Korean Television Dramas in Japan

Introduction

Since 2002, the Korean Wave has grown increasingly more apparent in Japan as a bilateral, popular cultural flow between Japan and Korea and has also become increasingly more immense. According to Iwabuchi (2005), intra-regional media flow, particularly among East Asian countries, is becoming continuously more active than at any other time previously. While the Korean Wave in Japan has passed its peak wave - such were the years in 2004 and 2005 - many Japanese fans have affirmed that the lasting impressions of the Winter Sonata syndrome has changed their perspectives of Korea; ranging from its language, people, customs, and culture. In 2008, more than ten new Korean dramas were airing every day through Japanese networks and satellite TV. A Japanese interviewee for our study addressed this increase in the following way: “It is NOT the Korean Wave but it has become a GENRE in Japanese TV. Maybe on the surface, the Korean Wave is not a splash like the situation a few years ago but it was already there in the Japanese daily media” (A Japanese interviewee MA, 2008).

The entry of Korean TV dramas into Japanese television began with the introduction of the drama Winter Sonata. Both Winter Sonata as well as its male lead Bae, YongJoon (afterwards BYJ) - often a leading actor in Korean dramas - were at the center of the upsurge of the Korean Wave in Japan that eventually established a passionate fandom among Japanese women. In Japan, before the arrival of the Korean Wave, the nation tended to fill its own TV channels with domestically produced content. Japanese domestic TV programs enormously occupied prime airtime on key network TV stations. Morikawa (2008) stated that foreign TV series had been unable to enter into primetime slots of the Japanese television. Since 1990, few foreign TV series had been able to break that barrier, except for the American series "The X-Files," in 1995. Japanese television audiences were not very enthusiastic about the broadcasting of foreign television programs; at the time, foreign programs were often perceived as a separate genre that carried a particular un-appeal. However, the hit Korean drama series Winter Sonata carried a momentum in Japan that engaged a fandom that particularly resonated within the middle- aged, female population.

With the formats of subsequent Korean melodramas often modelled after the format of Winter Sonata and an increasing fan base in Japan, this new format of Korean melodramas has become the most appealing genre in Japan. The mainstream viewers of Korean dramas in Japan gained a fan base comprised of middle-aged Japanese women. The introduction of Korean dramas in Japan had exposed its audiences to a variety of Korean related news, movies, pop music, and TV/movie celebrities. The curiosity of Japanese viewers for popular content from Korea increased with broadening interests in the differing genres of Korean dramas, the broadcasting of different Korean dramas in Japanese television and other media outlets, and the covering of the wide range of cover stories for Korean TV entertainers. Today, Japanese fans emphasize that Korean dramas in Japan have diversified its genres for TV broadcasting and rental shops by including such dramas as daily-family drama, historical drama, and trendy drama. Such is the example of the great hit DaeJangGeum, a Korean historical drama, which re-established a great amount of attention and popularity of Korean dramas among Japanese viewers through NHK’s nationwide broadcast: NHK, due to popular demand from Japanese audiences, broadcasted DaeJangGeum four times within the years 2004-2007.

As is commonly known, the Korean Wave phenomena have conceptualized with discourses of transnational media flow in Asia. We have discerned our thesis in this article from the previous research focuses by first; reframing the Korean Wave as an example of cultural interactions between Japan and Korea in accordance to cultural imaginations among Japanese audiences upon analyzing Korean dramas. The significance in this claim identifies the shared cultural sphere within the East Asian region by means of the Korean Wave phenomena, such as the processing outcome of local-to-local cultural communications, as not a one-way national initiative of the Korean media. The second research focus re-examines the Korean Wave in relation to an inevitable postcolonial sensibility between South Korea and Japan. This reconsiders the constant cultural borrowings between the two nations and explores a shared imaginary space in which an individual’s locality and postcolonial sentiment is crushed and compromised.

Literature Review

On a broad plain, three lines of research with regard to the Korean Wave phenomena have been conducted: the first line of research focuses on investigating transnational influences and industrial profits of this phenomenon within burgeoning Asian media industries (Chung, 2001; Ha, 2006; Ha & Yang, 2002; Kim Y. D., 2005; 2006; Kim & Kang, 2000; Park, 2001; Yoon, 2006). Many studies in this strain emphasized the quantitative increase of Korean media, considering it as a cultural commodity, in the Asian entertainment media market. Most studies were framed from a Korean nationalist view and stressed the importance of the Korean media’s content power within the Korean Wave. A central argument for these researchers was that the Korean media industry enhanced its quality of programming especially in comparison to that of other Asian media industries. This caused a rapid growth in the exportation of Korean programs in international media markets. This wave, instead of remaining a cutting-edge incident, should become institutionalized for the future of the Korean cultural industry. On the whole, these studies disregard a holistic view of understanding the Korean Wave and occupy a relatively limited economic transaction. The regional concerns of uneven and imbalanced structures of the transnational media flow were missed.

The second line of research investigated Korean media content appeal and acceptance by the different Asian television viewers (Hanaki, Singhal, Han, Kim, & Chitnis, 2007; Heo, 2002; Hirata, 2008; Iwabuchi, 2008a; Kaori & Lee, 2007; Lin & Tong, 2008; Mori, 2008; Yang, 2003; Yoo & Lee, 2001). As earlier studies noted, Heo (2002) and Yoo & Lee (2001) conducted a survey regarding exported Korean programs among Chinese audiences to explore their emotional reactions and to examine their patterns of engagement. Heo concluded that young Chinese audiences accessed Korean programs because these mediated intimate narratives and visual appeals which entail both Confucius virtues and wishful cornucopias of modern prospectus while Yoo and Lee (2001) suggested cultural proximity rooted in East Asian Confucius cultural legacies to be a potential answer to some of the emerging popularity of Korean media within East Asian countries. In essence, those previous reception studies of the Korean Wave proposed cultural proximity as a central factor of consuming Korean programs among East Asian audiences.

However, reception studies of the Korean Wave recently discovered that Korean media consumption among Asian audiences demands divergent analytic frames instead of an oversimplification for the regional consumers. The most recent study of Japanese audiences, for example Hanaki et al. (2007), found that the Winter Sonata syndrome positively influenced Japanese perceptions of Koreans residing in Japan. In much the same way, Iwabuchi’s study (2008a) revealed that the perceptions of Koreans in Korea and Koreans residing in Japan were reshaped from those of unattractive appeal to those of friendly, attractive people shortly after the introduction and first broadcasting of Winter Sonata. These latest reception studies propose compound approaches to identifying the meaning of the Korean Wave in terms of differing locals’ social and cultural experiences.

In the third line of research, the Korean Wave phenomena was redeemed as an analytical template for the dynamic cultural movement within Western-centric globalization (Cho, 2005; Chua, 2004; Chua & Iwabuchi, 2008; Hirata, 2008; Kim H. M., 2005; Lee, 2004; Lee, 2008; Lee & Won; 2005; Ryoo, 2009; Shim, 2006). Both Cho (2005) and Lee & Won (2005) paid attention to some of the theoretical implications of the Korean Wave from a critical perspective. They concluded that the Korean Wave discourses in Korean society could be summarized into three strains: cultural nationalism, neoliberal industrialism, and post-colonialism. These theoretical angles, as applied to the Korean Wave, also influenced the views of the Korean media and the Korean government. The various industrial tactics and policies, in relation to the promotion of the Korean Wave, have been adjusted to the proposed theoretical vision. Notably, the Korean Wave, as framed by industrialism, has been highlighted as a model of global industrialization.

Very recently, the concept of hybridity was applied in examining systemic features of the Korean Wave; for example, Shim (2006) investigated the Korean pop music system in the Korean Wave and discovered that Korean pop idol bands - often seen as successful industrial models - combined traditional musical styles with those of Western musical styles, making original, domestically and internationally appealing musical pieces. Shim pointed out that the issue of hybridization is upon restructuring the Korean media industry and its outcomes by transforming the regional media markets; however, hybridization, in Shim’s claim, did not include any possibilities of creating contra-directional or multi-directional flows. Can it be possible to see working hybridization not only in disseminated media forms and products but also in its local receiver’s consuming practices? It has been noticed that Korean dramas in the different locales have been reconstituted and transformed by its fans’ unique involvement and post-activities. For instance, Japanese audiences differently received the original meanings, functions, and cultural structures of the Korean dramas in comparison to those of other Asian audiences. We emphasize that the notion of hybridization in relation to transnational cultural movements has to connect to the senses and the specific behavioral associations with local consumers as well as the flow of products.

Along with hybridization, commodification becomes a part of a ongoing cultural production. Commodification takes place as a central procedure of the transnational media flow in determining the success of cultural distribution overseas. In relation to the diffusion of Korean dramas in the Asian region, multiple commodification strategies of repackaging and bridging Korean dramas to other businesses have proceeded effectively. For instance, Hirata (2008) investigated the popular travelling package, “Hanryu tours¹,” among Japanese fans. This explored how Japanese women’s trips to Korea could be understood as a successful commodification model of Korean dramas by suggesting subversive views of gender. The travelling to Korea by Japanese women reveals a counter- gaze against the former colonizer’s gaze that are often typical of Japanese males. This aspect is importantly linked to a nostalgic consumption of Korean dramas among middle-aged Japanese women; as will be discussed later in the article. In light of these proceedings, we explore how Korean dramas specifically have communicated well in capturing Japanese audiences regarding their cultural imagination. Thus, lingering research questions include:

RQ 1: How are Korean dramas discerned by the Japanese fans from other foreign dramas in relation to the Japanese sense of “East Asianness”?

RQ 2: How do the Japanese fans articulate their local, postcolonial identity to their cultural imaginations of Korean dramas?

Method

“Foreignness” and “East Asianness” in Korean Dramas

According to Chua & Iwabuchi (2008), a sense of “foreignness” is a substantial idea of analyzing transnational media products. Foreignness makes sense of the reason why the audiences were interested in watching imported TV programs. In the case of Korean dramas, it is certain that foreignness for East Asians is discerned from the senses entailed in the western TV series. In general, foreignness is understood as a sense built in the engaged feeling of “otherness.” A clear identification of “us” from “them” is primary to perceive the sense of foreignness. In most cases with Asian people, foreignness is akin to the feeling toward things originating from the West instead of originating from Asia. In contrast to Asia, the West, in its cultural domain, facilitates those fundamental differences in understanding the sense of “foreignness.” The West has a lot to do with perceiving and structuring foreignness for all Asian communities. According to Iwabuchi (2008b), modern Asia is an ongoing history that has recently mirrored the western world. Modernization to the Asian imagination, therefore, equates to the process of westernization in which to identify the notion of “Asianness,” Asian cultural definers must borrow images and standards from the West. Simply put, identifying Asian sentiment is a constant process of comparing and contrasting every aspect of Asian society along with the West. From this rationale, Asianness may not seem without western references whether they can or cannot remain only in images and in normative cultures. Iwabuchi claimed that many discussions of Asianness in contemporary Asian discourses constantly matched with the banality of Asia versus the West so he defined it as “Oriental Orientalism” (Iwabuchi, 2008b).

At a glance, it is ironic to discuss “foreignness” in Korean dramas among the Asian audiences; however, receiving foreign media content from a neighbor country for Asian countries is quite an unfamiliar phenomenon. While recognizing foreignness from the Korean drama may not provoke enormously different feelings, such feelings as that of western TV series, the sense of foreignness through Korean dramas for Asian audiences certainly exists as a novelty. Drawing attention to Japanese audiences, this foreignness in Korean dramas is connected to a dialogue of the achieved modernity and the perception of “East Asianness.” For Japanese audiences, reading Korean dramas means the reflective process of what shared values still exists and what are omitted in Japan.

As many scholars claimed, modernity in East Asia is never simply defined as one clear notion, but it has a link to industrialization which means an establishment of the western-parrot industrial capitalism. Hence, modernity has proceeded within East Asia along the line with differing time lag as well as speed, thus the sense of “Asianness” from the East Asian perspective varies in local’s sets of social/cultural values which have been correlated with an individual’s social sense of belonging. The common sense of Asianness among East Asians involves a positioning of the self within a single nation both as individual as well as social beings. By means of the drive to modernization across East Asia, the profound Asianness has become hidden under the society, and increasingly these East Asian virtues are gradually fading. Speedy urban sprawls and the growth of global cosmopolitanism have occurred in every corner of the region but the scope and intensity of achieved modernity largely varies. In a conceptual sense, “East Asianness” is related to opposing instrumentality and rationality in the west, and consists that a sense of East Asianness has more to do with emotional bonds between people, harmony, racial/ethnic purity, and respect for rituals. Interestingly, Korean society possesses comparatively more customary East Asian values than do other Confucius, Asian societies. Given these qualifications, Japan is the most western-adapted modern nation. Often, the people of Japan identify themselves not as members of the Asian community, but as an independent territory between the spaces of Asia and the West (Chua, 2004; Kaori & Lee, 2007; Iwabuchi, 2002). The Japanese interviewee MA (female, 50s) reflected on some of the Japanese unique local positions from a nationalistic perspective:

[The Japanese] were born in an island as a small society so we have different feelings from the people in other continents. Even though we are the second largest nation in economic status, we continue to stay from becoming international. Ironically, while becoming international, we remain as islanders, the so-called Simagunigonzo in Japanese. Still feel reside in a small land and feel difficult to go ahead. (Interview with MA in Tokyo, 2008)

The position of Japan within the Asian region has been received as an economy-centered western-ized nation as opposed to the western world views as part of a mythic modern Asia. The modern Japan emerging from the mixtures of endogenous and exogamous, modern and traditional, western and Confucian factors (Choi, 2003) continue to take place itself in the international map by means of emphasizing racial and/or culturally unique and supreme economy. This leads Japan to be psychologically isolated from the East Asian community and creates Japan’s unique socio-cultural values which make the sensual gap bigger between Japan and other East Asian nations.

The previous reception studies of Asian audiences found that the Korean dramas gave heart-warming feelings, which did not occur when watching western series (Hanaki et al., 2007; Chua, 2004; Chua & Iwabuchi, 2008; Lin & Tong, 2008; Mori, 2008). Needless to say, our interviewed Japanese audiences agreed with these claims, yet, significantly, these Japanese interviewees brought up differing insights which they experienced in receiving such a profound set of emotions from Korean dramas. They presented profound emotions within sincere family bonds, friendships, loyalty for society and nation, and innocent love. In Korean dramas, these emotions are well described in simple narrative, but with rich emotional manifestation. For instance, a Japanese participant SK (female, 50s) expressed:

Korean dramas show very close, but really respectful human relationships. For example, Winter Sonata depicts the importance of the parent-child relationship. This ideal is very understandable to a person like me, or someone from the same generation as me because I have been educated on the importance of this type of relationship and thoughts when I was a little girl. So I still remember this kind of sentiment even if this relationship is impossible to see in Japan today. (Interview with SK in Tokyo, 2008)

As noted, Korean dramas for Japanese viewers remind them of the fading Confucian, Asian virtues in human life. More specifically, another Japanese interviewee HT (female, 50s) explained that Korean dramas represent deeply sensitive insights of human relationships that in the past have commonly existed in many Asian countries. This type of human bond is becoming looser and looser in Japan but that is not so much the case in Korea. She watched the Korean drama First Love and it presented a very tight family bond in Japan in the 60s and 70s. She felt that the image of the family in the drama was close to how Japanese families used to be. To her, this is an astounding aspect of the Korean drama, and she absolutely appreciated them because Koreans still cherished these humane virtues from an Asian perspective. Another Japanese interviewee KU (female, 40s) expressed how the Korean dramas captured the Asian style family structure quite specifically:

When I watched the drama, Fighting! GeumSoon, I felt really touched and was surprised by the strong bond of the protagonist’s family. They took care of her so much and supported her to have with her new marriage for her future life, and I know all this really came from the bottom of their hearts and they were all tied very closely. I cried several times because my heart was moved a lot by their incredible family bond and profound care. (Interview with KU in Tokyo, 2008)

In general, the special place for Korean dramas in Japanese TV audiences basically stems from two factors; for Japanese audiences, Korean dramas are distinguished both by their textual structure and sensitive storytelling. The Korean dramas that the Japanese fans like to watch send many thoughtful and emotional messages based on the sensitive relationship between the two nations. In regards to the textual elements in Korean dramas, these dramas are composed of realistic narratives insofar as the story has to reflect actual life stories of individuals. The main purpose of Korean dramas, is to touch individual audiences with deeply emotional appeals from the bottom of the heart. Also, the narrative of Korean TV dramas tends to provide a lot of catharsis to its audiences, but it is rarely rational in a goal of solving given problems. This is perhaps very different from most western drama series. If a certain Korean drama is beloved by the audience, it is because the drama persuades viewers emotionally rather than intellectually; more through emotional messages and realistic acting do individuals often relate to Korean dramas. According to Japanese interviewees, this maximized emotional appeal in Korean dramas is the essential element in distinguishing Korean dramas from those produced by other countries.

In comparison to Japanese interviewees, Korean interviewees explored differing views of their imagined perceptions of “East Asianness.” Based upon observations of Korean interviewees on the Korean Wave phenomenon in the East Asian region, the Korean participants sensed that some typical commonalities of Korean society could be shared as a sense of “East Asianness” with other East Asian audiences. Typical commonalities were strong family bonds, a passion for higher education, a respect for elders, and a yearning for city life. For instance, KJ (Korean female, 30s) said, “I think that our dramas (Korean dramas) enable them to compare with their life in China and Japan. Likewise, our living with a nuclear family reveals more often than a living with a traditional large family. Also, Korean parents absolutely dedicate their lifetime to raising their child. To do that, Korean parents should work very hard to get more money for funding their kid’s education and better living. I think that these examples are quite common in China and Japan, too.” Another interviewee, LY (Korean female, 20s), addressed similarities between Korea, China, and Japan, in emphasizing such things as a city dweller’s daily life, working relationships in the business area, and the school system. Korean interviewees pointed out modern aspects of Korean society rather than Korea’s traditional culture, referring to perceived East Asianness among other East Asian audiences. Korean interviewees believed that the similarities of contemporary Asian life were interesting sources of closely watched Korean dramas among East Asian audiences:

In my opinion, the Korean dramas have not shown the specific characteristics of Asian countries. But rather, Asian viewers have a similar culture and lifestyle with Koreans, so they can easily find some similarities from Korean dramas. And they perceive those similarities as an Asian style. In particular, Korean dramas always depict universal scenes in close shots because this part inspires Asian viewers to sense closely when they watch the drama. Also, living in city and a specific urban lifestyle are a shared commonality with many developing Asian countries today. (Interview with YS in Seoul, 2008)

YS (male, 20s) claimed that Korean dramas chose universal matters, stories occurring to average people and families, so these types of stories could easily be shared and understood by any audience group. Korean dramas grasp complicated feelings across all levels of human relationships along with gentle humor and sophisticated sympathies. Korean drama producer CG (male, 30s) asserted:

I see the reason why DaeJangGeum has been successful with many Asian audiences as due to its universal storyline. The storyline of the drama is centered on an individual’s incredible success story that is commonly framed in all legends and folks across the time and space. So the drama was received very well by all different countries’ audiences no matter what their localities or nationalities. The historical settings, scenes, cuisine, and costumes in the Korean style historical drama may give a lot of entertainment pleasure to foreign audiences as well. But, it’s obvious that the story of the drama is formatted with a really universal sense and it appealed well. (Interview with CG, TV drama producer in MBC, 2008)

This perceived sense of “East Asianness” through Korean dramas evoked differing interpretations between Korean and Japanese interviewees. While Japanese interviewees found “East Asianness” in accordance with looking back on their past, Korean interviewees explored perceived “East Asianness” among East Asians to be found in synchronous modes of modern Asian lives. This differing time gap in making sense of Korean dramas between Koreans and Japanese suggested the idea that modernization is established across East Asia to various degrees. Thus, Japanese interviewees could see Korean dramas as a reflective medium for tracing the lost or fading sentiment as opposed to a developing mode of modernization. The Japanese interviewees consistently emphasized the focus that their fascination with Korean dramas took placed in enriched hidden emotions and redemptive human relationships.

Through our observation from the Japanese interviewees, we explore foreignness in Korean dramas in two ways: On the one side, it is intrinsically produced from an exposure to the similar modern sensibility between Korea and Japan. For Japanese fans, Korea’s established modernity in their everyday lives, as depicted in the Korean dramas, greatly motivated them to relate to Korea itself in a fresh way that is separate from the former colonial stance. On the other side, foreignness in Korean dramas is to rediscover virtues from East Asia or East Asianness, from which contemporary Japan continues to keep isolating. Surprisingly, the interviewed Japanese audiences found a great deal of familiarity with the past and present Japanese society in Korean dramas and the assumed differences between the colonizer and the colonized played no less significant in portraying Korea in their dramas. This novelty made them resonate with the Korean dramas more and more so to reflect their cultural aspect from the East Asian view.

Consuming Nostalgia

In many cases, the middle-aged Japanese female viewers of Korean dramas were often described by the media as a group of stereotypical frenzied fans of the Korean Wave. Their behavior towards BYJ and Winter Sonata was identified as extremely odd, often comparable to the behaviors of teenagers or twenties’ young pop maniacs; often, they are rendered as rich cultural consumers who entertain themselves with a trendy cultural item. However, we argue here that this particular population and their collective characteristics are the key for figuring out what the Korean drama (or broadly the Korean Wave) has actually been meaningful to these Japanese fans. The Japanese interviewee MA (female, 50s) highlighted that those middle-aged women in Japan can escape from the situations they are in when they watch Korean dramas and are empowered to closely connect to members within the fan community. Radway (1984) claims that a woman’s romance reading better enables her to assert meaning into her social identities and experiences, while playing a role in compensatory fantasy that does not actually reside in her real life scenario (Fiske, 1992). Likewise, these women in Japan are used to dealing with many life issues concerning themselves and family, and one day, after sudden contact with Korean dramas and joining a fan community, they are able to recall the forgotten desires of their younger years. This provides a great deal of motivation for these middle-aged Japanese fans to play roles as informative messengers of the Korean culture and not as a crazed mob of consumers.

The interviewed Japanese fans regularly visit BYJ’s Korean official online board (KOB) to sound off fans from other Asian nations. It is true that the Japanese fans contribute primarily in these fan club activities, such as immediate reaction, information seeking/sharing, and higher participation in offline activities. The Japanese fans appear to be more passionate compared to those of other foreign fan club members. Some active Korean fans in KOB play a role in translating the posts of foreign fans (e.g., English or Japanese writings) into the Korean language in order to be read by all Korean fans. In the meantime, many Japanese fans who frequently visit KOB have learned Korean themselves and can write their experiences and feelings in Korean for the Korean fans on the board. The Japanese interviewee ST (female, 40s) expressed her daily activities as a fan of BYJ:

On a daily basis, I check Quilt (BYJ’s worldwide fans’ online board), KOB (BYJ Korean-based online board), JOB (BYJ’s Japan-based online board), and Jaime’s and BB’s blogs. BB is the oldest Singaporean fan and she is very informative. So I visit those websites every day, and sometimes, I translate Japanese articles into English to post on Quilt. As off-line activities, I usually go to Goshirae (e.g., the Korean restaurant in Tokyo owned by BYJ). And last year, Jamie visited Japan so at that time we went to all BYJ related places together in Japan. (Interview with ST in Tokyo, 2008)

Japanese interviewees agreed that Korean dramas and BYJ have changed their lives positively, and, more importantly, they are willing to change themselves since they have learned about Korean dramas and about other people who share their same sympathies. We can observe through focus group interviews that Japanese participants naturally evoke conversations about what they have learned about Korean dramas, stars, and Korea itself, once they began sharing their personal stories, experiences, and feelings. Moreover, they certainly have appreciated being in the interview together. The middle-aged Japanese female fans acknowledged cherished companionships and shared feelings among fan members, while being able to closely watch BYJ and Korean dramas. Moreover, these Japanese interviewees do not regard themselves as a mob of sick mania as the Japanese mainstream media have portrayed them.

I don’t remember why I was so concentrated on watching the drama (Winter Sonata). Maybe, they just broadcast two episodes at once and I recorded it while I was watching it. After then TV broadcasting was over, I just started playing its recording tape, and watched it again for two hours EVERY NIGHT repeatedly. It may be around Christmas or New Year’s holiday in 2003-2004, I was COMPLETELY [laughing] I mean I don’t know. His existence suddenly came into my HEART. It was just like a sudden luck. I was so devoted myself to Bae, YongJoon [ssi]. (Interview with NR in Tokyo, 2008)

As mentioned above, the Japanese interviewee NR (female, 40s) expressed her first experience with Winter Sonata and explained how it captured her in re-establishing emotional engagement to the television text. It is significant that emotions and human relationships portrayed in Korean dramas for Japanese women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s do not feel greatly strange despite its formats, stories, scenes, and messages. Rather, they relate easily to the Korean style narrative and visual technique and furthermore feel even comfortable in receiving them. This familiarity of the Korean drama among middle-aged Japanese women reflects the sentiment of “nostalgia”, as a subtle sensibility about the past.

NR stated that people in her generation have a totally different history which the young people in Japan have not experienced. She implied that the wisdom of the people in her generation makes them capable of seeing the deeper side of objects or situations wherever and whatever they may be. Such is shown when being aware of Korean culture and being sensible to the Korean dramas stories and its atmospheres. Japanese fans are inspired to remember their forgotten memories and feelings from the past. Japanese fans’ repetitive watching habit of Korean dramas enables them to occupy what they have forgotten and what they have lost. Japanese fans have been very attracted to the direct, but very sensitive, verbal interactions between the characters in Korean dramas whether the settings were family, friends, or couples. They really enjoy watching these scenes and this emotional reaction have certainly touched their hearts. YR (female, 40s) commented that she has now grasped some emotions, such as innocence, love, and passion, through Korean dramas. She thought that those emotions were substances of humanity. As another example, SK (female, 60s) addressed her long term observations about Korean dramas and that they do not just convey simply one-dimensional emotions but rather they depict more complex emotional crisis in various social or interpersonal settings. She had felt that she had not yet experienced those delicate emotions and human relationships before having viewed Korean dramas:

For example, I found a big difference between Korean dramas and American dramas. It is the different interpretation of humanity and human relationship. I think that there’s a big difference in viewing history and the parent-child relationship. In American dramas, a parent-child relationship looks strict and keeping one’s own boundary so that the relationship is to see each other independently from their own self. Unlike American dramas, Korean dramas interpret a parent-child relationship as more interdependent that deeply relate to each other based on their blood line. This may be quite similar to many Asian traditions. (Interview with SK in Tokyo, 2008)

As YR and SK mentioned, there is a very significant propensity towards dealing with humanity in Korean dramas. Such a deep intimacy in human relations, tight bonds, direct revealing of feelings, and direct confrontation of emotional collusion between individuals are a source of nostalgic sentiment from the Japanese fans’ view.

Nostalgia is defined as a longing for the past or a fondness for possessions and activities associated with days of yore (Holbrook, 1993); for example, Davis (1979) views that nostalgia can be claimed either as a positively toned evocation or a negatively provoked sense toward the present or future. This nostalgic sensibility tends to discover that things were better around sometime then than they are now. As Holbrook and Schindler described, it is a preference both as a positive attitude and favorable affect toward objects (e.g., people, places, or things) that were quite common when individuals were young (Holbrook, 1993). In essence, the middle-aged Japanese fans were consumed by the sense of nostalgia as imagined from the Korean dramas and their active seeking of the Korean dramas and involving themselves in fan communities have empowered them to identify themselves as social subjects again. Dreaming the nostalgic moment mediated by the Korean dramas, it extends the middle-aged Japanese women’s spatial consciousness.

In many cases, the thing yearned for, from a nostalgic view, is being frozen by a framed fantasy instead of an actual memory from the past. In this vein, nostalgia sometimes is misrepresented in the present as well as misread from the past according to one’s own bias. Therefore, on the one hand, nostalgia is a way of presenting self-reflective feelings of insecurity and anguish posited in the present (Iwabuchi, 2008b). On the other hand, nostalgia is likely to be conceived as reminisce on people’s picturesque memories from their younger years. For Japanese middle-aged fans, the vivid images and sympathetic stories in Korean dramas bridges Japanese women’s lives from their teens and twenties.

One of the favorite activities of Japanese fans of Korean dramas is going on tours to the places that Korean dramas were filmed. These are called “Korean drama theme tours” or “Hanryu tours.” As earlier mentioned, our Japanese interviewees have visited Korea, participating in these drama theme tours, at least twice per interviewed individual, since 2004. Surprisingly, three of the Japanese participants have traveled to Korea over ten times in four years. Japanese middle-aged audiences are very fond of Korean drama shooting locations because these places bring their imagined memories to reality. The most famous touring locations are Chunchon, Namyi Island, and Yongpyong ski resort where Winter Sonata was filmed. These locations had become commercialized to some degree, selling the picturesque visual images and senses of specific feelings of the drama. Both the lake in Namyi Island and the high school in Chunchon, where Yujin and Joonsang (i.e., leading characters) had atteneded, are the most longed for places for Japanese tourists to stay and inspire their feelings of pure love. Our interviewee MA (female, 50s) traveled to Chunchon and she remembered that she wished that time would go slower until she left. She took pictures in Chunchon in order to recapture all traces that Winter Sonata had left.

[ ] in fact maybe you would know, a Korean travel agency just organized some special tours and so now it’s almost official. Nobody blamed it anymore about this tour package because the tour organization took us to the shooting places like TaeWangSaShiGi in Jeju, Anmyundo, and other places. So I have to get used to it. Ahead of me about 100 meters, I happened to see YONGJOON ssi. (Interview with NR in Tokyo, 2008)

It is important that Japanese fans have an opportunity to experience the nostalgia of being on locations where the romantic scenery in Korean dramas was filmed. That opportunity heightens their communication with their own timeline in freezing their self experiences or memories. These real locations become symbols of the spaces of nostalgic desires that the Japanese women want to recapture. Even if those location tours are a commodified cultural form as NR pointed out above, for the Japanese women, it cannot hinder their untouchable feelings of attachment to the dramatic nostalgia with reviving images right in front of their eyes.

In addition, their fan communities bring their voices back to Japanese society and they reinforce themselves by not becoming a socially marginalized population. A Japanese interviewee, SK (female, 60s) stated that she is very fond of exploring historical relationships between Korea and Japan during the nineteenth century. She has been greatly interested in this because of the issue of Korean Comfort Women for the Japanese military in World War II. As such, the boom of Winter Sonata and other Korean dramas in current Japan enables people like her to discuss and learn more about the yet to be discovered history between the two nations.

In 2005, SK participated as an event planner for a community civil event called “the year of friendship between Japan and Korea.” She was also a member of the Korea-Japan history forum in her residential area, suburban Tokyo, and in 2008 the forum held a variety of memorial ceremonies and seminars in celebrating the first visiting Korean culture ambassadors to Japan (during the period of Chosun Dynasty) 400 years ago. She said, “How interesting the term Korean Wave is! I believed that the Korean Wave began with Chosun Tongsinsa (i.e., naming as Korean culture ambassador) which traced back to 400 years ago. Cultural influences to Japan from Chosun Dynasty in the past seem to be apparent. I think the time was a beginning of the Korean Wave in Japan but not this current Korean drama boom.”

Another example of Japanese fans’ empowering their readings of Korean dramas is a creation of a communicative sphere for sharing sets of sympathies together. For instance, the interviewee, KY (female, 30s) discovered that she could create a project of screening BYJ’s dramas in theater. The idea of filming Korean dramas was very welcomed by the fans because it enabled them to collectively share BYJ’s great dramas with a big screen format. After she concocted the plan for screening BYJ’s drama Winter Sonata in theaters, she visited several movie theaters to persuade the business managers of her idea.

In 2005, I got my first response from a theater. At that time Winter Sonata was held by NHK, anyway, the theater tried to get the film from NHK, but it was too expensive. So the theater couldn’t get it, they contacted NHK again, but they were not successful because of NHK’s high price. So, I asked the theater to look for another of BYJ’s dramas, Hotelier, because there are also many fans of Hotelier in Japan. Hotelier was held by IMX at that time and IMX was BYJ’s promotion agency in Tokyo. Finally, they did a showing of Hotelier in 2006. When it started playing, the theater informed me of how many people went to see it, and actually 2,000 people per day were there. Every single screen and seat in the theater during that period was occupied by BYJ’s Hotelier. (Interview with KY in Tokyo, 2008)

Through several trials and rejections, KY’s idea was accepted by a theater in Roppongi, a new entertainment hub in Tokyo and the Roppongi theater had the first run of Hotelier (i.e., It was originally produced prior to Winter Sonata in Korea) in 2006. After this showing, several theaters in Tokyo or suburbs of Tokyo have routinely scheduled different BYJ dramas originally produced in the early 90’s (e.g., Papa and First Love). During our interview period in April 2008, the most recent Korean drama, “TaeWangSaSinGi” (in English title, Legend) was featured at a number of Tokyo’s big theater-chains and at the same time it was broadcast by NHK TV channels on weekend nights. Our Japanese interviewees watched TaeWangSaSinGi on the weekend TV broadcast, and they went to the theater to see the same episodes again on a big screen. Showing popular Korean dramas in theaters has become a new routine, business tactic that extended a window of one more media outlet in the Japanese entertainment market.

Conclusion

A Japanese phrase, Chikokute Tǒi, describes properly the people’s psychological distance between Korea and Japan. It embraced a relationship that is physically close, but mentally rather far. Even though the Korean Wave phenomena are not a mainstream foreign culture transmission in Japan, many Japanese cultural critics point out its visible influence on the Japanese imagination of contemporary Korea. A Japanese interviewee, KU (female, 40s) remarked how the Korean Wave brought her closer to Korea on the whole:

It’s not easy to state the meaning of the Korean Wave, but I can say that the Korean Wave enables me to get interested in Korea and to start watching Korean dramas. And for sure, the pattern of my life has been CHANGED. I am interested in the history and the culture of Korea, and at the same time I am very FOND of Korea, I have warm feelings. I was afraid of flying so I never tried to travel to other countries, but now I’ve visited Korea several times after learning about the Korean Wave. Frankly, I can say that the Korean Wave changed me. (Interview with KU in Tokyo, 2008)

The interest of the Japanese fans in Korean dramas has motivated them to dig up the colonial/postcolonial Korean-Japanese relations, history of immigration, and cultural exchanges. As Iwabuchi (2008a) noted, not a small number of Japanese are rethinking how they envisioned Korea because of biased or condescending behavior, thinking it was a backward society.

In this article, we explored that Japanese fans’ Korean drama readings have identified in resonance with their imaginations of spatial locality and postcolonial consciousness. We discovered how to inscribe the Korean drama into the Japanese audience’s minds and what elements in reading Korean dramas particularly empowered the Japanese fans to relate and imagine even more as their belonging in the East Asian community. The textual structure and evoking emotional appeals in terms of the Korean drama have been transformed by the Japanese audiences and this transformation makes them more passionate in seeking Korean culture and the fan community. Importantly, the Korean drama was reproduced by the Japanese fans as the cultural text provoked the culturally mixed and imagined space in embracing subtly foreign but nostalgic East Asian sentiment. The Japanese past and present have been preserved in the Korean drama so they happily transport themselves to this dramatic reality. The imagined sense of East Asianness is driven by a gradual and continuous network of Korean media content, and suggests the influences that dispersed audiences in Japan tend to relate as fans to the cultural output from Korea as part of their everyday life.

While this article aims at examining meanings of the Korean drama among Japanese fans in terms of the Japanese postcolonial stance, this analysis has a limitation in grasping the sufficient assertion from the Japanese Korean drama fan in a broader scope. The interviews need to include diverse Japanese participants over BYJ fan club members. For the following study, a comparison of differing postcolonial interpretations between young and middle-aged women among the fan base in Korean drama readings in Japan enabled the point to be plausible and imperative. To conclude, the Korean Wave is an ongoing cultural movement in the Asian media scene, but more complicated global processes and in-depth regional connections between Korea and other media in dustries have emerged. Most recently, Japan is a ready-made and prime market for Korean dramas where Japanese television channels will have a lot to do with the future diffusion of Korean dramas overseas. Perhaps, this future lies not only in Korean media industries, but also in an echo from the Japanese cultural imagination.

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