Banzai

: o manga português e a construção da imagem do Japão

Abstract

In the early 1990s, as Japan was experiencing the downfalls of its economic stagnation, its exports of popular culture products in the global market context and its acceptance by an international youth audience skyrocketed. The continuous rise in the consumption of Japanese cultural products that has been going on since then, especially manga, has led to two particular outcomes: the “creolization” of manga, by adapting and adopting its visual contents and style guidelines according to local preferences; and a generalized manga reader’s perception that Japan is a “cool”, modern, unique and culturally attractive country because it produces interesting cultural products, which has been used as a tool by the Japanese government strategy of “Cool Japan”. This thesis thus sought to explore the link between these two outcomes, by providing a Portuguese case study of hybrid manga, the Portuguese manga style magazine Banzai. Through the interviews and questionnaire conducted to Banzai’s authors and readers respectively, it concluded that the type of image of Japan depicted by them it is not completely influenced by the consumption of Japanese pop culture products and that hybrid manga may play an important role in the spread of Japanese popular culture.

Date of Award	24 Mar 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Eduardo Hawthorne Barrento (Supervisor)