Volume 7, May 2016

It is well known that the rate of unemployment and percentage of residents receiving social assistance (Seikatsu Hogo) is higher in Osaka than it is in most other parts of Japan. A sharp increase in welfare recipients occurred in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, and in the following years those in need of assistance have had to struggle against unfairness and iniquities in the welfare system. In 2012, the Liberal Democratic Party defeated the Democratic Party to return to power under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. With the conservatives back in power, it became increasingly difficult for the poor to press for fairness in welfare payments, and welfare recipients came under attack from politicians and were subjected to increased “bashing” in the media. In 2013, social assistance payments for food expenses were cut back, and assistance for housing expenses was reduced starting in 2015.

Among the background conditions leading to these responses are the sharp increase in welfare spending that has strained public finances and the people being led to believe that many of the working poor feel that it is unfair for them to have to squeeze by on very low wages while welfare recipients are supported by social assistance. More than a few expert observers are pointing out that a situation in which the incomes of people earning the very lowest wages are lower than incomes from social assistance is leading to divisions and confrontations between the working poor and welfare recipients. However, no empirical verification of actual confrontations among the poor has been provided, which is one reason this study of Osaka residents is being undertaken. We will analyze the results of our study to find answers to four questions.

The first is to analyze opinions gathered to see if the view that poverty is the fault of the poor themselves is a determining factor in decisions made on anti-poverty measures. The second question requiring verification is whether or not it is true that people who have fallen into financial distress actually support cutting welfare payments. The third question we will examine is whether neighborhood effects exist in Osaka, a city with striking differences between residential neighborhoods. In other words, do the living environments in the various residential neighborhoods affect the ways in which residents think about poverty? The fourth question we will address is whether or not residents’ perceptions of poverty actually have a determining effect on policies adopted to deal with it.

Departing from Azuma’s concept of “Database Consumption” (Azuma 2001), the present paper discusses cultural creation, originality and the changing subject in musical production through multiple topics, such as the comparison of derivative works in manga/anime culture (otaku culture) to sampling/remixing in DJ culture, critical discourse on the issue of “pakuri” (rip offs and the act of ripping off) and the acceptance of software for synthetic singing.

Intertextuality, oftentimes cited as a feature of postmodern culture, is a significant quality of contemporary Japanese pop culture as well. Fanzines (dōjinshi), or derivative works created by anime/manga fans reusing existing characters in different stories, are a prime example of this. At the same time, DJ culture, dependent upon sampling and remix techniques, can also be seen as the appearance of postmodern eclecticism within the realm of music.

Azuma states that, in the otaku world, elements from individual works (such as characters, settings, and the various elements that constitute such characters/settings) – rather than the works themselves – are collected in database form, and cultural expression takes place by users then selecting and arranging these various elements. Musical expression in DJ culture assumes a formal similarity to this. However, it varies on an important point. This paper identifies two major differences between otaku and DJ culture in terms of “creative effort” and “publicity” and investigates the varying forms of the database consumption phenomenon in manga/anime as compared to music.

Studies from these perspectives of creative effort and publicity are then applied to the following discourse on “pakuri.” Examining the history of the term “pakuri,” once jargon for economic fraud and later employed as a term for describing cultural plagiarism, the author reveals the presence of two varying reasons for criticizing “pakuri” conduct: the undeserved shortcutting of creative effort and the embezzlement of publicity value.

The effect of database consumption in music appears as the overlapping of developments in the field of shortcutting creative effort and the act of toying with publicity. The surging popularity of the synthetic singing software “Hatsune Miku,” released in 2007, is a prime example of this dual nature. “Hatsune Miku,” initially developed as a software program for substituting human singing with computerized singing, was adopted as an almost real singer in the minds of the users after its release, and (the character’s) publicity came to be the object of consumption.

Although it is already customary to understand the creation and consumption of popular culture in contemporary Japan through the framework of postmodern culture, this paper attempts to further develop this discussion in the realm of popular music.