By: Dr. Philip Seaton (Ho kkaido University)
In recent years\, the phenomenon of people traveli
ng to further an interest in works of popular culture has gained much atten
tion from the tourism industry and researchers alike. Lord of the Rings loc
ations in New Zealand\, Disneyland theme parks\, Star Trek Conventions and
the Sherlock Holmes museum in London are some of the many well-known exampl
es. In Japan\, the phenomenon gained widespread media attention when many J
apanese fans of the Korean drama Winter Sonata visited South Korea in 2004.
Since 2005\, the Japanese government has actively encouraged local authori
ties to develop tourism assets relating to works of popular culture as a wa
y of enhancing their local identity and tourism brand.
The term in Jap
anese used to describe such tourism induced by popular culture is “contents
tourism”. The “contents” are the narratives\, characters\, locations and o
ther creative elements of popular cultural forms such as films\, manga\, an
ime and computer games that inspire fans to visit a particular destination.
Not only fictional stories but also historical narratives based on real pe
ople and events can be considered to be “contents”. Within the context of a
broader “history boom” in Japan\, the popularity of historical narratives
in television dramas\, computer games and novels has generated some extraor
dinary tourism booms.
This lecture presents examples of tourism to he ritage sites in Japan that has been inspired by recent works of popular cul ture. I will present this phenomenon with examples from three periods of Ja panese history\, the Sengoku Period (c.1467-c.1603)\, the Bakumatsu/Meiji P eriod (1853-1912)\, and the Early Showa Period (1926-1945). In the first se ction\, I discuss travel inspired by the computer game Sengoku Basara and t he activities of female history fans (rekijo) who travel to honour their fa vourite samurai warriors. In the second section\, I discuss tourism relate d to Bakumatsu period visionary Sakamoto Ryoma and the novel/drama Clouds U pon the Hill about the Russo-Japanese War. In the third section\, I examine tourism induced by World War II films and the semi-fictionalized biopic of whisky maker Taketsuru Masataka which was the subject of the recent NHK mo rning drama Massan.
All these examples indicate the power of popular culture\, not only to inspire contents tourism\, but also to offer reinterp retations of the “historical contents” and thereby generate new perspective s on Japan’s past.
LOCATION:Room 120\, C.K. Choi Building GEO:49.267258;-123.257967 URL;VALUE=URI:https://sppga.ubc.ca/events/event/pop-culture-history-and-con tents-tourism-in-japan/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 DTSTART:20160313T100000 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR