Japan wants the world to know just how cool it is. Over the past six months, the country’s government has announced plans to pump millions of dollars into companies eager to expand internationally, such as the online lifestyle retailer Tokyo Otaku Mode and the ramen chain Ippudo. And that’s just the start. There are plans for a Japan-centric TV station and many more projects aimed at promoting the nation’s culture to the rest of the world while generating money and interest in the 2020 Olympic Games, hosted by Tokyo. The effort isn't new: For over a decade, the country has embraced “Cool Japan,” a government-supported movement focused on selling what many have described as its “gross national cool.” This has involved touting cornerstones of pop culture such as cartoons, comics, music, and food overseas, as well as seemingly less hip products such as rugs and salt.

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Last year, the Japanese government created the Cool Japan Fund, an organization tasked with helping businesses expand overseas, backed by an initial investment of several billion dollars. The country shifted to this approach several years after its “bubble economy” popped in the 1990s, turning to pop-culture exports in place of the industrial ones that helped Japan boom in the 1980s. There is some irony at work here—an eagerness to promote something as trendy usually signals the opposite—but for years the country's efforts have paid off. Now, though, Japan’s drive for coolness faces pressure from its Asian neighbors and growing concerns regarding who exactly Cool Japan is aimed at—the outside world, or the Japanese themselves.

The country's pop-culture creations have captured foreign attention since the end of World War II. Cartoons such as Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Gigantor played on American television in the 1960s, while singer Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki” sold over 13 million copies worldwide that same decade. The first big boom in Japanese pop culture came in the 80s thanks to the rise of Nintendo, Hello Kitty, and anime—with the latter playing a central role in the following decades as shows such as Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, and Pokemon became staples of thousands of kids' daily routines. Coupled with the Tamagotchi toy, Japanese fashion, and the rise of the famed director Hayao Miyazaki’s animation company Studio Ghibli, Japan became a global powerhouse of kitschy trendiness.

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Japan’s cultural ascent was made possible—and necessary—thanks to the economic bubble popping in the early 90s. In the previous decade, the country had arguably "the world's most vibrant consumer culture," writes David Marx at the Japan-focused website Neojaponisme. But as the economy declined, people in Japan started spending less, and companies looked abroad for new markets.

The California Sunday Magazine editor in chief Douglas McGray picked up on this, and in 2002 wrote an article for Foreign Policy focusing on the trend. He compared Japan’s “national cool” to the idea of “soft power,” wherein countries influence others in traditional ways. Consider the United States—American films, music, and TV shows are nearly everywhere globally, and they’ve been spreading an image of “American cool” for decades now. McGray’s piece proved influential, and by 2005 the Japanese government was publicly talking about the concept of “Cool Japan.” The slogan even prompted its own TV program, Cool Japan, aired by national broadcaster NHK and featuring foreign visitors being wowed by all aspects of Japan—from J-pop to candy to construction.

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The actual implementation of “Cool Japan” in recent years, however, has been spotty, especially in the Western world. Although peak popularity for anime and manga passed sometime in the middle of the last decade, shows such as Attack On Titan and One Piece have attracted foreign attention, while Japanese video games and film remain influential. Japanese pop culture, however, remains a niche interest, and in many cases not one to brag about (to be called a “Japanophile” or a “weeaboo” is not a term of endearment). There are, of course, exceptions: Gwen Stefani made Harajuku Girls a thing, the experimental musician Grimes is a professed lover of all things Japan-related, and the singer Sky Ferreira's song "Omanko" is about Japanese Jesus and Christmas.

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