© 2018 Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Vol. 10, February 2018, pp. 57-80
Master’s and Doctoral Programs in International and Advanced
Japanese Studies
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Tsukuba

ArticleCool Japan, Warm Mexico:
Bounded Others and National Identity
Lisander MARTÍNEZ OLIVER
University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ph.D. Student
The present paper is an approach to othering as a potential factor of coolness. Through the analysisof two case studies−the established cultural phenomenon of Cool Japan, and the rising buildup of what
we call Warm Mexico−the aim is to understand the particular conditions of othering that can lead to a“cool” national identity. Japan is taken as a departure point to assess the usage of exoticism as a resourcefor building a cool national identity, and then the analysis turns to Mexico’s current national image to
examine the possibility for that same strategy to be applied. The concepts of complicit exoticism, andbounded autonomy are used as theoretical axes to find out the factors involved in the cooling of anothered culture. The paper combines theoretical analysis and a content analysis of two case studies tostrengthen the understanding of the links between concepts. The first part focuses on the historical andtheoretical background that hint at the variables involved in process of building a “cool” other. The second
part is an interpretation analysis of an exploratory content analysis done on conversations with fan
communities that have received and replicated othering discourses of two foreign cultures, i.e. Mexico andJapan.
Keywords: Cool Japan, Nihonjinron, Mexico, National Image, Othering

Introduction
The present paper is an approach to othering, the establishment of conceptual boundaries between an ingroup entity, “us”, and an out-group entity, “them” (Iwabuchi, 1994: 49), as a potential factor of coolness.
Through the analysis of two case studies; the established cultural phenomenon of Cool Japan, and the risingbuildup of what we call Warm Mexico, we aim to understand the particular conditions of othering that can leadto a “cool” national identity. Given its long and solid career on coolness, Japan is taken as a departure point toassess the usage of exoticism as a resource for building a cool national identity, and then we turn to Mexico’s
current national image to examine the possibility for that same strategy to be applied.
The reason behind the choice of Japan and Mexico responds to two main conditions. First, the initiative ofboth public and private institutions to strengthen the promotion of Japanese creative industries as a way toheal Japan’s image after the Fukushima disaster could set a guideline for Mexico to follow. Cool Japan became apowerful tool for post-Fukushima Japan, hence adapting some of these strategies could help Mexico to improve
its own damaged portraiture as a consequence on the war against drug cartels. Second, Mexico and Japan havebeen subject to othering, and exotization, and both have spawned fandoms that idealize both countries basedon these notions. The national images that makes use of (self) exoticism do so theoretically, but also tangibly57

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through material culture. Japanese and Mexican fandoms could shed light on the concrete consumption andinterpretation of said material culture and reveal how national image discourses are received, recontextualized
and transferred to the sphere of cool.
The othering traits, and exotization are approached as cultural essentialisms. That is to say, the conceptionthat all human beings carry a culture, which in turn is reduced to a set of characteristics that defines anindividual’s or a group’s essence (Grillo, 2003). Cultural essentialism represents a form of stereotyping, a wayof categorizing a community, or a culture. However, stereotyping also often brings to the table the discussionof the (mis)interpretation of a “real” culture, versus the “imagined” one (McGarty et al., 2002). In this paper weacknowledge the essentialist imagined and constructed nature of the national images of Mexico and Japan, andhow they are used to “provide a useful fit with reality, rather than an exact match with reality (...)” (McGarty
et al., 2002: 8). However, we also want to point out that the constructed quality of the national images here
analyzed or their usage of stereotypes does not render them any less valuable. On the contrary, we intend tohighlight the complexity of the cultural implications and power relationships that frame the selection of the“useful fits” that are the national images resulting from a complicit exoticism.
In order to evidence the tendencies that govern the contemporary image of Japan and Mexico, this study
will first approach the relationship between national image, othering, and cool theoretically, and later will focus
on the practical applications of this relationship through the discourses of fandom communities. During bothstages, Japan will be taken as a reference, and Mexico as a potential application. The objective of our study is to
examine the current image of both countries, according to each othering discourse and each consumer fandom,and find what values trigger appeal/coolness.
Consequently, the following research is done in two stages. First, the theoretical considerations here
implemented gravitate around the concepts of complicit exoticism to explain the part that pertains national
identity, and bounded autonomy to describe its connection to coolness (sections 1 and 2). Then, a content
analysis will be conducted on the discourses (interviews) of key members of the fandom communities inboth territories to assess the contemporary images of Mexico and Japan and the factors that display coolness(Section 3). These representative members of the communities are chosen given their leading roles within theircircuit, where they act as promoters and creators of visual and material culture. In the conclusions we round up
the theoretical considerations and the results of the content analysis in order to evaluate how Japan’s exoticism
and coolness relate, and consider the possibility of Mexico to follow a similar path as Japan down the road of
coolness.
1. Complicit Exoticism and Cool Japan
Japan’s career in cool is long, but when it comes to othering and exoticism it is even longer. Othering is thecolonial practice of imagining an “other”, an opposed pole of the “self”, while setting the cultural boundaries,
differences and hierarchies that generally results in a dichotomy between a superior self, and a marginalized
inferior other (Ghandi, 1998; Yu, 2002). Territories regarded as Orient under Euro-centric standards, such
as Japan, have been a constant subject of othering gazes; romanticizing at best (Machart et al., 2015), andderogatory at worst (Said, 2014) almost since the 17th century (Jorissen, 2002). The changes in the nuancesof the notions of Orient have revolved around the identification of the West; Eastern countries become
instrumental in positioning Western ones through a comparative process of divergence where the formers’“weaknesses” enhance the latters’ “strengths” (Said, 2014: 45). The demarcation of East and West, “us” and“them”, culminates in the establishment of an “Oriental other”, an entity that confirms and stabilizes the “self”,
which in this case is the hegemonic system of Western values (Gandhi, 1998).
Specifically, in the case of Japan, its marginalization as an other has also gone through the ups and downsof shape-shifting where it would be sometimes portrayed negatively as barbaric and irrational (Gbazoul,
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2007; Laver, 2011), or more positively as mysterious and kawaii ( かわいい ) (Okada, 2009; Sakurai, 2009). For
example, the image of the geisha has been molded countless times; it has been a symbol of the exotic sexualityof Japan (Boer, 2003), of a naïve savageness (Okada, 2009: 39), and a representative of Japanese beauty (Okada,2009, Gbazoul, 2007). Authors Ferial J. Gbazoul and Okada Mariko converge when both acknowledge that theprocess of building the image and significance of the geisha is imbued with both Western and Japanese values
alike. Even though in Europe geishas were sexualized (Gbazoul, 2007) and even satirized (Boer, 2003; Okada,2009), Japan subverted their polemic portraiture, adapted it, and chose them as representatives of their culture
during world fairs since the 19th century (Okada, 2009).
The 20th and 21st century still see replications of these othering tendencies. Something similar has happened
with contemporary Japanese fashion. Cultural and fashion studies scholar Masafumi Monden summarizes
the exoticizing gaze behind the categorization of Japanese fashion affecting even big brand names like Rei
Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto , where their “Japaneseness” would be emphasized rather their traits as
individuals (Monden, 2014: 11). Fashion specialist Yuniya Kawamura traces the othering of Japanese fashion
back to Takada Kenzo, claiming that his rise in the Paris fashion scene sparked an interest in Tokyo, the “exotic,
mysterious city where there could be more creative designers, like Kenzo, hidden or waiting to be discovered”(Kawamura, 2013: 23). These two examples of interpretation of Japanese culture have served us to grasp that
othering has been constant when approaching Japan, but also reveal two other tendencies that emanate fromit; first, that it sometimes takes a positive turn and others a negative turn, and second, that Japan has absorbed
and reverted Orientalism almost since the 19th century.
In this part of the study we shall address these two tendencies under the light of Cool Japan. Whilst otheringand exoticism have proven to be reductive and embedded within a colonial system that establishes dyads ofdominating-dominated cultures, we consider how Japan has integrated and reverted its stereotypes in the formof a contemporary self-Orientalism that possibly served as a basis for coolness to arise, and Japan’s soft power
to strengthen. In order to explain the complex negotiations of self-othering and self-Orientalism, the concept
of complicit exoticism as defined by Koichi Iwabuchi will be addressed. Next, its relation to Cool Japan will be
explained and the literature regarding this topic will be reviewed considering the contrasts between the positiveor the negative portraiture of Japan.
(1) Complicit Exoticism
Media and cultural studies Professor Koichi Iwabuchi defines national identity as “a battleground where
various social groups compete with each other to define the meaning of national” (Iwabuchi, 1994: 51). Minding
the contrasts of the aforementioned negotiations of Japanese identity that have passed through so many hands
and translations, it is not difficult to imagine why Iwabuchi used the word “battleground”. However, the process
is not always as violent as the previous definition might hint at, due to the occurrence of negotiations in the
discourses between the parties that construct meanings and power hierarchies.
As it was mentioned above, Kawamura Yuniya made a study about Japanese fashion subcultures and pointed
out that the division between East and West is still relevant and enforced nowadays. Nonetheless, her accounton Japanese sartorial history has moments where Japan appears as a more passive receiver of what the Westhas imposed on the East, than an active culture with contributions of its own (Monden, 2014). For instance, shesaid that after World War II, fashion trends that emerged in the United States and/or Europe started arriving
faster to Japan. As a result, people in urban centers, like Tokyo, “began to consume Western fashion at a rapid
pace in the 1950s and 1960s; whatever trend was popular in the West was imported to Japan, or exact copies
were produced locally” (Kawamura, 2013: 22). While the reality of the power of American-European fashion
trends cannot be denied, to claim that Japan made “exact copies” poses a problematic view of Japan as a passive
copier of Western tendencies. The very process of localization implies an incorporation of agencies and, in thecase of fashion, re-styling that is worth analyzing as an object of study on its own (Monden, 2014: 11).
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This active negotiation between East and West, Japan and United States/Europe, is the focus of Koichi
Iwabuchi’s study about Japanese national identity. He mentions that “Japaneseness” is the result of reciprocal
recognition of others where Japan retakes the image that “the West” has drawn of it, and constructed its own
portrait of both the “the West” and of itself. Consequently, “the relationship between the West’s Orientalist
discourse on Japan and Japan’s discourse on itself is characterized by a profound complicity” (Iwabuchi, 1994:
52). This negotiated exchange is complicit exoticism.
Complicit exoticism can happen in different battlegrounds, borrowing Iwabuchi’s own words. The
competition between social groups to define Japan is still divided in two different corners, West versus East.
Nonetheless, I would argue that sometimes the competition gets toned down and becomes a negotiation, almosta conversation. As it was previously argued, Orientalist tendencies to other Japan have also taken the shapeof a positive-leaning essentialisms; for instance, othering could work as an endorsement of Japan’s exoticism(Iwabuchi, 1994: 57). However, on Japan’s receiving side, the differentiation between East and West has also
served as a tool for establishing Japan’s own differentiation from undesired Western values (Iwabuchi, 1994:
53). In sum, the conversation goes both ways; Euro-American discourses describe Japan as different, and Japan
accepts said difference, enhances it, and uses it to even reject “Western” values. One of the battlegrounds
where this conversation, and Japan’s complicit exoticism is most clearly manifested and constructed is the very
literature of theories about “Japaneseness” or nihonjinron ( 日本人論 ).
(2) Nihonjinron, Theories and Manifestations
Manifestations of complicit exoticism can be openly appreciated in nihonjinron or theories of “Japaneseness”,
according to Iwabuchi (1994: 54). Similarly, nowadays there are other examples that can be almost as illustrative,
and that could also prove to be an embodiment of contemporary nihonjinron. In order not to lose Iwabuchi’space to explain complicit exoticism, we shall consider first what nihonjinron can demonstrate about national
identity, and later we shall move to other areas where the same relationships can be seen.
Nihonjinron is a genre in the social sciences that explains Japan as a unique, homogeneous cultural andsocial entity (Yoshino, 2005:2), and as such has been instrumental in defining Japan locally and internationally(Iwabuchi, 1994). Since its emergence around the decade of 1930, and after its boom in the 1970s (Iwabuchi,
1994: 55), its scope has widened to a point where it is challenging to try to cover most of its topics (Yoshino,2005). But, what is worth highlighting is that it has become an arena for discussing Japanese identity under theconditions of complicit exoticism.
The values of Japanese culture that can be seen in nihonjinron literature is that Japan’s culture and society
is “almost too unique to be understood by others” (Iwabuchi, 1994: 60). Even if nihonjinron constantly assumes
that East and West are different, and implicitly replicates its hierarchical and colonial implications, this selfexotization has at times been exploited to Japan’s benefit. The fact that Japan still takes the entity of “theWest” as a reference, and even defines itself under Western terms (Iwabuchi, 1994), is not a detriment to thepowerful impact of its material and visual culture. Koichi Iwabuchi also brings to attention that the discussionof Japaneseness was not only supported by literature, but also by creative industries. This way, nihonjinron
discourses both embodied by literature and material culture were widely successful overseas because, as
Iwabuchi put it “cultural otherness sells in the age of globalization” (1994:68).
To put this into more concrete terms, looking at the expression of complicit exoticism in other areas that also
happen to be more tangible can be of help. Iwabuchi’s claims of cultural otherness being a successful marketing
tool echoes with cultural anthropologist Anne Allison’s experience with Japanese toys. In her book “Millennnial
Monsters: Japanese toys and the global imagination”, she gives her take on the popularity of toys made inJapan, regarding its “foreign references” and “distinctly non-American feel” as one of their biggest appeals.
According to her, “signs of cultural difference is more the trend today than simple Americanization of suchforeign imports” (Allison, 2006: 2). The idea of Japan’s uniqueness that permeates nihonjinron is also present in60

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Allison’s study, even if rooted in a more academically rigorous framework. The author mentions her awarenessof Japan’s cultural richness, but still deems shinto’s animism a unique trait that influences Japanese consumerism
and production in ways that “do not occur in the United States” (Allison, 2006: 12). In this example, Japan is stillclearly demarked as an other, but, in spite of (or possibly precisely because of) its distinctive non-American traits,
Japanese toys possess a special power to succeed and attract attention. Therefore, their “different” nature not only
triggers their commercial success, but they also turns them into vessels of certain Japanese unique traits.
This does not happen only with toys. As it was previously introduced, Japanese fashion has also been
subject to othering, and has appropriated that view to its own advantage. Be it re-styling trends that appearedin Europe or the US, or tinkering “otherness” into Japan-based projects, complicit exoticism has impacted therealm of Japanese fashion. Not only big names like Kenzo, or Comme des Garçons have received such labeling,
but also urban subcultures. The late cultural promoter Sakurai Takamasa traveled overseas to places in Europe
and Asia to research the status of Japanese popular culture diffusion. As a result, he wrote a book about theappropriation of Japanese sartorial subcultures, especially lolita ( ロリィタ ), taking it as an axis the conceptof kawaii, and headed projects of Japanese cultural diffusion like the kawaii ambassadors based on what
he discovered overseas. While his narration does not address directly the topic of othering or exoticism, his
experience finding out about the hype around Japanese lolita brands, and deciding to capitalize on it is a storyof complicit exoticism. During his interviews with European lolita, the concept of kawaii came up constantly,
becoming an almost universal marker of contemporary Japaneseness (Sakurai, 2009: 87)1. He highlights
Japanese uniqueness when he talks about the word kawaii itself, claiming it is widely used unchanged because
it is a concept that cannot be perfectly applied or translated to other languages (Sakurai, 2009: 41).
This way, complicit exoticism works as the conversation, or competition, of values that shape national image.
As a result, national image can also be embodied in different containers, like literature such as nihonjinron, or
creative industries. In the case of the latter, complicit exoticism also becomes a creative force that can moldJapanese creative industries, and/or their support system. Also, nihonjinron has a role to play; it is the carrierof particular values that laid a fertile ground for Japanese products to exploit their “distinctly non-American”
traits. In order to understand how complicit exoticism continues to affect Japan’s contemporary material culture,and its interpretation, we shall look at its most recent embodiment, Cool Japan.
(3) Cool JapanThe approach to Cool Japan as a discourse of othering has already been discussed in the academia. Asianstudies scholar Jonathan E. Abel analyzed Cool Japan as a phenomenon that distorts the image of the real
Japan. He regards it as a global fetish that is born out of exoticism and interest in what is hard to understand(Abel, 2011: 63,64). On the side of art, Professor Mōri Yoshitaka has a similar opinion regarding the Cool Japanvalues that have found their way into Japanese contemporary art through some Japanese New Pop artists,
especially Murakami Takashi. Mōri mentions that Murakami has exploited stereotypical views of Japan as
futuristic and especially postmodern, highlighting its uniqueness to position himself as unique within theinternational art world scene (Mōri, 2007). Uniqueness, exoticism and “traits that are difficult to understand”
are concepts that were often discussed in nihonjinron literature, and continue to fuel complicit exoticism withincreative industries.
The importance of creative industries for the study of complicit exoticism comes not only from Iwabuchi’s
introduction to the effect that otherness has on the sale of cultural products, but also from the relatively recent
officialization of Cool Japan as Japan’s national image. But, before delving into the particulars of Cool Japan as
an institutionalized national portrait, it becomes necessary to understand the generals of how Cool Japan has
1 In the particular case here quoted, “Japaneseness” is represented by Tokyo. When Sakurai Takamasa interviewed
the French singer Solita, she said that kawaii comprises a feeling of “Tokyoness”.

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worked so far.
The article “Japan’s Gross National Cool” by Douglas McGray (2002) marks the popularization of theterm Cool Japan, but also the beginning of a realization about Japan’s image in the 21st century. In the text,
McGray talks about Japan’s growing soft power taking over the world through sushi, gadgets, and anime. His
explanation of the conditions that rendered Japan a cultural super power touches on some of the aforementioned
spots of otherness and complicit exoticism. For instance, Japan is still portrayed as somewhat mysterious since
MacGray states that “there is a Japan for the Japanese and a Japan for the rest of the world” (McGray, 2002:
52). But, probably the most relevant statement for the present study comes from the idea that Japan possesses
an “ability to absorb and adapt foreign influences while still remaining an intact cultural core” (McGray, 2002:
52,53). This “ability” describes Japan’s active role in complicit exoticism, and, in this particular case, works as a
metadiscourse on how Japan could also absorb the vision of itself as “cool” and integrate it to its “intact culturalcore”. Additionally, McGray adds some other traits of Japanese uniqueness, like its postmodernism, due to this“talent” to fuse foreign cultures with local ones, but also for mixing tradition with futurism (2002: 49).
After the hype for Japanese popular culture and technology got a name and even some theoreticalbackground, the Cool Japan machine did not stop. On the one hand, creators like the aforementioned
visual artist Murakami Takashi, used it to enhance their own identity2. On the other, private and public
institutions also used the catalogue of “unique” traits and products mentioned in McGray’s text to boost theirenterprises. For instance, Murakami supports the vision of Japan as postmodern and has even teamed up
with postmodernism philosopher Azuma Hiroki (Murakami, 2005). Under said vision, he created a whole art
project that greatly carved the place of Japan’s contemporary art in the world during the 2000’s (Favell, 2011).
Regarding institutional initiatives, an example can be the All Nippon Airways 2012 campaign “Is Japan Cool?”where videos, text columns and SNS posts gather a wide catalogue of Japanese culture in order to promote
tourism from overseas (ANA Global Channel, 2012). The Japanese government is in no way unaware of theeconomic impact that the Cool Japan discourse had and can continue to have on Japanese products. Even though
McGray’s text talks about fashion, anime, phones and gadgets at the same time, Japanese public institutions
chose creative industries to represent Cool Japan, and gadgets would fall under Digital Japan, or Tech Japan(Cabinet Office 1, 2004). Efforts to strengthen the promotion and protection of Japanese creative industries
locally and internationally can be tracked back to the 2002 Japanese Intellectual Property Strategy (DailotBul, 2009). However, the actual usage of the English-language concept “Cool Japan” on creative industryrelated programs started appearing in Japanese government branding strategies in 2004 (Cabinet Office 1, 2004)
although at times it would also appear with alternative names such as “Japan Cool” ( ジャパン・クール ) or
“Kakkoii Nihon” ( かっこいい日本 ) (Cabinet Office, 2004a; Cabinet Office, 2004b). On 2012 Cool Japan took an
important turn since it became one of the tools that the Japanese institutions had at hand to help reinvigorate
Japanese industries after the earthquake, and restore Japan’s brand overseas (METI, 2012a).
This way, Cool Japan as a national identity has passed through different stages, and conversing withinstitutions, artists, consumers, academia, among other circuits. What we want to highlight after this brief
review of Cool Japan is that the cultural phenomenon follows the tendencies of complicit exoticism as explainedby Iwabuchi (1994), where the identity of a nation and its signifiers are negotiated based on a differentiation
between “us” and “them”. Cool Japan as a Japan’s national image is complicit because it took an Englishlanguage, United States-born concept to define its own self, its particularities, and readapted it to its own needs.
It is also exoticism because the separation between “us” and “them” is still done taking Euro-American views
as a reference, producing stereotypes, such as the idea of Japan as a postmodern culture. The other point we
2 Even though the Murakami himself has not claimed to be aligned with Cool Japan, if anything, he has voiced his
contempt (Sasaki, 2012), his theories about Japanese art and art history are permeated with Cool Japan tendencies.
If the contemporary stereotype of Japan includes the aforementioned uniqueness, postmodernity and futurism,
Murakami has all that boxes checked with his artistic project Super Flat.

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want to bring up for discussion is the mostly positive undertone of exoticism that permeates the Cool Japanphenomenon. As we mentioned before, othering can reduce cultures to essential characteristics that could bepositive or negative. Sometimes both conflicting sentiments can exist simultaneously in the same timeline.
Even though Cool Japan creative industries are not without its taints of perversion (McLelland, 2016), andthe promotion campaign has had some criticism as well (Boas, 2016), Cool Japan is mostly a contemporarycelebration and commodification of “Japaneseness”. In the past Japan has been mysterious, beautiful, now it
is postmodern, kawaii and cool. Consequently, things that come from Japan are also tainted with these positive
qualities. Nonetheless, it is important to signal that Japan is not only good, it is cool. There is a difference. So,
what does coolness entail for complicit exoticism?
2. Coolness, Bounding and the Bounded Other
The definition of cool is not an easy task. There are different academic fronts that have tackled thephenomenon in ways that range from an elusive, rebellious attitude (Gladwell, 1994) to a reproducible,
commercial trait (Sundar et al., 2014; Farnsworth et al., 2014). For the sake of analyzing the kind(s) of coolness
that might be at play in Cool Japan, we shall focus on one of the factors that traverses most of the studies;
subversion.
Subversion can come in different shapes; it has been called self-destruction (Pountain & Robins, 2000:
43), counterculture (Frank, 1997; Sundar et al. 2014), illicit (Fitton et al., 2012; Pountain & Robins, 2000: 31),rebelliousness (Dar-Nimrod et al., 2005), and autonomy (Warren & Campbell, 2014), just to name a few examples.
This trait has been highlighted as one of the basic forces that drive urban contemporary cool from its origins
among African-Americans (Majors & Billson, 1993), to recent surveys that culminate in a list of constitutive
characteristics, among which a version of subversion is present (Warren & Campbell, 2014; Sundar et al., 2014;
Fitton et al., 2012). This way, if subversion is crucial to the construction of cool, it becomes also crucial tounderstand how Japan is perceived as subversive.
Othering cemented a fertile ground for coolness. The idea of Japan as “different” echoes with the requisites
for cool to arise given that a level of deviance is required. For instance, marketing specialists Caleb Warren andMargaret Campbell (2014) state that consumers perceive products as cool when they diverge from the norm.
This is precisely the phenomenon that Prof. Anne Allison described when talking about the distinct foreignreferences that make Japanese toys so attractive (Allison, 2006: 2). Furthermore, other authors converge inthis idea that Cool Japan entails an image of Japan as an “interruption of the normal” (Dailot-bul, 2009: 262),
and a different unknown reality (Abel, 2011). However, Cool Japan is not the kind of cool that is “in love withcigarettes, booze and drugs” (Pountain & Robins, 2000: 13), nor is it just good or attractive, it has other nuances.
The aforementioned study by Warren and Campbell delves in the particulars of how good is transformed tocool, and what kind of deviance is involved in cool. This way, to understand the particular kind of coolness thatJapan has been bestowed with, it is first necessary to look for the particulars of its nuances.
(1) Bounded Autonomy
Marketing and business Professors Caleb Warren and Margaret C. Campbell (2014) carried out a seriesof surveys and experiments to find out what makes things cool. After conducting 5 studies their findings
contributed to the understanding of cool not only as a marketing trait, but also as a cultural and social category.
It stands in a grey area where the characteristics products and brands are perceived by potential consumers,
but also frames the perceptions in a way that takes into account the social and cultural contexts that affect theirperceptions.
The first study tests the role of divergence as a catalyzer of cool. They found out that people find a designcool when it diverges from the norm, rather than when it conforms (Warren & Campbell, 2014). However, the63Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies

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other studies revealed that divergence, here also referred as autonomy, should be controlled in order to beperceived as cool. This is what they call bounded autonomy; a perceived appropriate divergence. For example,
study 2 showed that coolness arises when autonomy is shown against a norm that seems illegitimate. Study
3 tests how an autonomy that is restrained, and empathetic can also lead to coolness, and can even influence
consumers’ decisions. The authors are aware of the heterogeneity of audiences, thus they conduct anotherstudy, number 4, in order to test whether the person’s own level of subcultural tendencies affects their need fora higher autonomy. The results confirmed their hypothesis where participants with a higher counterculturalism
would perceive coolness in products with extreme autonomy as well (Warren & Campbell, 2014). Finally, thefifth and last test suggested that there are contexts when autonomy should also be bounded. For instance, a job
interview.
In the context of Cool Japan, bounded autonomy could be applied because of the conciliating area where
it stands, between cultural and commercial, given that Cool Japan covers these two spheres as well. Also, thestudy on bounded autonomy discusses the positive nature of cool when it shows empathy and “appropriate”
levels of counterculture (Warren & Campbell, 2014), and how that influences potential purchases. This could
come in handy to understand why Japan’s exoticism in the shape of Cool Japan is also seen as positive.
This way, we are going to use the understanding of bounded autonomy and cool’s relationship to shedlight on the current vision of Japan’s coolness, and its seemingly appropriate form of divergence. Thus, in thefollowing part we will introduce the concept of the bounded other.
(2) The Bounded OtherIn the previous section we mentioned several characteristics of autonomy, or deviance, when it is associatedto coolness. Some of these traits can also be found in the Cool Japan discourse as a national identity, and in theothering implied within it. As we mentioned in the Introduction, Japan has been seen as different and exotic
for centuries. But, its image has been changing and the attitude towards it as well, sometimes it is positive,
sometimes it is negative. Cool Japan is leaning towards the former. So, given the understanding that Japan isautonomous, and deviant as an other, but it is also cool, what is it that bounds it and makes it “appropriate”?
The answer might be in the previous/simultaneous essentialist label that described Japan in the 1990’s: Japan
Inc.
Understanding of the transition between Japan Inc. to Cool Japan, might give some hints towards finding out
one of Cool Japan’s catalyzing agents. Japan Inc. is the American term that described the cooperation between
the Japanese private sector and the Japanese government (Morris, 2013). Although the term appears to havebeen used also in the 1930’s decade (Morris, 2013), fifty years later the concept rose up again and transformed
as the Japanese economy developed. This time it was not used only to describe the Japanese economic system,
but also its aggressiveness (Morris, 2013). It was during these period that Japan’s exports, and overall economy
grew so much that it became a threat to the United States (Morris, 2013; Horino, 2004; Brock, 1989). For
example, the “iconic” automotive industry in the US. got affected by the competition of Japanese cars (Morris,2013), American companies lost shares to Japanese ones, and as the decade advanced, the trade deficit in the
US increased, while the Japanese trade surplus grew higher (Morris, 2013, Brock, 1989). This crisis spawned
anti-Japan sentiments within the United States, spreading during a period of Japan-bashing. The feelings offrustration, fear and even envy could be seen among scholars and officials (Brock, 1989), Japanese companies
were buying American ones; Nintendo bought a baseball team, and Sony acquired CBS Records and Columbia
pictures, an event that Newsweek magazine covered, depicting a geisha instead of the Statue of Liberty inColumbia Pictures logo (Morris, 2013).
Even though Japan bashing emerged from an economic crisis, the critique was not without its cultural
determinisms. There is literature that considers the failure in communicating and negotiating with Japan aconsequence of cultural differences, since Japan could not be “put in any precedent negotiating categories”
64Lisander MARTÍNEZ OLIVER, Cool Japan, Warm Mexico(Horino, 2004: 33). Even when Japan’s economic growth is seen under a more positive light, the nation’s “singularsociety of vertical human relationships” is seen as a determinant advantage over the United State’s system(Horino, 2004: 32). Going back to Koichi Iwabuchi’s study on Japan’s national identity, he recognizes thatsimultaneously Japan was being admired by some and bashed by others (Iwabuchi, 1994: 61). The decade of1980 is also the time when scholars suggested learning from Japan (Vogel, 1979; Brock, 1989), and a discussionof “Americanness” arose as a consequence of the impact that a challenging “other” entailed.
The expansion of the Japanese market, along with the perception of Japan as an aggressive economical
opponent with ungraspable cultural differences laid two main conditions that would allow Cool Japan tobloom: a growing presence of Japanese products, and a challenging “other” that had to be bounded. Japanese
investment was welcomed in areas that were beneficial to American economy (Brock, 1989), thus there were
lingering positive views to Japan’s growth as a miracle to learn from. However, it was not until Japan entered arecession period in the 1990’s that it stopped being regarded as an economical threat.
Starting in the decade of 1990, Japan entered a period of recession that marked what the academia calls “TheLost Decade”, although more recent research points at the existence of more than one Lost Decades (Funabashi
and Kushner, 2015). Once Japan’s growth was halted, so was its quality as a threat. It became harmless, tamed,bounded. McGray starts his text about Japan’s cool saying that “Japan looks more like a cultural superpower
today than it did in the 1980’s, when it was an economic one” (McGray, 2002: 44). The keyword in that statement
is “looks”, given that efforts to bring big artists and establish important cultural centers for Japanese culture
in New York had been at work since the decade of 1970 (Shiner & Tomii, 2007: 43). Also, the gadgets andJapanese “quirks” that are now called cool have been acknowledged while Japan was an economic superpower
as well, albeit under an unfavorable light. Japan “looks” more like a cultural superpower now because before,
its economic dominance made it extremely deviant, which made it “look” more like a menace. Now Japan wasin place, it was still unique and mysterious, it was still an other, but within the limits allowed by Orientalism,
where the power is in the hands of “the West”. Japan is now cool because it is a bounded deviant, its otherness
has the “appropriate” levels of counterculture. Furthermore, Cool Japan has also been constantly mentioned
along with the label of soft power (McGray, 2002). Douglas McGray (2002) mentions that Japan’s cultural
dominance represents soft power’s unquantifiable non-traditional ways of exerting power. The label “softpower” places Japan in yet another dichotomist framework, where “hard power” lies in the hands of thosewith coercive, aggressive military resources. The “softness” of Japan’s cool power further enhances its place
as a bounded other. It is perceived now as an exotic, deviant and countercultural entity, but soft, tamed, andcontrolled. It has just the right amount of deviation.
The label of cool strengthens complicit exoticism insofar as it requires a negotiated othering. Coolness
is a force that diverges and challenges (Pountain & Robins, 2000), but that requires an external gaze to berecognized as such (Abel, 2011: 64). In the case of Japan, creative industries are finding out what is cool throughthe eyes of foreigners (Kōkami, 2015; Abel, 2011; Sakurai, 2009), and acknowledging its “unique exotic” traits
to promote themselves overseas, and to grasp their own potential. What is pointed out as potential in this caseremarks commercialization potential, based on Iwabuchi’s consideration that “othering sells” (1994:68).
Othering gazes have been directed not only towards the East, which puts the definition of “the West” in a
critical position, and opens the opportunity for the emergence of a “cooling” process of complicit exoticism.
Latin America has also been subject to asymmetrical relations with colonial powers since the Spanish domain(Miranda, 2013; Mignolo, 2009), and more recently with the United States (Chuang & Roemer, 2015). In the caseof the latter, Mexicans are the most common target of othering due to the frequent immigration to U.S. territory,
which has led to negative portraiture (Chuang & Roemer, 2015). However, there are other territories that do
not see Mexicans as a threat, yet see them as an “other”. Based on the previous example of Japan’s career on
exoticism and later on coolness, could it be possible for a cool complicit exoticism to happen in different otherednational identities? In the following section we address this question and the possibility for a bounded other and65

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complicit exoticism to arise as part of Mexico’s national identity, based on the patterns noted in the Japanese case.
(3) From Cool Japan to Warm Mexico
It was previously stated that Cool Japan is an exoticizing label that was originally coined within a EuroAmerican context, but the shape that holds now is a result of several negotiations. That is to say, theaforementioned theoretical and historical background suggests that the conditions for a “cooling” complicit
exoticism to arise within a mostly American framework were there; exoticization, divergence, the diffusion ofJapanese products, and the eventual bounding of Japan’s challenging otherness. Also, we acknowledged that
othering gazes are not exclusive of the West vs East dichotomy, thus opening the possibility for a coolingcomplicit exoticism to arise between different cultures. Therefore, at this stage some questions emerge: Whatwould happen if the Cool Japan discourse is moved outside of the stated Euro-American conditions? And, what
would happen if similar conditions would host the adoption of a diffierent culture?
To address these questions, we shall take a case study: Mexico. In the introduction of this paper it was
mentioned that Mexico had a similar need as Japan to restore its damaged image, consequence of the war
on drugs. But, there are other conditions in common that make Mexico a useful and interesting point ofcomparison. For instance, Mexico has been the subject of colonial othering, with a similar gaze as Orientalism.
The differences of Latin America have also been imagined following Euro-American standards of culture that
contrast one another, placing Europe and the United States at the highest end of the hierarchy (Mignolo, 2009).
Just like Japan is circumscribed to the systematic Orientalism of interpreting cultures in Asia, Mexico finds
its place in colonial approaches to Latin America as a Third-World country, a label that explicitly highlights
its perceived low hierarchical order. Going deeper into the Mexican case, the Latin American country has not
only been the subject of othering, but also of bashing. The most recent form of Mexico bashing comes fromPresident Donald Trump who started his campaign saying that Mexicans are rapists, that they bring their worst
people to the US, and that they steal jobs from US nationals (Neate, 2015). However, this negative portraitureof Mexico is not new. Former Colorado republican congressman Tom Tancredo had a similar view as President
Trump and railed against a “Mexican invasion” of illegal immigrants around 2007 (Arellano, 2012: 5). In thissense, Mexico is bashed because it is imagined, very vocally and explicitly, as a big threat to the United States’
economy and safety. This is not to say that Mexican culture is completely rejected by its northern neighbor.
Mexican journalist Gustavo Arellano analyzes how “Mexican food conquered America”, and introduces the
topic telling the story of the time when he met Tom Tancredo. Arellano and Tancredo got together on 2010
for a public debate about immigration and assimilation of Mexicans, and for a dinner at a Mexican restaurant
afterwards. While both parties had opposed points of view, their antagonism seemed to vanish over their platesof Mexican food (Arellano, 2012: 7). Arellano says:
More than a year later, I can only recall some of the points of our philosophical fisticuffs, but the scene I
can’t get out of my head is Tancredo’s ear-to-ear, tamale-induced smile. Tom may not like Mexicans, but hesure loves his Mexican food (Arellano, 2012: 7).
There is an othering of Mexico where it is seen as a Third-World country, opposed to the Euro-American
First World, and there is an appreciation for parts of its culture. However, it is the ongoing strong perceptionof Mexico as a threat that hinders its transformation to a bounded other, and as a consequence, as cool.
Nonetheless, there are is another place in the world where Mexican culture is being othered, appreciated, and not
perceived as threatening: Japan.
To make the jump from Cool Japan to Warm Mexico, there are a few considerations to take into account. On
the one hand, there are studies that signal that the theoretical discourses of uniqueness and exoticism of CoolJapan might be practiced by replicating these set of values at a consumer-level in places different from the66

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United States (Sakurai T., 2009), hence supporting Iwabuchi’s claim about the positive commercial impact ofothering. On the other hand, Japan seems to be creating its own cool-triggering conditions for a new “othered”
entity: Mexico. Therefore, in order to strengthen the understanding of the preconditions necessary for a “cooling”
complicit exoticism, we shall address the aforementioned questions. First, we will consider what would happen
if a country would have similar “cooling” conditions to engage in a complicit exoticism with a culture otherthan the Japanese i.e. Mexican culture. Second, we will test whether Cool Japan is seen equally cool and exotic inother places with a different historical and political relationship with Japan.
Japan has favorable conditions to incubate a positive othering phenomenon of Mexican culture. In fact, it
has been happening for almost a decade now. Official Mexican events like the Fiesta Mexicana in Odaiba andOsaka have been around for 17 years now (Japan Times, 2000). However established these events are, it was not
until very recently, around 2006, that a small community of Japanese fans of Mexican culture started getting
strength in both urban centers and got committed to the diffusion of Mexican culture and the creation of
specific events and spaces. If we are to follow the idea of the bounded other as proposed in Cool Japan, wherean economic threat is tamed, it becomes necessary to also take a lot at the historical background of the Mexicanpresence in Japan in the 20th century.
In a wider scale, Mexico-Japan relations have stayed on the positive side, albeit with some moments oftension. During World War II, after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Mexico broke relations with Japan, andthe small community of Japanese living in Mexico were subject of restrictive measures (Peddie, 2006). Theirbank accounts were frozen, processes for citizenship and naturalization were suspended or revoked, and entire
families were relocated and concentrated away from their homes with limited resources (Peddie, 2006). Mexico
received and replicated its northern neighbor’s propaganda against the Japanese, even if applying it with lessrigor. For instance, Mexico did not declare war immediately to Japan, and limited itself to break political anddiplomatic relations (Uscanga Prieto, 2015). Nonetheless, the Axis’ attack on a Mexican oil boat, “Potrero delLlano”, led the Mexican government to take further actions and actively engage in the armed conflict. The
Mexican air force Escuadrón 201 was sent to train in the United States in 1944, and was deployed the next year
to aid the attacks led by US forces in Asia, engaging against the Japanese (Salazar and Flores, 1998). Literature
about this moment in history often emphasizes that Mexico was put in the middle of the conflict between Japanand the United States, countries with whom it had strong economic, and diplomatic relations (Peddie, 2006;
García, 2014; Uscanga Prieto, 2015). The discourse of the history-long friendly relationship between Mexicoand Japan, as well as the strong presence of Japanese industries in Mexico might have played a role in Mexico’s
swift normalization of the diplomatic bonds with the Asian country, and its support in front of the international
community (Zambrano Barajas, 2007). In the end, it is these latter conditions, the diplomatic and economic
partnership between the two countries, that largely defined the hegemonic discourse about the relationshipbetween Mexico and Japan. The antagonism, as well as the segregation of the Japanese population in Mexico
during the war have remained mostly invisible to the wide public, and have just started to be studied in theacademia (Peddie, 2006).
That is not to say that the good diplomatic relations, and constantly strengthening economic ones areoverestimated. They are indeed ongoing and have been growing in the last decade. In 2005, Mexico and Japan’s
Economic Association Agreement (Acuerdo de Asociación Económica) started to be implemented, which
has brought an even more constant flow of Japanese investment in Mexico. By 2014 the number of Japanesecompanies in Mexican soil had almost tripled (Embajada de Japón en México, 2015). This favorable panorama
of international cooperation, joined to the relative invisibility of the historical tensions, signals that for Japan,
Mexico is not a threat.
The positive notions of the relationship between Mexico and Japan have been recently countered by
the media’s depiction of Mexico through the highlight of its insecurity and drug cartel activities. Amidst
these conflicting views, a Japanese fandom that is interested in Mexican culture has risen. Members of this67

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community took the responsibility to diffuse Mexican products and information about them in a decentralized
way through sales, organization of events, exhibitions, books, and websites. The formation of this community
is rather recent, therefore it is still an incipient phenomenon that has not yet taken a defined shape. However, it
is already showing some leading figures.
One of the most popular figures among this community is Sakurai Yōko, a Japanese artist who moved tothe state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. In 2005, she started her own cultural project, Saruya, which is botha blog and an online store that supports local artisans and introduces Mexican culture to Japan (Saruya,2009). Additionally, she has welcomed other Japanese artists that are interested in Mexico and worked withthem selling Mexican crafts (Kaneko, 2012). Another influential figure is Anderson Yuko, a specialist in Latin
American studies who founded the Mexican craft shop Trensa (Trensa, 2007). Both women have presence online
and offline; they both manage online shops, blogs, and have written books about Mexican culture.
Their discourses and promotion strategies have influenced a wave of Japanese men and women that got
interested in the Northern Latin American country. Nowadays, there are some other Japanese who have set
their online shops, blogs, and who travel frequently to Mexico, especially to Oaxaca, in the same fashion as
Sakurai and Anderson. Both books by these authors describe Mexico through their own experiences in the statethat they liked the most, Oaxaca. Even though they do not theorize explicitly about Mexican identity, they doemphasize the points that they find “attractive” (miryoku, 魅力 ), or “unique” (dokutoku, 独特 ) of Mexico. Theirinsights go further than just a travel guide, even if Sakurai wrote her book mostly as such (Sakurai, Y., 2009: 5).
They engage with the community, tell their stories, give historical context about the Pre-hispanic origins of
Mexican goods, and describe their colors, but most importantly, their “Mexicanness” (mekishikorashii, メキシ
コらしい ), or “Oaxacaness” (oahakarashii, オアハカらしい ). Particularly, Anderson Yūko (2007) approaches
Mexican culture comparing it to the Japanese one (Anderson, 2007: 29), or by highlighting how she had neverseen or tasted anything like what she experienced in Oaxaca (Anderson, 2007: 89). For example, she tells how
the combination of colors that she saw in Oaxaca’s architecture and daily appliances are colorful in a waythat she had never seen in Japan, or that could have been considered extremely flashy (Anderson, 2007: 24,
89, 140). Sakurai’s book is more historical and concentrated on Mexican material culture. She finds that the“characteristic” (dokutoku 独 特 ) trait of Oaxaca’s arts and crafts is their freedom of design. Her book starts
with the statement that in Oaxaca there are no two items done identically (Sakurai, Y., 2009: 12). The craftmakers, or artesanos3, do things by hand and have creative freedom, thus allowing each product to be distinct
and have an “original design” (Sakurai, Y., 2009: 12, 18).
While their discourses on “Mexicanness” lack the explicit and deep focus on national identity that nihonjinron
uses, they do take some steps towards its theorization, and also replicate some strategies that can be found innihonjinron literature. For instance, they use the words that accentuate uniqueness or singularity, like tokuchō ( 特徴 ) or dokutoku (Dale, 1986), make comparisons with other cultures to further enhance Mexico’s particularities4,
and use words from the local language to refer to these singular traits. In this case, Mexico is established as
an other when they describe that its characteristics are like nothing they have seen before, or when they haveexperiences that make them think “where in the world am I?” (Anderson, 2007: 140). Additionally, just like inthe case of kawaii, which, according to Sakurai Takamasa and the people he interviewed, is a term that has
no satisfying translation (Sakurai, T., 2009: 41), Mexico has its own terms too. For instance, for Anderson, themercados are markets with a rich, warm experience where not only goods that she has never seen before are
sold, but also function as places where people connect with each other (Anderson, 2007: 24). Even though theword mercado could be directly translated to English as “market” or to Japanese as ichiba ( 市 場 ), Anderson
3 The original word is in Spanish, but she writes it in katakana, arutesanos ( アルテサノス ).
4 The comparison is usualy vis-a-vis Japan, however Anderson includes in her book a story of two Mexican families
who went to the United States to look for a better job, but they could not adapt and preferred to go back to Oaxaca
in order to be fully happy even if they had no money.

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constantly uses the word merukado ( メルカド ) instead, after she frames it as a special word when she dedicatesa full page to describe its particular atmosphere. Something similar happens with the word señora, which she
spells senyōra ( セ ニ ョ ー ラ ), when she talks about Mexican ladies in Oaxaca’s streets or mercados. She
describes Oaxaca women the following way:
The women from Oaxaca are strong-willed, and work hard for their families. But, within that strength,
there is also charm, as you can see in their smiles and stylish sense. Their checkered embroidered aprons,
flower-patterned skirts, fringe shawls, and colorful shopping bags, make me feel like I want to mimic them,but I cannot. Where in the world does this unique maiden-sense come from? (Anderson, 2007: 12).5
There are many more examples that both Anderson and Sakurai share in terms of Spanish language
usage. While there are Japanese words for “market”, “lady”, “craft”, the authors insist on using their Spanish
equivalent, spelled in katakana, tinging them with interpretations of cultural uniqueness.
There are also differences and particularities between the case of Japanese culture and the case of Mexican
culture. For instance, compared to the complicit exoticism that shapes Cool Japan, Mexico only has the “othering”
part established, but has not yet started negotiating its identity with its accomplice, Japan. Nonetheless, thetwo nations have had a relationship of complicit exoticism on the side of Japan, due to the reception of theCool Japan discourse in Mexico. Even if there are still no studies specifically about Cool Japan’s cultural orcommercial development in Mexico, the Mexican audiences and fans of Japanese popular culture seem toconsume the catalogue of goods covered by the Cool Japan discourse, albeit with their localizations (Hernández,2012). Mexico has also participated in Cool Japan programs like the kawaii ambassadors mostly through effortsof the private sector. Therefore, there might be the possibility for Mexican fans to also be approaching Japan
based on the values resulting from the complicit exoticism embedded in Cool Japan, while adapting it to theirown local needs and limits (Hernández, 2012).
Another particularity in the relationship between Mexico and Japan is the kind of othering relationship. CoolJapan had the dichotomy of West versus East as one of its motors, but between Mexico and Japan not only
the exoticizing gaze is coming from the East, but from a culture that has been subject to othering as well. Bothcultures involved are discursive others. However, even if Mexico’s recent othering in American media presents
a negative portrait of Mexico as a threat (Chuang and Roemer, 2015), Japan seems to be coming up with its
own portraiture of Mexico. While in the United States the election of Donald Trump as president has further
affected the image of Mexico (Reuters, 2017), and enhanced the representation of the Latin American country asa threat (Thrasher, 2017), in Japan there is a community that sees Mexico as warm, colorful, and kawaii country(Sakurai, Y., 2009), beyond the violence described by the media.
Consequently, the two cultures are engaging in a two-way complicit exoticism. In this case it is not the same
complicit exoticism that happened during the decades of 1970 and 1980 when the Japanese growing economical
dominion triggered a counter-discussion on “Americanness” (Iwabuchi, 1994: 62). The current panorama
involves Mexico and Japan having two different othering conversations at the same time. On the one hand,
Mexico has emulated the Cool Japan discourse and started to adapt it. On the other, Japan has commenced
an image of a warm, kawaii Mexico. Literature on Cool Japan can serve as a reference for understanding the
Mexican fans’ image of Japan, and the aforementioned books and blogs can give hints about the Japanesefans’ image of Mexico, theoretically. However, given the fact that both these communities and their specificlocalization and diffusion activities have remained under-researched, it becomes necessary to reach directly
5 オアハカの女性たちは家族思いでよく働き、逞しい。でも、そんな強さの中に、笑顔とお洒落心も覗かせていてとてもチャーミング。刺繍入りのチェックのエプロンに、花柄のプリントスカート、フリンジ付きのショールに、カラフルなお買い物バッグ等など真似したくても真似できない、あの独特の乙女センスは一体どこから来るのかしら。

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to them in order to find out how they build their discourses and identify the values they attach to the foreignculture with which they have engaged themselves. Besides, their role as initiators and discourse boosters placethem at the center of the discussion of how othering identities get interpreted and diffused.
This way, the following part of this investigation will focus on the practice of the discourses of a cool
national identity as built through a process of complicit exoticism, and bounding an other. The main objectiveof the next analysis is to inspect the reception of the images of Japan and Mexico through the fandoms that
consume and diffuse said images and products. We look for places where the discursive abstract plain ofothering materializes into a consumption of the other. That is to say, where discourses of Japan and Mexico
as a cool other are replicated in projects, promotions or purchases. Also, we search for the specific values thatsustain interpretations of Japan and Mexico within the fandoms that take them as their object of interest.
3. Data Analysis
The analysis of the image of Mexico and Japan as understood by their consuming and diffusing fans will bedone based on personal interviews held with key members of both communities; the Mexican fans of Japaneseculture, and the Japanese fans of Mexican culture. The relevance of these actors falls upon the fact that they
are not mere receptors, but actively engage in the decentralized diffusion and commercialization of the goods
that they deem representative of the foreign culture they admire. Therefore, these fan circuits while they do not
represent the wide population of Japanese or Mexicans that are receiving each foreign culture, they stand forthe minority of innovators who shape the introduction of the culture they admire to their own countries. The
selection was done attending events of the communities, and contacting the organizers, promoters, and brandowners.
In this section a content analysis will be conducted in the interviews done to the innovators who have projects
related to Mexico in Japan and Japan in Mexico, and who have developed brands or spaces to spread their views
and discourses. A word count and word correlation analysis done with R will be conducted on the texts withthe replies of the interviewees. The interviews with Mexicans were conducted in Spanish, while the interviews
with Japanese were done in Japanese. However, in the case of the latter, they constantly mixed Spanish withJapanese, thus the results will be in mixed languages. First, we will take a look at how Cool Japan behaves in
conditions different than those that dictated its emergence embedded within the relationship between Japan andthe United States. Next, we will analyze the image of Mexico in Japan as a way to diagnose the process of adifferent othered unit falling in a similar context as the one that triggered Cool Japan.
(1) Cool Japan in Practice
The Mexicans interviewed (n=6) belong to a community called Mexijuku, the adaptation of Harajuku urban
subcultures in Mexico. They are either brand CEOs, organizers of Mexijuku events, and/or models, therefore
they represent the aforementioned small population of innovators or trend setters that are actively involved in
the process of introducing the Cool Japan discourse to Mexico through fashion. The interviews were conductedindividually, following the pace of open end questions where the interviewee would reply extensively about hisor her experience with Japanese culture. The interview had 19 questions regarding their experience with thecommunity, their contact with Japanese culture, how did their interest in Japan start, and what were the specificelements they liked the most. Based on their replies an exploratory word count was conducted, and a word
cloud generated.

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Figure 1. Word Cloud from all the Interviews with Mexican Fans of Japanese Culture

The word cloud shows that the word “people” (gente) prevails over “Japan” (Japón). Also, the Mexican
word for “cool” (padre) appears very close to the word for “culture” (cultura). Finally, the word “Mexico” (México)
appears with a low frequency.
Table 1. Top 20 Most Frequent Words Used by the Mexican Fandom
Word

Frequency

gente (people)

163

gusta (like)151

cosas (things)

128

creo (believe)

85

moda (fashion)

85

siento (feel)78

bien (well)

75

Japón (Japan)

68

hacer (do)64personas (persons)61

digo (say)59

Harajuku50

ver (see)50

padre (cool)48

siempre (always)48

voy (go)48

ahora (now)43estilo (style)41

bueno (good)40

tiempo (time)40

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The resulting words confirm that the Mexican word for “cool” (padre) appears often, as well as good (bueno).
Nonetheless, adjectives that were frequent in Cool Japan literature that would exalt its culture as unique,futuristic, postmodern, or foreign are not in the top used words. The word “different” (diferente) is in place 66,“futuristic” (futurista) and “future” (futuro) are in place 720 and 1146, respectively, and “foreign” (extranjero) isin place 706. The word count also shows the nature of the conversation where words related to tastes or liking
appear highly-ranked, such as “like” (gusta), “fashion” (moda), “style” (estilo), “well” (bien), and “good” (bueno).
Also, the word “Mexico” does not appear in this top 20, but occupies the 35th place.
To deepen the specifics of the image of Japan that this community diffuses a co-occurrence analysis was heldwith the term “Japan” (Japón).
Table 2. Top 20 Most Correlated Words with the Term “Japan” (“Japón”)
Word

Correlation

moda (fashion)

0.97

llegar (arrive)

0.96

parte (part)0.96

tener (have)

0.95

todas (all)0.95

aspecto (aspect)

0.94

dentro (inside)

0.94

dices (say)0.94

específico (specific)

0.94

línea (line)

0.94

abarca (cover)

0.93

abiertos (open)

0.93

accesábamos (accessed)

0.93

acompañar (accompany)

0.93

acostumbrados (used to)

0.93

activas (actives)

0.93

actividad (activity)

0.93

adaptar (adapt)

0.93

admira (admire)

0.93

adoptar (adopt)

0.93

The results did not include the word “cool” (padre), but showed a high co-occurrence with the word “fashion”(moda), due to the fandom’s main interest regarding Japanese popular culture. The other correlated words do
not have a seeming pattern regarding the image of Japan. However, it is worth noting that the word “specific”
appears with a correlation of 0.94. The term was used in the light of discussing the specific categories orrules of the styles that these fans follow, which could suggest a tendency to research said particularities. The
correlation analysis resulted in more than 600 terms with a correlation of 0.93, therefore the ones that appear
in the top 20 are higher in ranking only because of their alphabetical order. However, the words here showedsuggest actions of interpretation of Japanese culture, like “activity” (actividad) “adapt” (adaptar), “admire”(admirar), and “adopt” (adoptar). There are no othering terms like “different”, “foreign”, or “unique” correlated tothe talk about Japan, even though the word count shows that such words were mentioned.

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Lisander MARTÍNEZ OLIVER, Cool Japan, Warm Mexico(2) Warm Mexico in Practice
We approach the Japanese community of fans of Mexico in the same fashion we approached the Mexijuku
group. The chosen actors are all brand CEOs, event managers, or gallery owners. They were asked about theirexperiences within the community, their contact with Mexican culture, and the specific traits and things they
like about Mexico. Compared to the Mexijuku community, these individuals have all visited Mexico more thanonce, and/or have studied there. Therefore, they were also asked about their experience when getting in touchdirectly with Mexico. In this case also an exploratory word frequency analysis was conducted and a word cloud
was generated.
Figure 2. Word Cloud from All the Interviews with Japanese Fans of Mexican Culture

The word cloud shows that the words “Mexico” (mekishiko, メ キ シ コ ) and “great” (sugoi, す ご い ) havea high occurrence. Also, Spanish words appear, including the names of places like Guadalajara, Cancun, andGuanajuato, names like Bustamante, but also the replication of the usage of the word artesanía to refer to
Mexican crafts. We also see the presence of other words that were frequent in the books written by Anderson
and Sakurai; kawaii, か わ い い , “colorful” (karafuru, カ ラ フ ル ) and “cheerful” (akarui, 明 る い ). What isinteresting to note is that the words “cool” (kūru, クール ), and “trendy” (oshare, オシャレ ) also appear, albeit
with less frequency.

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Table 3. Top 20 Most Frequent Words Used by the Japanese Fandom
Word

Frequency

Mexico (mekishiko メキシコ )198great (sugoi すごい )74

image (imēji イメージ )33

event (ibento イベント )23Japanese (nihonjin 日本人 )23

Spanish (supeingo スペイン語 )20

México (mehiko メヒコ )19Guadalajara (guadarahara グアダラハラ )14

Europe (yorōppa ヨーロッパ )13

United States (amerika アメリカ )12understand (wakaru 分かる )12cheerful (akarui 明るい )12

design (dezain デザイン )11interesting (omoshiroi 面白い )11

colorful (karafuru カラフル )9tequila (tekīra テキーラ )9first time (hajimete 初めて )9old lady (baachan ばあちゃん )8changed (kawatta 変わった )8kawaii ( かわいい )7

The results of the word count confirm an affinity with the discourse laid by Sakurai and Anderson in theirbooks, where they portray Mexico as colorful, friendly, and cute. However, there are places where the views of
the community members also diverge. For instance, Oaxaca is not mentioned, but Guadalajara is. This is dueto the fact that Guadalajara and Kyoto are sister cities, and became a strategic launching point for the event
Mexican Port Market and the import of high-end Mexican jewelry. Also, the members often refer to Mexico
as mehiko, メ ヒ コ , instead of the usual Japanese pronunciation, mekishiko, メ キ シ コ . This also suggests
a replication of the aforementioned language tendencies, where the adoption of words used in the exoticizedcountry are extracted and used to exalt its uniqueness. Consequently, the word “Spanish” (supeingo, ス ペ イン 語 ), referring to the language, appears in a high ranking spot, right below “Japanese” (nihonjin, 日 本 人 ),referring to the nationality. The results further enforce the impression that for this community the usage of
Spanish, and the comparison with their own customs are instrumental in the creation of an image of Mexico.
Furthermore, comparison with Europe and the United States appear as additional points of comparison tolocate Mexican culture.
To deepen on the understanding of the image of Mexico in Japan, a co-occurrence analysis was conductedwith the term Mexico, spelled mekishiko, メ キ シ コ . However, only one Word appeared as correlated; “firsttime” (hajimete, 初めて ). Hence, instead of Mexico spelled in the usual way, we tried with Mexico, spelled as
mehiko, メヒコ . This time, more words appear as co-occurring.

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Lisander MARTÍNEZ OLIVER, Cool Japan, Warm Mexico

Table 4. Top 20 Most Correlated Words with the Term “Mexico” (“メヒコ”)
Word

Correlation

activity (actividad)

1

friendship (amistad)1

field (campo)

1

family (familia)

1

idea (idea)

1

passion (pasión)

1

sympathy (simpatía)

1

strange (okashii おかしい )1care (osewa お世話 )1mutual (otagai お互い )1boring (tsumaranai つまらない )1accessory (akusesarī アクセサリー )1approach (apurōchi アプローチ )1artist (ātisuto アーティスト )1

appeal (ukeru ウケる )1gallery (gyararī ギャラリー )1

Taxco (tasuko タスコ )1

friendly (hitonatsukkoi 人懐っこい )1

Latin (ratengo ラテン語 )1kind (yasashii 優しい )1

The first 9 correlated words are in Spanish and among them there are words referring to belonging like“family” (familia), and “friendship” (amistad). Also, words that signal the importance of creative industries like“accessory” (akusesarī, アクセサリー ), “artist” (ātisuto, アーティスト ), and “gallery” ( gyararī, ギャラリー )rank among the Top 20. Finally, even though the state of Oaxaca does not appear correlated, there are words
that enforce the exoticizing image of Mexico and its appeal a friendly country, such as “care” (osewa, お世話 ),“sympathy” (simpatía), “passion” (pasión), “mutual” (otagai, お互い ), “kind” (yasashii, 優しい ) and “friendly”(hitonatsukkoi, 人懐っこい ). However, there are also opposite words like “strange” (okashii, おかしい ), “boring”(tsumaranai, つ ま ら な い ). The instances when these words came up were related to comparisons between
Mexico and Japan.
The content analysis of the interviews to key actors in the diffusion of Japanese and Mexican culturesuggests that the drive to compare the local culture with the admired foreign one is a constant for bothcommunities. In the case of the Mexican fans, the word “Japan” appears in the 8th place of the frequency word
count, and while “Mexico” appears in the 35th place, it still represents the community’s point of departure toapproach Japan. Generally, the context to mention their own country was to point out things that they deemedlacking. For instance, some mentioned that Mexicans lack effort, lack dedication, and have low respect for thedifferent. Under this light, even though words like “different” and “foreign” ranked low in the word count, thetendency to compare puts both Mexican and Japanese culture on a stage of implicit contrasts.
On the other hand, for the Japanese fans of Mexican culture, mentioning Japan served not only to pointout differences, but also to mention Japan’s limited understanding of Mexico. One of the interviewees evenmentioned explicitly how she wanted to share Mexico’s varied and rich culture, since there are many people who
do not know it and only get the news that usually focused around the mafia. This vision is directly related to75

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Volume 10 / February 2018

another high-ranking word, “changed” (kawatta, 変わった ). Most of the interviewees that mentioned this word
did so in the context of their experience before and after going to Mexico. It is also worth mentioning that there
does not seem to be a pattern in the motives that have driven these people to Mexico, but they all seem to haveexpected something different from what they actually lived when going.
Regarding patterns within and across the fan communities, there are many other aspects that should be
addressed in further research to deepen the understanding of the image-molding process. For instance, thesocio-economic conditions of each population seem to be different, which could in some extent influence thecommunities’ resources to get in touch with the othered entity and to develop their own projects. Even genderand sexuality could shed light on the needs of the population of the communities. During this first approach,it was noted that the Mexican community, and their leading figures, are composed by a mixed populationof female and male members, with a predominance of the former. Also, many of them identified with some
spectrum of the LGBT community. On the side of the Japanese community, all the interviewees were female,which in turn represents the largely female population of attendees and participants of the events related to
Mexican culture in Japan. These aspects are only two of the various others that should be focused on in the
future to investigate the depths of the communities that adopt, mold, and diffuse a foreign culture in their own
country, and the relationships they establish with cool and complicit exoticism.
4. Conclusion
The process of building a national identity based on complicit exoticism requires a conversation between
two nations, but does not necessarily involve the colonial tension between the “West versus the East”. As it was
shown with the case studies from Mexico and Japan, a conversation about both countries’ national identities is
not only taking place among othered cultures, but hold parallel negotiations of othering. That is to say, a twoway complicit exoticism can happen beyond a counter-discussion, result of the fear of a threat (Iwabuchi, 1994),
and develop two parallel negotiations of national identity without entering a zero-sum-game. In more concreteterms, we suggest that Japan and Mexico are establishing simultaneous conversations about Japaneseness and
Mexicanness without having one conflict with the other.
Also, the presence of a bounded other was theorized as a variable that could trigger coolness. In the case of
the United States, there was a tangible tension with Japan’s growing economy. However, in Mexico, Japanese
investment is welcomed, due to the amount of jobs it generates (Embajada de Japón en México, 2015). Japanis seen as cool (padre), but its status as a threat has been virtually erased from the collective view. Therefore,
it is not exactly a bounded other, it has been constructed as a beneficial other. However, Japan’s otherness did
not appear as a common topic of explicit discussion among fans. The content analysis points out that eventhough difference, and rebellion were mentioned, the fans prioritize more the discussion of the particularities ofJapanese fashion. However, there is evidence of a tacit cultural conscience that triggers moments of comparison,
which imply an acknowledgement of differences between the local and the foreign culture.
In the case of Japan, given the friendly relations that both countries hold, Mexico is not seen as a threat
either, and explicit statements about Mexico’s distinction are not among the most discussed topics. However,comparisons between Mexican and Japanese cultures also signal an implicit acknowledgement of difference
in a similar manner as the Mexican community of Japanese urban fashion subcultures. At the same time, thiscommunity seems to be strongly replicating the discourses on Mexicanness as laid by Anderson Yūko and
Sakurai Yōko. The words for colorful, passion, sympathy, compassionate appeared with a high frequency andas highly correlated with the word México. Also, the pattern to adopt the language as a part of their community
is present in all their members. The most frequent words were all in Spanish, and the word that provided themost correlations was the Spanish-adapted word Mehiko, メヒコ , instead of the usual one, Mekishiko, メキ
シコ . Even though the word “cool” appeared in the word cloud and occupies the 38th place in frequency, the76

Lisander MARTÍNEZ OLIVER, Cool Japan, Warm Mexico

terms replicated in this discourse on Mexicanness point at an image of Mexico as a place of human warmth.
Consequently, we propose calling this rising image of the Latin American country “Warm Mexico”. The term
does not only work as a contrast to Cool Japan, but also gives space to the consideration of different traits
that can equally construct a cool bounded other. In the case of Mexican culture, fans consider it sugoi, oshareand acknowledge its deviance through its difference. But, at the same time, they also see in Mexican culture a
positive difference -a bounded difference- mostly due to its perceived warm uniqueness.
Further research needs to be done to assess these two communities to find out the localizations of CoolJapan on othered countries, and to explore the possibilities for a cool complicit exoticism to take place among
other cultures. The idea of a bounded other could help shed light on theoretical assumptions about national
image and cool. However, given the political and historical baggage that the bounded other entails, the politicalengagement or conscience of these communities should be tested in order to achieve a better understanding of
the cultural phenomenon.
The present study started taking Japan as a point of departure to understand the process of national
identity and coolness based on a complicit exoticism, but finished in Mexican territory. Mexico is seen as anactive receiver; it receives the discourse of Cool Japan, and localizes it, and receives lessons to follow regarding
a possible cool, or warm, national identity. At this stage, the lessons that can be learned about Cool Japanthat can be implemented in the Mexican case are two. First, Mexico needs to enter in contact with Japan tonegotiate the exoticism created there and trigger a complicit relationship. Two, to complement and strengthen
point number one, it is necessary to develop more explicit discussions on Mexicanness both inside and outside
Mexico. The significance of the discussions on Japaneseness (nihonjinron) point out that Mexico could establish
a “battleground” through literature and creative industries to explicitly theorize on Mexican identity.
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