Kawaii Japan

Defining JRPGs through the Cultural Media Mix

Abstract

Despite frequent reference in academic and fan work to the video game genre known as JRPG (Japanese role-playing game), little critical scholarship has been dedicated to understanding how to conceptualize the genre. Frequently, JRPGs are framed as a cultural curiosity, with the “J” operating as a cultural appendix to established and well-defined genre of RPGs. The coordination between government and industry central to soft power, however, offers insight into the construction of the genre by highlighting the role the market plays in promoting culture. Drawing from representations of and discourse about gender in the MEXT’s Cool Japan campaign, this paper argues that JRPGs should be framed as one elemental part of a larger creative ecology that comes to define Japan and its culture overseas.