Yojimbo

The reviews from professional critics and youtube critics are quite positive here in Japan. But the brand recognition is just not what it is in the west, and I guess the critique of the movie is mainly Amercian centric so it doesn't carry the same wight as it does here. But the fun factor might have helped carried it a little, even though it ultimately didn't break out. Hollywood comedies just rarely breakout if at all here it seems.

The film people I followed on twitter also really liked it, it seems, but alot of times they would mentioned something along the line of "despite the bad buzz." I wondered if there is a chance that this will do better over the next few days. The reviews are good too.

People do know him. I think whenever a spider man movie or a MCU movie with spider man in it comes out, people would be more aware. Those movies do quite well. Though I don't know if he is as popular as other anime characters, even though for example compared to other characters like Thor, people do know him a lot more! Maybe in a different way. Anime characters and series here too are popular depending on the age group I think. For example, Dragon Balls are more popular in the adults demographics than teenagers and kids, even though they still make related manga and movies these days. But the target demographics seems to be the people who grew up with it, or are already adult when the manga and anime was ongoing.

Spider man and some other superheros are also popular, but not to the level of the local anime characters. Sometimes we have manga version of these superheros, but I don't think they ever got very popular.

That is very interesting, I remembered having to read some foreign literature when I was in school, but most were translated so not in original language. I wondered if they teach newer literature these days like Harry Porter. It is funny that Japan is very westernized, but at the same time not every brand or IP is popular here, even though they make so much money overseas. I am not sure, even without the scandal, if Barbie would be big here. But the look of Barbie would be appealing to many people I think. And I think the social satire actually would work here as well.

They have done some promotion for the movie in the past couple of months. One of the selling point was the the original barbies were made in Japan, when it was cheap to make toys here. But it is funny that the toys never took off here. But then in Japan, since the local toy makers are so big, foreign made toys don't usually get very popular here. And Japanese kids, and sometimes adults, have a slightly different taste in the toys I think. I have definitely heard of Barbie before, but maybe not commonly referred to in Japan. I think the word Barbiecore is common in the west, but I've only heard it used since last year when referred to some of the movie images that was released last year. I think in general the western cultural reference is not very high here, not in daily use anyway. Maybe people who are more actively online, and more exposed to people from other parts of the world would have more of such cultural reference. The only recent western media that gained big popularity here in a big way that I could think of is Harry Potter. Emma Watson is probably the most popular actress in Japan for many young people. And we also have some western literature that every one, especially girls know like Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, which is somewhat of a feminist icon in a way to Japanese women. Is Anne of Green Gables popular in China as well?

Barbie is not really a popular brand here. They sell it but it's definitely not close to its popularity in the West. Licca chan is quite popular though, and I think it's from Mattel.

And to add to that, there is a valid criticism of people who are outrage about this issue but have no issue with the government and its stance on nuclear weapon conventions.

Yeah I mean as someone from Japan I don't find the memes funny either, and quite ignorant in the grand scheme of things. But I do think that people could also separate the movie from the few artists who captialized on the meme and make these posters, and whoever was running that wb twitter account. I think some of this anger is justified, but at the same time to call for the movie, which has no such imagery inside the movie, to be banned, is a bit too much. There are other ways to address this. Some prominent Japanese film critics had also said as much, as they can separate the two issue.

These events the questions are so curated I don't think they would ever ask questions like that. And Greta and the producer probably is not involved in those tweets. Oversight, yeah, but no malice, and I think most people understand that. I think, and hope, that it's an internet thing and the news cycle outside of twitter is short here. They will be back to the daily Otani news in no time. Maybe there is a curiosity factor too as this made so much money worldwide that prompt people to check it out when it's released here, even though Barbie is not a big brand here. There have been so many merchandising tied in now as well to back off from promoting the movie.

I do wish people from all sides do have a more nuanced take on these things lol, but it's really asking too much.

Hopefully they figure this out. I think it's a good movie and people should go and see it, and not be ruined by such scandal while the marketing is ramping up as well.

The timing of all this is not ideal for sure. And it's really the marketing team who tried to capitalize on the internet sensation of it all. And that tweet was from when the movie was released in July 21st right? So it's kind of coming back to bite them on the butt. But what they should really do is to maybe report those bots who are trying to sell those mash up t-shirts, which imagery is kind of the triggering point for many here. I am surprised nothing has been done to them even in that apology post.

I don't know if those online twitter crowd is necessarily the target audience anyway though. There are always these noisy political crowd, usually of a certain age, that gets outraged at almost everything here and complain about it online.

There is a sense that he's chasing interesting projects. Even back in the days he'd go after projects with more unknown or newer directors rather than the masters, like some of the hot young actors usually do, like Driver who almost exclusively works with such masters. I also think he's going more commercial flair these days, but working with Gerwig, Lord and Miller and even Leitch who has a pretty distinctive action style seems to still be on brand. Maybe he just ditches the indie stuff that made him famous,