Like many women in Japan, my wife is a fan of 韓流ドラマ hanryu dorama, or South Korean dramas, and every time I walk through the living room I know I’m likely to see stars like So Ji-sub, Kwon Sang-woo and Shin Min-a on the TV. Actually I had to ask my wife for these names: Korean names are difficult for me to track since my brain is used to memorizing names in kanji yet they’re written in katakana or hangul writing. Also, there seem to be several competing conventions on how to transliterate Korean names into the Roman alphabet, making it a challenge to Google them and get the right person. When I ask my wife what’s so interesting about K-dramas she gets very animated. “Oh, they’re nothing like Japanese dramas. They’re more intense, the stories are much more involved, and the characters really change and grow as the story progresses.” (This, of course, is what got me into anime so very long ago.) Korea has been in the cultural shadow of Japan for decades, something they hate, and the government spends lavishly to promote Korean culture around the world, from K-Pop idols to the Korean historical dramas they have on Fuji TV every morning here. Lately Korean pop culture is waning in popularity in Japan, in part because that’s what happens when a boom has been running for several years, but also due to the political unpleasantness between the two countries, and the unkind things said about Japan on a seemingly daily basis.
The beginning of the end of the Hanryu Boom in Japan?
