To say that Japanese pop culture has global appeal is old news. Since the 1990s, the otaku culture of Japan, in particular anime and video games, has come to captivate the world over. These and other slices of “Japan Pop” are becoming just as much a part of the cultures of distant places as they are in the Japanese homeland; Pikachu as central to childhoods in the U.S. as he is in Japan, if not more so.
Following the burst of the Japanese economic bubble in 1990 and coinciding onset of this Japan wave, foreigners who visit Japan tend to do so not out of economic interest, but out of passion for all things otaku. Tourism posters for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs feature the phrase “Cool Japan” with an image of a female anime character clad in yukata, and among those courses offered at the Waseda Japanese Language Education Center, those that incorporate anime into their curriculum are always the first to fill up.
However, having been asked to write an essay on what I find “cool” about Japan, I am inclined to highlight other, subtler, areas of Japan’s appeal. I am not interested in Japan for its worlds of digital fantasy, but for its little treasures of the every day: things most Japanese people take for granted, but are rich with cultural meaning.
Things like canned coffee. Japan was the first country to produce and retail coffee products in a can, a trend that has never caught on in my home country of the United States. I love canned coffee for its convenience; when I’m tired and need a quick kick, I can grab a Wonda After Shot, and I’m good to go. I also appreciate that canned coffee comes heated in winter, making for an excellent hand warmer.
But my own tastes aside, what I find truly exceptional about Japanese canned coffee is the place it occupies in Japanese cultures of work. In Tokyo one would be hard-pressed to find a place where within 200 meters one could not buy canned coffee. The drink is sold mostly in convenience stores and vending machines, outlets that are as ubiquitous as they are transitory. These are not kissaten, or coffee houses; they are not places to linger in. Rather, sale in convenience stories and vending machines positions canned coffee as an instant delight. It is purchased on the spot with the goal of immediate consumption.
I have a theory that when you buy canned coffee, what you are really buying is time. Caught up in the midst of work, running from one place to another, what you are looking for is a quick burst of energy to take you from where you are now to where you need to be. Canned coffee advertisements emphasize themes of masculinity, work, and escape, selling the idea that canned coffee offers a reprieve, however brief, from the male work routine. However, that this reprieve is organized around the purpose of providing energy, itself something necessary for work, and that purchasing and drinking canned coffee is a short experience, in itself reinforces the capacity of the worker to work. This brief coffee break helps you perform; by purchasing a small amount of time, you gain even more time through greater productivity.
Canned coffee is just one of many examples of commonplace things of surprisingly deep meaning. There is plenty that is cool about Japan besides the mainstream of otaku culture. By examining the everyday, we can also understand more about Japanese culture as a whole. And what could be cooler than that?
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