Entertainment> Celebrities

China's J-lovers

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
2009-08-11 09:51

Japanese actress and singer Noriko Sakai. File photos Now, the young generation is hooked, but few are aware that some 30 of the top names in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan pop arena have covered it and a whole generation who grew up in the 80s embraced it.

The 1990s brought more drama series and love stories from the Land of the Rising Sun. But the viewing platform shifted. More people kept in touch with J-pop via cassettes and discs, which offered a wider spectrum of selections.

According to Yu Shanshan, an editor with a Beijing-based newspaper, serious fans of all things Japanese, known as "J-lovers" in China, are those aged 20-30. That means, those who fell in love with Yamaguchi and her peers are not included.

What caught the eyes of Yu was Beautiful Life, a 2001 TV series with Takuya Kimura (木村拓哉) and Takako Tokiwa (常盘贵子). The story was heartbreaking, and the stars refreshingly youthful. She shed buckets of tears and dug up earlier works by these and other artists. She also broadened her scope to other genres, which now includes detective series.

Another reason Yu prefers Japanese soap operas are their manageable length, which are usually less than a dozen episodes.

She also delights in the angelic and cartoon-like images, which are never as hard-hitting as American series, but still manage to include useful knowledge, such as that of autism.

Japanese pop culture reached its peak in the 1990s in China, explains Tan Fei, an entertainment industry veteran and culture critic. It gave way to Korean pop. Nowadays, with Internet access and endless options it's hard for a whole nation of couch potatoes to be addicted to soap operas from only one country.

"The J-pop craze is not declining. What you see is just the manifestation of more choices," argues Sun Jianjun, professor of Japanese language at Peking University. Sun has observed that even people who are not proficient in the language are glued to historical dramas that may not even have a big following in Japan. He hopes more soap opera can be imported so that locals don't have to watch pirated discs or download illegally.

As for Sakai's popularity in China, "Class 95" of Tsinghua University is said to be the earliest Chinese fan base because the techno-savvy students had online access before almost anybody else did. And since they resided in the number 9 dormitory, "9#" was twisted into the homonym Sakai, in Chinese.

Obviously more have followed suit and become ardent fans. Now some of them are debating whether to support her through the coming weeks.

Sakai was arrested on Saturday night. Cops obtained evidence that she was also taking drugs and her husband made a similar confession. Like her Japanese fans, people here in China are also caught in a quandary between defending their idol and lamenting her downfall.

Sakai's company, Sun Music, apologized to her Chinese fans in a statement: "Whatever the verdict, we hope you'll recall her with warmth."

Liu Wei and Gan Tian contributed to this story.