Pokémon originated in Japan and became popular around the world in the 1990s. Pokémon is a complex of products including electronics games, comic books, anime and a diverse array of character merchandise created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996.
Cuteness, on the other hand, refers to the expressive connections to imaginary creations with reverberation to youth and the traditional culture of the communities in Japan. Commodity cuteness involves processes that operate primarily upon emotional levels. This paper seeks to discuss the emergence of Pokémon and commodity cuteness in Japan.
The emergence of Pokémon and commodity cuteness in Japan
One of the enduring features of the commodity cuteness is its role in creating emotions and affections as a type of warmness in the coolness of technological space. Pokémon, as a symbol of cuteness, has an open-ended nature that many of its Japan producers and customers find more intriguing.
Since its release in the 1990s, in Japan, Pokémon has seen a spectacular success in the global market. While Pokémon was released in the Japanese market as a GameBoy game, it has become one of the most powerful media franchise in the world. Allison points out how Pokémon incarcerate significant traits of postindustrial capitalism. Within seven years of its existence, Pokémon has emerged to be one of the most successful and lucrative media franchise in the world.
The emergence of Pokémon in Japan has led to reinforcement of new national myth in Japan. For instance, Pokémon has transposed traditional social structures and practices into new media cultures in Japan.
Different judgments have attributed Pokémon’s success to a number of factors including excellent marketing campaign and media mix arrangement. Besides, Pokémon is impressionable, open minded and exceedingly diverse. According to Allison, Pokémon is not only expendable, but also easy to attach to different types of media (Allison, 2003).
Pokémon’s attractiveness for Japanese children, particularly girls and younger children lies in its cuteness than its naughtiness. Tandem to this, Pokémon can be played in by different players in very different ways. All these features elaborate the quick emergence of Pokémon in Japan (Allison, 2003).
How Pokémon became Japan’s new global power
Pokémon’s global spread has been highly impressive. Anne Allison (2003) states that Pokémon has extended into a media mix, global operation exceptional for both the permanence and outflow of its popularity. Pokémon has maintained an impressive performance in different markets across the world.
Tandem to this, its popularity has continued to grow rapidly across the world. Like world strong brand images such as Coca-Cola, Pokémon popularity has penetrated into even interior regions. Allison (2003) noted that Pokémon has percolated into different regions including East Asia, America and Australia.
There are different factors that can be attributed to Japan’s victory in ensuring the success of Pokémon in the global market. Firstly, the field of entertainment, particularly children entertainment, is highly lucrative and highly profitable.
Therefore, through adequate capital and appropriate strategies, Pokémon took a remarkably short period to infiltrate into the global market (Allison, 2003). The mass culture of children in Japan and all over the world, therefore, played an extremely vital role in ensuring the success of Pokémon in the global market.
The popularity of Pokémon in the global market can also be attributed to the remarkable technology behind its creation. Technology has played a notable role in promoting Pokémon cuteness, thus making it one of the most outstanding products in Japan. The most notable reasons why many customers in Japan buy Pokémon product are because that they are cute and cheap.
The strong marketing strategies for Pokémon are another factor that has enabled it to become japans new global power. Pokémon’s marketing strategies are among the most effective marketing strategies in Japan. These marketing strategies have ensured an impressive performance of Pokémon product all over the world.
Other example of cuteness commodity
Besides Pokémon, Hello Kitty is another excellent example of cuteness commodity that has had an impressive impact on the Japanese economy.
Hello Kitty is a fictional character that was created in 1074 by Yuko Shimizu. Since its consumers are both adults and children, Hello Kitty has performed extremely well not only in Japans market but also in the global market. According to Christine Yano (2009), the creators of Hello Kitty played an outstanding role in promoting its cuteness through different lines of cosmetics and decorations.
Like Pokémon, the popularity of Hello Kitty relies much on cuteness (Yano, 2009). Many people particularly children are attracted to it by its cuteness (Yano, 2009). The successes of Pokémon and Hello Kitty as cuteness commodities have led to the emergence of Japanese as a global power.
Conclusion
Conclusively, commodity cuteness plays an extremely crucial role in facilitating products popularity. Many people buy Pokémon products and Hello Kitty not because they are naughty but because they are cute and appealing to the eye. Therefore, the impressive impact of Pokémon and hello Kitty can be attributed their cuteness.
References
Allison, A. (2003). Portable Monsters and Commodity Cuteness: Pokémon as Japan’s New Global Power. Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 6(3), 381–395.
Yano, C. (2009). Wink on Pink: Interpreting Japanese Cute as it Grabs the Global Headlines. The Journal of Asian Studies, 68 (3), 681-688.