Hybridized Culture Of Globalization & Localization

With the founding of the Popular Culture Association (PCA) in the late 1960s, scholars from many fields began to pay attention to the influence of popular culture, and intercultural communication scholars are no exception. However, according to the author's analysis, the study of popular culture is mainly limited to studies of comics, character, sociology and gender. Many studies need to be done in other areas of popular culture, for example, film and associated genres such as anime. Anime also reflects culture as well as cultural changes. Japanese anime is especially worthy of study because it is good at producing a hybridized culture combining globalization and localization. The author proposes that "hybridized culture" can be an effective method of cultural communication.The Japanese anime Only Yesterday is a prototypically hybridized product that combines the globalization elements with the background of localized Japanese culture and identity. In order to prove author's hypothesis, a case study of Only Yesterday is conducted. The theories of globalization, localization and cultural hybridization are first reviewed in order to lay down the basic foundation for this research. In addition, because the intercultural theory of Hofstede's and Bond's "Cultural Dimensions" and the literary technique of "stream of consciousness" are used in analyzing the culture (content) and the form of this film related to Globalization, these two theories are also reviewed.The results of the analysis confirm the author's hypothesis. First of all, the film creates a localized Japanese society by depicting a traditional Japanese father, well-behaved mother, a teacher who observes rules and regulations, and two sisters, as well as most people who follow the social norms. All of these characters are in accordance with Hofstede's and Bond's Cultural Dimensions of the typical Japanese society with "high power distance", "high masculinity" and "Confucian dynamism/ long-term orientation". Secondly, the director successfully promotes and markets the anime by inputting many globalized elements, which can be analyzed from two aspects -content/culture as well as form. From a cultural perspective, the heroine is constructed with westernized ideology, who shows "low power distance", "low uncertainty avoidance" and "high femininity". Besides, strong feminist characteristics can also be observed throughout the whole film. Analyzed from form, this Japanese-style anime incorporates a very popular Western film/ literary technique, known as "stream of consciousness."The study concludes that the hybridized culture presented in Only Yesterday which combines localized Japanese culture with globalized culture, makes the film transcend far beyond Japan into the world. The author further suggests that this hybridized cultural mode may be an effective way for cultural communication, which is also part of the purposes of intercultural communication.