The Kawaii Transactions. How Fan Fiction Helped Unleash Japan's Cultural Creativity Tsunami

• Date: 01 March 2024
• Author: Chris J. Katopis

Published in Landslide, Volume 16, Number 3, 2024. © 2024 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. The Kawaii Transactions How Fan Fiction Helped Unleash Japan’s Cultural Creativity Tsunami CHRIS J. KATOPIS T he Japanese word kawaii in essence translates to mean “oh, that’s adorable.” 1 For centuries, this word’s meaning often possessed a patronizing, dismissive, or even condescending connotation. In recent times, however, kawaii gained a new, more favorable meaning—the quality or essence of something being “cute.” The love of kawaii has spawned its own “culture of cuteness”—a global cultural movement that includes various fan subcultures. The kawaii aesthetic can refer to humans, animals, or the inanimate (e.g., objects or even styles of handwriting). Today, a wide variety of Japanese creations are recognized by their high degree of kawaii (cuteness), including films, books, fashion, toys, and other elements across a spectrum of contemporary popular culture. In the entertainment industry, kawaii has spawned a tsunami of incredibly successful industry genres and iconic characters, Chris J. Katopis is the legislative consultant of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. His background in copyright law and pop culture began while working on IP legislation for the late entertainer and Congressman Sonny Bono. He can be reached at chris.katopis@americanbar.org. Published in Landslide, Volume 16, Number 3, 2024. © 2024 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. 11 The creation of unauthorized fan fiction drives numerous Japanese economic, trade, and copyright licensing issues. including Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, video games (Nintendo’s Donkey Kong and Mario), manga comic books, the anime 2 genre of animated films, and more. Generally, this genre features characters known for their distinctive style, extra-large doe eyes, and cartoonish proportions. The kawaii movement is animated by several factors. Scholars suggest that it is something hardwired in the human psyche that draws us to this aesthetic and its characteristics. 3 Japanese culture also offers an incredibly devout fan base that engages in a variety of behaviors that amplify the popularity of the character franchises. These fan behaviors include creating fan websites, organizing conferences, dressing up in costumes like their favorite characters (“cosplay”), and creating their own fan-made versions of comics and films. Notably, the creation of much of this unauthorized fan fiction—infringing derivative works under copyright law—today drives numerous Japanese economic, trade, and copyright licensing issues. The Rise of Japan’s Creative Ecosystem Post-World War II Japan was characterized by vast devastation and poverty. 4 The Japanese people struggled to make ends meet, and most held menial hard labor jobs, including low-end manufacturing. In the 1950s, the nation’s economy was resurrected through the manufacture of cheap goods for the world. Creative forces soon launched a cultural revolution of sorts by developing new characters for licensing across a spectrum of the film and toy industries. In the 1960s, Shintaro Tsuji, the founder of Sanrio, realized a vision for his company, as well as Japan’s future: “Japan was ‘a world in which “making money” meant “making things.” I desperately wanted to leapfrog the “things”—the “hardware”— and make a business out of the intellectual property [IP].’” 5 In the 1970s, Tsuji launched a series of comic characters, including Hello Kitty. 6 Of all of Sanrio’s various character products, Hello Kitty was the single biggest runaway hit. Today, Sanrio is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and its iconic characters are...