The Japan Times looks at the rapid rise of popularity of Japanese popular culture — manga, anime and video games, namely — in France, using as a barometer the Japan Expo in Paris. In 1999, the first festival drew just 3,000 people. This year, some 80,000 attended.

It’s interesting to think of Japan and France, both of whose traditional cultures tend toward the exclusive and elite, in the grip of an otaku boom.

And yet there are precursors in both countries. Japanese manga are rooted in early 18th-century prints, and if the French manga tradition doesn’t go back quite that far, cartoon masterpieces like Asterix the Gaul in the early 1960s cleared the trail that led to otakuhood.

In the ’80s, explains Tsukuru, there occurred a development in France which set it apart from the rest of Europe — deregulation of the broadcast industry. TV networks proliferated; programming failed to keep pace. Japanese anime helped fill the vacuum, and proved immensely popular — so much so that some critics, among them the future French presidential candidate Segolene Royal, began to grumble about children being “brainwashed.”

What’s French for “obsessive”? Obsédant?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 9:30 am and is filed under Animation, Conventions, Fandom, Manga, Pop Culture, Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.