SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Since the end of the 1980s, Japan's interest in its Asian neighbours has grown visibly. Although the political relations are not untroubled, the economical ties between Japan and its neighbouring countries grow closer each year. Even in the cultural sphere, the interest in Asia has increased, which could not only be observed in the rising number of travellers to other Asian countries, but also in an 'Asia boom' in the popular genres of cinema and TV drama. This Asia boom brought more characters fro another Asian country to the big and small screens in Japan than ever before. Due to the fact that the mass media in general, and the fictional media in particular, reach a wide audience, and in light of the Asia boom, it is necessary to look at the representations of other countries constructed in these genres. These representations alqys yield a great deal of information about the circumstances of the society they are produced and located in. Thus, as Japan's Asian neighbours, but mainly the region of Greater China (The People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong), have gained importance,.it is especially vital to look at how this region is (re)presented in Japanese media. Therefore, this paper deals with the representations of Greater China in cinema and TV drama in Japan, aiming to work out how Greater China is perceived in the Japanese visual media whilst taking social and political conditions at the time of production into account.