ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the intense cultural ambivalence surrounding media policies in general and Cool Japan in particular, as they pertain to film policy and practice within transmedia strategies and national branding practices. The challenge with Cool Japan as a media policy that encompasses film and television is that it is, at heart, a descriptive policy – it attempts to describe and subsequently harness the success of Japanese youth cultures abroad. As a descriptive policy, Cool Japan originally emerged in an attempt to respond to the success of film, anime, manga and video games in international markets. The mediated worlds of anime, film, manga, and videogames and the economic goals of Cool Japan may seem disconnected from the political machinations of Japanese power brokers. The extremist bifurcation of Japanese political ideologies necessarily has an impact on global brand strategies and policies such as Cool Japan.
