Dating Roles In Japan

[Alarico Boyett]

GraceKao, a sociology professor at Yale University, has been tracking how Asian American men fare in the dating pool for years. Her research offers a look at how much discrimination Asian American men face when dating.

A 2015 study Kao co-authored found that only 65% of Asian men ages 25 to 32 were in romantic relationships, compared to over three-quarters of Black, Hispanic and white men. The data also showed that Asian women were half as likely to be unpartnered, compared with Asian men. She also found, in a 2018 paper she co-authored, that gay Asian men in America face the same discrimination in their love lives.

During the yellow peril era, the notion that Asian men were feminine or asexual also took root, says Connie So, an American ethnic studies teaching professor at the University of Washington. So says the stereotype started because, along with building railroads, many of the first male Chinese immigrants to the U.S. worked jobs associated with women, like laundry and housecleaning. Later waves of male Asian immigrants from Japan and the Philippines also worked these types of jobs, and the stereotype grew into one of the strongest prevailing ideas about Asian men in America, So says.

Yes, there was Bruce Lee, who played strong, fierce characters, but he was the exception to the rule, highlighting just how few Asian male characters were in films and TV shows at all, and how those few roles were mostly for weak or comical characters. And So points out that Lee was rarely seen in romantic or sexual situations.

I had mixed feelings about that. Being told I was hot was an enormous relief after years of thinking I was unattractive. I started to believe that despite my Asianness, or maybe because I was only half-Asian, there were white girls out there who found me attractive. But at the same time, it still felt like being Asian was something I had to fight and overcome to get girls to like me. It still meant that I would have been regarded as better if I was white.

When I started taking classes at the University of Oregon, I majored in Japanese. After so many years ignoring or even actively suppressing my Asian identity, I felt guilty and wanted to reconnect with my Japanese roots and talk to my Japanese extended family members, none of whom speak English. Though UO is in Eugene, it has a slightly higher Asian population (6.4%) than the rest of the city, and many of the students in the Japanese major are Japanese American or Chinese international students. In that environment, I felt less abnormal for being Asian.

If people acknowledge that discrimination against Asian men exists in the dating pool, they might question the reasons for their own sexual preferences and eventually overcome the racism that warps their choices in romantic partners.

An idol (アイドル, aidoru) is a type of entertainer marketed for image, attractiveness, and personality in Japanese pop culture. Idols are primarily singers with training in other performance skills such as acting, dancing, and modeling. Idols are commercialized through merchandise and endorsements by talent agencies, while maintaining a parasocial relationship with a financially loyal consumer fan base.

Japan's idol industry first emerged in the 1960s and became prominent in the 1970s and 1980s due to television. During the 1980s, regarded as the "Golden Age of Idols", idols drew in commercial interest and began appearing in commercials and television dramas. As more niche markets began to appear in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it led to a significant growth in the industry known as the "Idol Warring Period." Today, over 10,000 teenage girls in Japan are idols, with over 3,000 groups active. Japan's idol industry has been used as a model for other pop idol industries, such as K-pop.

Sub-categories of idols include gravure idols, junior idols, net idols, idol voice actors, virtual idols, AV idols, alternative idols, underground idols, Akiba-kei idols, local idols, bandols, and Japanese-South Korean idols.

Idols often spend time isolated from family and friends while enduring busy work schedules,[22] with some agencies withholding job assignments from their talents and notifying them of work on short notice to prevent them from taking time off.[23] Some talent agencies do not rigorously train their idols and market them as amateurs who will gain experience over the course of their careers and with support from their fans.[24][9][25] Despite being trained in multiple roles in entertainment, idols in Japan are not expected to meet the high standards of performances that professionals in their fields do.[24] Because of their manufactured image, idols are generally not regarded as authentic artists.[26] Likewise, many young Japanese artists pursuing careers in acting or music reject the idol label in their bid to be seen as professionals.[27]

Music from idol singers is generally categorized under J-pop,[28] though talent agencies may label them under the sub-genre "idol pop" for further distinction.[9][29] Many idol singers find success as groups rather than individually.[13] Within each idol group, the members are sometimes given distinct roles. One example of a role is the center, who occupies the center position in the group's choreography and thus receives the most focus.[30] Another example is the leader, usually relegated to the oldest or most experienced member in the group, who acts as an intermediary for the members and the staff.[31]

Idols are seen as role models to the public, and their personal lives and image can sometimes be tightly controlled by their talent agencies.[32] Common restrictions include not being allowed to smoke or drink in public, or pursue romantic relationships.[32]

Idols generally perform in elaborate costumes for specific performances.[34] Costumes are created for each song in their promotion cycle, as well as graduation events, and some groups have their own in-house costume designer.[34] AKB48, in particular, has had over 1,102 costumes created for the group since 2017.[34] The outfits worn by female idols are generally described as "cute",[35] while outfits worn by male idols are described as "cool."[36]

Among many idol groups, school uniforms have been used as a standard costume.[33] The integration of school uniforms in the idol industry originated from Onyanko Club, who debuted in 1985 with a concept based on school.[33] Following their disbandment in 1987, other groups began adopting school uniforms as costumes, such as CoCo and Ribbon, two groups put together by Fuji TV's audition programs, followed by Seifuku Kōjō Iinkai [ja] in 1992 and Morning Musume in the early 2000s.[33] When AKB48 debuted in 2006, the group used a school concept and the members have performed in various stylized costumes based on school uniforms.[33] Since then, other groups have used stylized school uniforms as costumes, such as AKB48's sister groups, Sakura Gakuin, and Sakurazaka46, with some modifications to suit the groups' image and choreography.[33]

In 2017, Nihon Tarento Meikan noted that stylized school uniforms being used as costumes gained popularity through AKB48 due to their unique designs, the short skirts, and the neatness of the uniform.[33] The uniforms found popularity with men, as they represent their "eternal longing" and nostalgia for high school, while only gaining popularity with women in the 2010s through anime.[33]

The popularity of young female singers can be traced back to Sayuri Yoshinaga in the 1960s, as well as the Takarazuka Revue and theater shows from the Meiji era.[42] In 1962, Johnny Kitagawa founded Johnny & Associates and created the group Johnnys, which is retroactively considered the first idol group in Japan.[59] He is also credited with pioneering the idol trainee system, where talents would be accepted in the agency at a young age and train not only in singing, but also dancing and acting, until they were ready for debut.[21] However, the concept of an idol was not defined by mainstream Japanese media until in November 1964, when the 1963 French film Cherchez l'idole was released in Japan under the title Aidoru o Sagase (アイドルを探せ).[89] Many Japanese audiences took interest in Sylvie Vartan, whose song "La plus belle pour aller danser" from the film sold more than a million copies in Japan.[89] Vartan was heralded for her youthful, adorable looks and musical talent, leading the Japanese entertainment industry to assign the word "idol" to singers who shared a similar aesthetic.[89]

The influence idols had on television led the 1980s to be known as the "Golden Age of Idols",[37] in part due to Japan's economic bubble and growing commercial interest in them.[42] Several figures who defined the Golden Age of Idols are Seiko Matsuda,[37] Akina Nakamori, Kyōko Koizumi, and Onyanko Club.[19] Television programs in which idols appeared often enjoyed high viewer ratings.[19] Dentsu also created the "CM idol" business model, where idols were able to gain fame by singing and appearing in commercials.[93]

Onyanko Club, in particular, shifted public perception of idols from professional stars to ordinary schoolgirls who would gain experience throughout their career.[42] They were also the first group to introduce a "graduation system", where older members would eventually leave the group while newer inexperienced members would join,[42] with the system being named such as the group drew similarities to a school club.[40] Onyanko Club also led to idols becoming closely associated with television due to the popularity of their variety show, as the visual component became important to the overall enjoyment of their music.[93]

At the same time, male idols gained popularity, with acts from Johnny & Associates normalizing idols singing and dancing at the same time.[21] However, fewer male idol acts from other companies achieved the same success as Johnny's idols due to the company's CEO, Johnny Kitagawa, controlling the media and pressuring certain programs not to invite male idols from competing agencies, as he would continue to until his death in 2019.[21][61]

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