you can’t communicate with the world, you can’t possibly internationalize. Proposed measures include reforming the English syllabus, lowering the age at which students start having English classes and even implementing the TOEFL as a component of university entrance examinations.

But Is It Enough?

But first my own definition. As I said before, while everybody is talking about “globalization” and “internationalization”, no one has actually defined it properly. By “internationalization” here I mean gaining the ability to operate – and compete – on an international stage. It also means being actively engaged in the world, and accepting of the wider world as opposed to looking inwards. Regardless of the actual definition of what internationalization is etc., it’s often more clear what it is not.

Back to the question. The efforts above are pointing in the correct direction and I don’t mean to say otherwise. Increasing the numbers of foreigners in Japanese companies and schools is certainly important because without foreigners there can be no foreign input.

However, a lot more needs to be done and there are deeper issues that have to be resolved. Consider Japan’s immigration system for example. Japan remains one of the hardest countries around to gain permanent citizenship for without marriage to a Japanese person. One acquaintance of mine has been living in Japan for more than 10 years and did his professorship in a Japanese university. He was denied permanent residency last year.

Many companies may also be open to hiring foreigners but utilizing them after they enter the company is an entirely different question. After all, the one thing that I keep hearing from other foreigners working in Japan is that they are treated “like Japanese who just speak another language”.

This may sound good but it is not. For one, this means that many Japanese companies expect compliance to Japanese hierarchy and unquestioning top-down company culture even towards their foreign employees. And if you can’t question and voice your opinions, what internationalization can there be?

What About Schools Then?

Cherry Blossoms at the International Christian University in Tokyo

Schools (I am more familiar with this subject) present an entirely different set of problems. For one, there are some schools which offer “English courses” – taught by Japanese professors with an inadequate command of English. Being able to read and write papers in English does not automatically qualify someone to teach in it.

Furthermore, foreign student integration is an issue. Now, this does not apply to all schools – some are quite successful in integrating the foreign and local student bodies. Furthermore, if the student is studying in Japanese this isn’t that big a problem.

However, it is not uncommon for foreign students to be living in entirely separate dormitories from Japanese students. The classes that foreign students take may be entirely closed to Japanese students. Alternatively, even if they are open to enrollment by Japanese students, the fact that they are in English puts off most Japanese students such that only a small, select bunch participate in them.

What this leads to is foreign students living in a virtually separate world from their Japanese classmates. This does not just tend to socially isolate foreign students and alienate them, but this also adds zilch to the “internationalization” of the education of Japanese students.

There Is A Lot More To Be Done

Narita Airport

This topic is far more complex than can be summarized in a single article and there are many factors mixed and scrambled around here. For example, there are problems in the systems (eg. the permanent residency system and school class systems), the numbers of foreigners (even Tokyo has only 3% foreign population) and deeper cultural problems (eg. Japanese company culture).

It seems to me that Japanese attempts to internationalize by bringing in more foreigners, enforcing standards of English etc. are simply fulfilling the prerequisites of internationalization. This does not necessarily mean internationalization itself. Because yes, without foreigners, there can be no foreign input. And without a degree of English, global communication is often difficult.

But there are deeper problems such as homogeneity which need to be addressed too. To me at least, how global Japan will become will largely rest on efforts to tackle the deeper problems and not just those on the surface.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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A Konkatsu History

The emergence of online dating sites in Japan started in 2003 with sites such as 「ブライダルネット」(also known as IBJ) which translates to “Bridal Net”, and “Excite”, the formal name for which is 「エキサイト恋愛結婚」(Excite Marriage for Love). Following that in 2005, Yahoo also launched their own similar site. A couple years later in 2007, the term “konkatsu” was coined and used for the first time in an article of Aera magazine. One year following that, in 2008, a book entitled 「婚活時代」(The Generation of Marriage Hunting) was published, authored by Momoko Shirakawa and sociologist Masahiro Yamada. Yamada is also known for coining the term “parasite singles” which refers to a single person beyond their late 20s who still lives with their parents. And often, it is used with a negative connotation toward young, unmarried women. The book「婚活時代」is available on Amazon here. It is what really popularized the term “konkatsu”, getting the word nominated for the annual buzzwords-of-the-year contest of 2008.

The konkatsu trend also had economic support. Along with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Inc, the economy plummeted which fueled the concern and potential realities of becoming economically unstable. And thus began the race to find financial stability through marriage. And as with most things in Japan, once it got popular, it boomed.

The Golden Age Of Konkatsu

Japan capitalized on this recession-induced trend that put konkatsu into its golden age. There was a rise in konkatsu businesses such as an influx in dating websites and specialized cafes, and the emergence of television shows and drama series. The public popularization of marriage hunting in Japan allowed people to become more open about actively hunting for a marriage partner.

Another side concept that arose from the konkatsu boom was known as an “earthquake marriage” (震災婚 – shinsai kon). The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster is said to have brought up a desire for their partners and a desire for marriage in people.

Local governments have also been known to encourage konkatsu activities by providing a variety of financial support to konkatsu mixers, seminars, day trips, and group dates, to name a few. An example of this is the city of Itoigawa, which was highlighted in an article from Japan Pulse. Local governments wanted to support marriage-hunting activities in hopes of increasing the birth rate in Japan, which had also been on the decline. Aside from providing financial support to businesses, local governments have also been known to promote konkatsu by offering meeting places for single men and women. For example, in Miura City of Kanagawa Prefecture where agriculture is a point of focus, they organized konkatsu events that would raise awareness on the lack of future farmers. Another example is Urayasu City in Chiba Prefecture and their sponsored konkatsu event at the Disney Resort hotel.

Shift In Marriage Ideology

Japan’s average marrying age has been steadily getting higher. In the 1970s the average marrying age was 25 and currently it stands at around 30. On top of this there is some pressure for women of marrying age to get married. Unmarried women above the age 25 are sometimes referred to as “leftover Christmas cake” (because you eat Christmas Cake on Christmas, the 25th) and feel as though it will be harder for them to find a husband the older that they get.

Even though the concept of “konkatsu” has boomed in Japan, 1 in 5 males and 1 in 10 females still say they will not get married, which is an increase compared to 30 years ago. According to a survey conducted by Japanese magazine Joshi Spa!, 33.5% of the 37,610 participants didn’t see any benefit to getting married. The largest age group that showed no interest in marriage were those people in their 30s. At first glance, this seems like a lot. However, according to a study conducted for an NHK special, the percentage of men and women who still hope for marriage is high: 89% of women want to get married, and 86% of men said they would like to get married. And the number of people who work hard to appeal to potential partners is also increasing. But even though this is the case, it still doesn’t seem as though Japan is seeing high marriage rates. Why is that?

Relationships Between Money and Marriage

It could be because for women, the potential for financial stability in a receding economy is top priority. A majority of women hope to marry a man who has an annual income of $60,000 USD or higher. However, only 4% of men who are 20-30 years of age meet this high salary requirement. The average salary for the 30-year-old age group is between $38,000-$42,000 USD. The want for financial stability when getting married is what is continuing to drive the decision to find a marriage partner. One woman who is in the middle of marriage hunting explained that while she isn’t looking for a life of luxury, it is necessary for her to be able to live each day-to-day comfortably. A survey showed that 37.6% of men aged 30-39 years with a salary of $60,000 USD or higher are married. 9.6% have never had a significant other. 22% of participants recorded that they have a significant other, and 29.8% recorded that they did not. Comparing this to 30-year-old men with a salary of $30,000 USD or less, the discrepancy is quite big. Only 9.3% of men with a $30,000 USD or lower salary are married, and only 18.4% have significant others. 38.8 % recorded that they are currently not seeing anybody, and 33.6% have never been in a romantic relationship.

Saving Up For The Wedding

In some countries, such as in the US, it may be customary to build up some kind of marriage fund to use toward a wedding and getting started into that new life. According to some surveys, there are a percentage of people in Japan who do save up for marriage as well, but my impression was that it is relatively low considering the surge in the marriage hunting activities that Japan saw.

According to a survey conducted by Excite, the majority of women (38.9%) answered that they do not really have wedding funds. Only 8% of women surveyed were consciously saving up to get married and 10.5% of the women surveyed were expecting their wedding funds to come from their significant other. Looking at the men’s results from the same question regarding marriage funds asked by Excite, the majority of men (34.1%) answered to having some kind of marriage fund. 23.5% of the men surveyed answered that they are actively setting aside money for getting married, which is more than double of the number of women who answered the same. Per the results above, it seems possible that men are more likely than women to assume that they will need to shoulder the responsibility of putting out money for the wedding.

BIGLOBE also conducted a survey in 2010 regarding finances for weddings that compared men and women, both married and unmarried. Over 50% of both married men and women said that they needed financial assistance from their parents for wedding funds. 71% of unmarried men and 62% of unmarried women answered that they did not think they would need parental assistance whereas roughly 30% of those surveyed said they would need that support.

In regard to saving up to get married, 10% of unmarried male participants said they were not saving up to get married, while 8% of unmarried female participants said they were not saving. Out of the married men and women who participated, 10% of males and 12% of females said they did end up saving. As for how much they were saving, the majority of married males saved between $20,000-$30,000 USD (18%) and the majority of married females saved between $10,000-$20,000 USD (20%). For the unmarried participants, the majority for both genders expressed wanting to save $20,000-$30,000 USD (17% and 20% for men and women, respectively) toward marriage. The full survey results can be found in the links at the bottom of the article.

The Economics Behind Konkatsu

There does appear to be some conscientious thought about money in relation to saving up for a wedding but most of the emphasis seems to be on how much money one will have after getting married. Economic factors, including the recession and the knowledge that there is more stability in a two-income houseold, appear to have induced marriage-seeking in Japan. However, according to some reports, the financial standards set by women are also quite high, which gives the impression that the majority of women are marrying for money. What do you think the financially driven reasons for wanting to get married along with the financial limitations placed on potential partners will do to the continuing generations of marriage in Japan?

Sources:

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
• http://www.japantoday.com/catego…
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ama…
• http://www.nhk.or.jp/shutoken/2…
• http://nensyu-labo.com/2nd-nend…
• http://www.biglobe.co.jp/press/20…
• http://wedding.excite.co.jp/vote/…
• http://wedding.excite.co.jp/vote…
• http://blog.japantimes.co.jp/ja…
• http://fpcj.jp/en/useful-en/wjn-e…
• http://wedding.excite.co.jp/spec…
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Japan’s special take on cute is unique enough that we even borrow the word “kawaii” in English to talk about it. But although there is some cultural variation in the details, cute is very much a universal concept, and you might be surprised at the fundamental role it plays in human psychology.

What is Cute, Exactly?

What makes something cute? Think about how characters and toys based on animals look compared to their real-life counterparts. Compare the bear above to this teddy bear:

Or take our friend the ubiquitous tanuki statue and his wild cousin:

…versus…

What are the differences? The snouts are shorter (in some teddy bears it’s gone, or close to it). The head and eyes are big and round. The legs are stubby and rounder and generally, everything is softer and more rounded than in real life.

But why are these the particular features that turn a dangerous animal that could bite your head off, like a bear, into something that makes us go “awwwwwww”? Scientists have actually thought about this subject, starting with the zoologist and ethologist Konrad Lorenz in the 1940s.

Lorenz proposed that the features that make up “cute” are all characteristic of human infants. We coo and squeal at the sight of heads that are large for their bodies, little button noses, and chubby, soft bodies. It also doesn’t hurt if the critter has a floppy, clumsy gait like a human toddler.

Basically, the more a a cartoon character or animal is like a human baby, the cuter it is. One interesting thing that shows this is the importance of round forward-facing eyes like humans have. An animal with eyes on the front of its face, like a panda, looks cuter to us than one with eyes on the sides of its head, like a horse. (If you don’t believe it, check out the next photo, which shows that if you want to turn a a horse into something absolutely horrifyingly cute, you move its eyes to the front of its face.)

Why The Short Face?

Lorenz theorized that there’s an evolutionary reason that these characteristics make you want to grab something and cuddle it. Human babies need a lot of care. If you’re a giraffe, your baby can stand up and run within moments of birth. If you’re a frog, you dump a whole bunch of eggs somewhere and get on with your life, figuring at least one of your hundreds of offspring will manage to survive on its own. But if you’re a human, your baby needs constant attention for months.

So the reason we go “awwww” in response to babies has an obvious evolutionary explanation: the people who reacted that way to round, soft creatures with big heads had babies that survived better. Those babies grew up to have more babies, and passed on the genes for wanting to cuddle things that look that way. On the other hand, the people who didn’t react that way to cute features would be more likely to leave their babies lying around in dangerous places, forget to feed them, etc. So resistance to cuteness would tend to eliminate itself from the gene pool.

This response is now so ingrained in our brains that we react the same way even when it has no evolutionary advantage to our species. We’re just as smitten by pandas as by human infants, despite the fact that they have no benefit to the survival of the human race whatsover. And we even create stuff that has those features, like Hello Kitty, sewage-treatment-plant mascots, and teddy bears. So if you’re one of those people who thinks all that cute stuff is stupid? Blame it on the babies.

This Is Your Brain On Cute

Psychologists have actually experimentally tested Lorenz’s theory that those specific features of “cute” result in a care-giving impulse. One study, for example, manipulated photos of real babies to make their heads more or less round, etc, and found that photos with more of those characteristics were rated as cuter, and made subjects feel more strongly that they wanted to care for them.

But research has also shown that cuteness has other effects – both positive and negative.

There’s one recent study out of Japan that’s probably going to be good news for everyone reading this. You’re on the Internet, so the odds are high that you spend some of your time at work looking at photos and videos of cats – or, if you’re not a cat fan, of whatever other cute animal floats your boat.

No doubt you try to hide this apparently time-wasting behavior, but instead, maybe you should send your boss a link to this article titled The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus. The research reported shows that looking at pictures of cute animals might actually help you to do your work better.

Two different kinds of tasks were used in the experiment. One was a game called Bilibili Dr. Game which is like the American game Operation. If you’ve never played, it’s a game where you have to remove very tiny body parts from very small openings on a “patient”, using very tiny tweezers.

The subjects played the game, and then they were shown photos: Either of dogs and cats, or of cute puppies and kittens. Then they played the game again, and the people who saw puppies and kittens got better scores the second time around. They also took longer to play the game, so the researchers concluded that seeing cute animals made them do their work more deliberately and carefully.

If your job doesn’t involve the same kind of fine motor control as the game of Operation, you may think this study won’t convince your boss to count looking at Cute Overload as work. Never fear! The experimenters also used another task, which involved looking for certain numbers in a large matrix.

Subjects also did better on this task after looking at photos of puppies and kittens, so the researchers concluded that cute animals made people more attentive. And there’s no job that doesn’t benefit from careful attention, right? So surf away for the those cute kitties.

Cute: The Dark Side

Other research has shown that the effect of cuteness isn’t always so benign. If you’ve ever told a baby that it was so cute you wanted to eat it up, you’ve experienced the effect studied in another recent study: cute animals actually make people feel more aggressive.

Subjects were shown a slideshow including cute baby animals, animals in silly situations, and “neutral” adult animals. One group was asked to rate how much the photos made them want to squeeze something or give an aggressive “want to eat it up” sort of response. The cute pictures made them feel that way more often. Then, another group actually put their money where their mouth was: they were popping bubble wrap while watching the slideshow. They popped an average of 120 bubbles when looking at the cute photos, compared to 100 for neutral ones and 80 for the silly ones.

Cute Clouds The Mind

Maybe being more aggressive at popping bubble wrap seems like no big risk, but there are lots of real-life situations where our uncontrollable response to cuteness affects our judgement about important matters.

For example, you probably wouldn’t hesitate to walk right up to a cute little Chihuahua and pet it, while you might cross the street to avoid a big dog. Turns out you’ve got it exactly backwards. There are fashions in what breeds are considered dangerous, but from German shepherds in the 1960s through Rottweilers and Dobermans to pit bulls nowadays, the breeds considered dangerous are always large ones. But the truth is, as this study showed, the dogs that are most aggressive towards humans are cute little guys: Dachshunds, Chihuahuas and Jack Russell Terriers.

Even professionals who work with animals are not immune to the bad influence of cuteness. A paper in the journal Conservation Biology showed that cute animals are much more likely to be studied by scientists and to get funding for their conservation. Apparently even scientists aren’t attracted to animals because they’re important to their ecosystems or more endangered: it’s more important that they be fuzzy, with 500 times more published studies on large furry mammals than on slimy little amphibians.

Cute animals also cloud our judgment about our fellow humans. An experiment in France found that women were three times more likely to give a guy their phone number if he was walking a cute dog, and another showed that a panhandler more than doubled his income when he had a dog.

So if you always considered “cute” to practically equal “harmless,” maybe you better think again. I have to wonder, how many other ways is cute messing with our minds that science hasn’t found out about yet? How is this affecting the psychology Japan, the “Kingdom of Cute”? Will they all just one day snap and eat each other up?

You know, that Hello Kitty…. I always thought there was something a little sinister about her. Now I know why.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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Additional Reference:

• New York Times: The Cute Factor

This ”Power Rangers” jazz was a huge success with American kids straight away. And why not? It was capitalizing off of a show that had been perfecting the art of firing lasers at aliens since 1975. However, few people at that time, myself included, had any idea that there was anything foreign about the Power Rangers. As I grew up and left this childhood show behind, I eventually discovered the show from whence it came, Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger, and watching it was a total mind bender.

The monsters and costumes in ZyuRanger were cemented in my brain as mine, but the stories surrounding them were unfamiliar territory. Gone were the twenty-year-old teenagers of the American iteration, replaced with characters and plots that were actually…interesting! Or at the very least, weird.

But how do these two series compare? What was changed when the show was brought stateside? Remember, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers wasn’t your average localization. It was a re-filmed, re-edited Frankenstein project. So a lot was changed, not necessarily for the better.

The only way to properly explain is with a side by side compari-battle! Two shows. Five categories. One survivor. Which campy children’s TV show deserves your fanatical devotion?

Prepare yourself!

CATEGORY 1: SHOW SYNOPSIS

In the J-corner, a 170 million-year-old struggle between robotic dinosaur gods and the demonic hordes of a space witch.  In the A-corner, a 10,000-year-old struggle between a blue lava lamp and the demonic hordes of a space witch

Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger

170 million years ago, five god-like robot dinosaurs sealed an evil witch, Bandora, in a comet and froze five warriors in magic tombs in case she ever escaped. She did and the robo-dino-gods revived the five warriors, bestowing them with five dino bucklers, legendary weapons, and control over the robo-dino-gods. Their gods allowed the ZyuRangers to pilot them and give them orders, but the ZyuRangers remained subservient to their divine wills.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

A man named Zordon and a woman named Rita Repulsa fought 10,000 years ago. At the end of their battle, he sealed her in a dumpster and she trapped him in a tube, resulting in a bizzare stalemate. Despite having no hands, Zordon built a robot and an entire command center in the middle of California. When Rita escapes her prison, Zordon, in his ancient wisdom, chooses five teenagers to wield unlimited power, since teenagers are well known for their reliability and stable emotional states. The teens begin an epic struggle against Rita and her space monsters! Also, two bullies trip and fall into plates of food. A lot.

Show Synopsis Verdict:

The plot of Power Rangers is a shoddy adaptation of its source material. It takes most of its substance from the ZyuRanger plot and slaps the most basic cliches from American superhero stories onto it. Average teens, chosen to have powers, ancient struggle, and so on.

ZyuRanger is no King Lear, but at least it’s original. And the fact that the heroes are from an ancient time and the giant robots they pilot are their gods, which they worship, is at least strange enough to be interesting.

Winner: ZyuRanger

CATEGORY 2: THEME SONG

In the J-corner, a symphonic rock ballad heralding the entrance of ancient warriors.  In the A-corner, the best workout music after *Rock You Like a Hurricane* (totally awesome for bench press).

Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger

I really, really like this song. It’s orchestral with some smatterings of electric guitar. It’s catchy, fun and heroic. I memorized the lyrics just to sing along and learned some useful Japanese words too! (You never know when “eternal warrior” is going to pop up in a conversation.)

I really, really, really, really like this song, but…

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

This song is AWESOME!!

The crazy metal riffs get my blood pumping! I am convinced that this, in conjunction with the fight footage, is what made Power Rangers so instantly popular. To this day, if I hear this song, I have the sudden urge to jump up and start somersault chopping at random, which has been unfortunate for many of my former desk lamps.

Theme Song Verdict:

I gotta give this one to Power Rangers. SPOLIER ALERT! Power Rangers isn’t winning any more categories.

Winner: Power Rangers

CATEGORY 3: HEROES

In the J-corner, tribal monarchs trained the art of combat!  In the A-corner, charisma-free high schoolers trained in the art of study hall.

Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger

Our five heroes include the average one, the tall strong one, the limber one, the serious limber one, and the girl one. These warriors of legend never back down from a fight and are friends to all children. And I do mean all children. Each episode features a different kid with a disease/fear that the ZyuRangers cure/solve at the end of each episode/show.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

The American heroes include the leader one, the dancing one, the science one, the gymnastics one, and the kung fu one. In the intro, it is stated that these teenagers were chosen because they had “attitude.” However, their aforementioned attitude is one of civil service and and respect for authority.

Heroes Verdict:

At first glance, the Power Rangers are a bit more dynamic than their Japanese counterparts in that they have racial diversity and two female characters instead of just one. They have clearly defined character traits based on their interests (gymnastics, science, etc.) But actually, that’s as deep as these characters go.

The ZyuRangers, however, are very similar on the surface and have few obvious character traits or hobbies. But as the series progresses, each character gets several episodes focused on them in which they are put in tense, character-revealing situations. Again, not King Lear, but enough to show that the writers put some thought into who these characters are deep down in their squishy souls.

Winner: ZyuRanger

CATEGORY 4: VILLAINS

In the J-corner, a space witch and her team of gryphons, golems, goblins, vampires and leprechauns.  In the A-corner, a space witch and her team of gryphons, golems, goblins, vampires and leprechauns with annoying voices.

Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger

The evil side of ZyuRanger is all western mythological monsters commanded by one fantastic witch. If everything else about ZyuRanger were awful, one element would make it worth watching.

Space Witch Bandora.

She lives in a moon castle, rides a penny-farthing through the sky, wants to kill all children, and gets her power from SATAN! (I’m not joking.)

Oh, and she sings her own theme song in her delightfully raspy witchy voice. This puts her high up on my list of dream karaoke duet partners, right under John DiMaggio.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

Each villain is the same as they are in ZyuRanger only renamed and redubbed. Poorly. Every name feels like it was the first thing the producers could think of. “That guy is gold. Let’s call him Goldar! This girl’s a scorpion. How about Scorpina? Genius!” Just another testament to the laziness of this localization.

Villains Verdict:

Checkmate.

Winner: ZyuRanger

CATEGORY 5: THE GREEN RANGER

WARNING! THIS FINAL SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR A 20-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN’S TV SHOW!!

In the J-corner, a ultra powerful older brother with a checkered past and a grim future.  In the A-corner, an ultra-powerful teenager whose dedication to practicing martial arts keeps him from using it until the last minute.

Kyouryuu Sentai ZyuRanger

Name: Burai
Title: Prince of the Yamato Kingdom
Giant Robot Pal: Dragon Caesar
Bio: Hated his brother, woke from stasis to kill brother, changed his ways, fought alongside brother, discovered he had only weeks to live, quarantined in a room outside of time, only leaves timeless room when necessary.
Likes: Hating his brother, changing his ways, loving his brother, solitaire.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

Name: Tommy Oliver
Title: Prince of the Juice Bar
Giant Robot Pal: Dragonzord
Bio: Moved to Angel Grove, got turned evil, got turned un-evil, fought alongside Power Rangers but only sometimes.
Likes: Martial arts, Kimberly, long hair, juice, helping the Power Rangers part-time (It’s a stop-gap job. Looks good on a resume.)

Green Ranger Verdict:

The whole saga surrounding Burai doesn’t end when he finally becomes good.  He finds out that he died while in suspended animation, so a weird god-boy named Clotho puts him in a Timeless Room with a green candle showing his remaining life span.  Every time he leaves the Timeless Room, a little bit of the candle gets used up.

This adds a lot of suspense to the the series not only in terms of battle, but also in the relationship between his brother Geki (The Red Ranger) and himself, making every moment between them brief and bittersweet.

Tommy’s character, on the other hand, was at the mercy of the localization team.  The drama of the bad-ranger-wrecks-up-the-place remains intact.  But after that saga, Tommy becomes kind of nonsensical.  If he’s so powerful, why isn’t he with the Power Rangers all the time?  Because *ZyuRanger* wrote Burai as a man living on borrowed time, Tommy is forced to constantly be “out practicing martial arts” or “giving his dog a back massage” until he’s called at the last minute.  None of this makes sense when a giant monster is crushing your city.

If you’re still not convinced about the superiority of the Burai story, it lies in the emotional culmination of his death.  After watching his life candle deplete over the course of twenty episodes, Burai decides to purposely use up the last of his life candle saving children (which he does by saving an unfortunate airborne baby!)  He dies in the arms of his younger brother Geki, to whom he relinquishes his signature golden armor and flute dagger.  This makes for more bittersweetness as the remainder of the series sees Geki using items from a brother he barely knew.

The death is so emphasized that there is even an entire episode featuring Burai’s sentient robo-dino-god, Dragon Caesar, grieving the loss of his master as he walks alone through a poppy field.

In the end, despite a letter-writing campaign from fans, Burai remained dead.  But his ghost appeared at the end of the series to encourage the ZyuRangers and use his ghost magic to open a dimensional gateway for plot device purposes.

Because of the absurdity of Tommy’s motivations and the purposeful thought put into Burai’s character arc, Burai is the better Green Ranger.  Sorry, Tommy fans.

Winner: ZyuRanger

FINAL CHAMPION: KYOURYUU SENTAI ZYURANGER

If you have a soft spot for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, believe me, I understand. While screening episodes in preparation for this article, I felt pangs of nostalgia intermingled with my groans and cringing.

But nostalgia notwithstanding, ZyuRanger is the clear winner in terms of overall quality.

Let it be said that Power Rangers was a fantastic business venture. Saban had all the action footage and merchandising done before he started. All he had to do was fill in the blanks. But in light of this, one has to wonder, with so much of the hard work done in advance, couldn’t Saban have filled in the blanks a little bit better? The writing, especially the dialogue, is tired and contrived. It seems the show is just killing time until the ZyuRanger action footage could be inserted, leaving each episode feeling rather lazy and hollow.

If Saban was as smart an artist as he is a businessman, he could have put together something truly unique and interesting using someone else’s footage. But he’s not and he didn’t.

ZyuRanger is certainly campy and childish in its own way, but is thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. Even when it fails at what it’s trying to do, it still manages to entertain, leaving you watching long enough to eventually be surprised by its purposeful emotional pacing and technical attention to detail.

Comparisons aside, ZyuRanger stands on its own in terms of quality. At the very least, it’s an interesting peek at another culture’s nostalgia. At the very best, it’s an intriguingly genuine piece children’s TV with a mysterious charm factor. If giant robot gods and superhero melodrama are your thing, I encourage you to give the show a try. You may just find a bit more than you expected.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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Brief Plot Recap

**I’ll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but I’m going to assume that you’ve at least read my previous post on the movie or are familiar with the story of the 47 Ronin. If you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to have anything potentially be ruined, read on with care**

So the three main characters of the film are played by some entertaining actors. The main bad guy, Kira, is played by Tadonobu Asano and the main good guy, Oishi, is played by Hiroyuki Sanada. These are two of my all time favorite Japanese actors (which I wrote about a little while ago) so it was really cool to see them in the same film.

But, of course, the main star is a Hollywood star, Keanu Reeves. Keanu plays the character known as Kai, the “half breed” who ends up being the hero of the story, and also the one that gets the girl (of course).

For those unfamiliar, the basic story behind the 47 Ronin tells of a group of 47 masterless samurai in 18th century Japan who avenge the death of their master. Their master was disgraced, and their land and honor taken from them. They follow the code of the bushido to avenge their master’s death and as a consequence, all of them die. It is one of Japan’s greatest tales.

In the original tale, Oishi leads the ronin in their revenge, but in this Hollywood adaptation, he more or less shares that responsibility with Keanu Reeve’s character Kai, who in turn takes most of the limelight. The movie also introduces exciting supernatural fantasy elements, such as demons.

A Review

“Do people like our movie?” “No… no they don’t.”

Like I said before, I went into the film with high hopes and low expectations. My expectations were not exceeded. My favorite parts about the movie were probably all the neat colors and interesting costumes. The movie itself just wasn’t that exciting.

I was really disappointed because the actual tale of the 47 Ronin is just so darn cool. I was hoping that with an all-star cast and the introduction of cool fantasy elements, they’d really be able to make a great movie adaptation here. Unfortunately they did not.

Critics really dislike the film and the general consensus is that they were just disappointed, especially given the names and talent involved. Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada are both great actors. People have mixed feelings about Keanu, but I’ve always liked the guy. Unfortunately the scripting for 47 Ronin left them all with unexciting, relatively one dimensional roles to play.

The film was also widely reported as a financial failure with estimated losses hovering around the $175 million mark. That’s like, really, really bad.

Here are some Rotten Tomato quotes I think best sum up the reception of the movie.

Solemn as a funeral march, humorless as your junior high principal, as Japanese as a grocery-store California roll, Keanu Reeves’s let’s-mope-about-and-kill-ourselves samurai drama has exactly three things going for it.
-Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

With a better hand this could have been something glorious and grand. As it is, 47 Ronin is solid B-movie entertainment with a $175 million budget.
-Kristy Puchko, CinemaBlend.com

47 Ronin is murky, muddled and leaden, although it’s not quite the unmitigated disaster it’s been cracked up to be.
-Xan Brooks, Observer [UK]

Mildly entertaining and gorgeous to look at, 47 Ronin has little beneath the surface to recommend it. There are a few good fights, though.
-Roth Cornet, IGN Movies

Japanese Demons in the Film

One of the most exciting potentials of this film was its inclusion of mythological creatures. I was curious how they would handle these in the film, and after viewing it, I think they did a relatively unimpressive job. We’ve written about Japanese creatures before, so I was interested in exploring how the portrayal of them in this film compared with what’s traditional.

Kitsune

See the resemblance?

The main creatures included in the film are a witch (possibly a kitsune) and some tengu. The witch lady is never called a kitsune (magical foxes that can take on human form), but it is first shown as a fox, so that was my first impression of it.

The kitsune witch has become Kira’s sidekick. Kitsune are commonly portrayed as lovers as well as tricksters, so this fits in with the movie’s portrayal. The witch is playing tricks on everyone to further her and Kira’s agenda. It’s unclear in the movie if they’re actually lovers, but at the very least, they are companions. Who’s really in control between the two of them is unclear.

While the witch in the film uses magic and kitsune are magical creatures, the witch’s magic seems a bit out of the realm of the traditional kitsune. The witch in the film also transforms into different forms and creatures, such as a dragon. This leads me to believe that she wasn’t actually a kitsune, or the directors just took some real liberties with how kitsune behave.

All in all, the transformations didn’t make a lot of sense (assuming she was a kitsune). That being said, what do you expect from Hollywood, after all?

Tengu

Keanu Reeve’s character is raised by tengu in the film. Traditional tengu are incredibly popular supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They’re one of the best known mythological creatures in Japan and are sometimes even worshiped as Shinto kami. Tengu were originally thought to be birdlike, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics.

The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has since modernized into an unnaturally long nose, which is undoubtedly their defining characteristic today.

Buddhist dogma long held that the tengu were disruptive demons who brought both violence and death. However, their image gradually softened into protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests.

Their main role in the film is to provide weapons to the 47 ronin after Kai and Oishi prove themselves. The way the tengu look in the film is unlike any depiction I’d ever seen of them and I was confused as to why they would alter them in this way.

As you can see from the photo below, the tengu from the movie does not look like a traditional tengu. None of their typical features or characteristics are reflected in the film. Its face is totally different. Why would they alter its nose? The tengu’s most recognizable feature? Beats me.

Can you spot the differences?

Other than that, I felt like the film’s depiction of tengu was surprisingly accurate. Tengu have been described as creatures associated with war and were known to possess great knowledge in the art of skilled combat. Legend also tells of a famous warrior called Minamoto no Yoshitsune whose father was assassinated by the Taira clan. One day he encountered some mountain tengu and they taught him the art of swordsmanship to assist in his vengeance against the Taira.

This all fits in well with the tengu raising Kai and teaching him how to fight like a supernatural being. It also makes decent sense that they would be able to provide the ronin in the film with weapons after they passed a goofy test. Overall, I was pleased with the movie’s depiction of tengu. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?

All in All

“What’d you say about my movie?”

Throughout this review of The 47 Ronin, I think I’ve been pretty nice. I’d like to sum it up by saying that this movie is not worth your money. Since the best parts of the film (in my opinion) are the visuals, it would probably be best experienced on a cinema screen, but I don’t think it’s worth the admission.

I also think that the more you know about the original 47 Ronin story and the more you know about Japan and Japanese myth, the more you will enjoy this film. If you don’t know much about the original tale or are totally clueless concerning Japanese folklore/myth, some parts of the movie might be a bit confusing.

The movie is entertaining enough for one viewing, but really, it’s not a good film. If you don’t expect much, you’ll be able to enjoy it for what it is, even if it’s not much more than pretty colors and nifty visuals. The fight scenes ain’t too bad either.

Final Verdict: 4 Mr. Andersons