Media and Society in Japan: Three Key Topics

How does the media reflect the society of Japan? Please explain by citing three topics from the lecture. During these ten years, there are quite a lot of productions like movies and dramas which are talking about Enjo-kosai (shorten form Enko). This trend reflects that Enko is getting more and more serious in Japan society. This essay will explain how movies, dramas and even foreign magazine reflect the Enko problem in Japan, and the reasons of the Enko phenomenon. By the definition of Mr.

 Ho Ku (a part-time lecturer of department of Japanese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and creator of cross-media), Enjo-kosai (shorten form Enko), was a new term in 90’s which is from Japan. Initially, it means young girls agree to date with men in order to earn money but not necessarily accompany with sex. However, as the social climate’s deterioration, Enko becomes a synonymy of students’ prostitution. The Enko problem was first reported by Asahi Shinbun on September 20, 1994.

However, its widespread attention was attracted by a TV drama “Kamisama, mosukoshidake (?? )” which was produced by Fuji Television Network and starred by Takeshi Kaneshiro and Kyoko Fukada in 1998. In the story, Fukada is a high school student and Kaneshiro is a talented musician. In order to earn money for buying Kaneshiro’s concert ticket, Fukada done the Enko job. Although thay fall in love through this opportunity, Fukada is infected with HIV. Besides, in 2006, in a mini drama called “Tsubasa no oreta Tenshitachi (?? ” which was written by a famous mobile-novel writer called Yoshi, the leading role of one of the stories which was performed by Ueto Aya, was a girl grew up in a poor family and participates in Enko in order to become a young lady of note.

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Actually, there was a movie “Shibuya 24 hours” which is also talk about three Enko girls in 1996. In 2001, the protagonist in Iwai Shunji’s film production “All about Lili Chou-Chou”, is a girl who is suffering from Enko’s affliction.

Enko Aya

Furthermore, in 2004, a movie “Deep Love” which was adapted from a big hit mobile-novel that was also written by Yoshi, is also talking about the high school girl Ayumi’s experiences and her inner feelings with Enko job. Even in the film “Initial D”, the role of Suzuki An is a girl who participates in Enko because of family reasons. Besides these art productions about Enko, there are many reporting media want to discuss this social problem. Such as influential mass media as TV Asahi, also made Enko into entertainment shows and broadcast.

They even advertising some Enko girls’ contact number, photos and price. This social phenomenon also attracts foreign media to report it. In 2001, the very famous foreign text media, Time Magazine’s Asian version was also discussed about Enko. In the report, the correspondent has interviewed a girl who was quitted from Enko job. She talks about the reasons of doing Enko, also her feelings while she was doing and after she was quitted from Enko in the interview.

According to a research from the Internet, proportion of Enko in high school girls is surprisingly high. There is 32. 3% of high school year two girls has doing Enko, and for year three students the proportion is as high as 44. 7%. One reporter of Japanese magazine “Shyukan Bunshun (? )” Kuronuma was working on the probe into Enko phenomenon between secondary girls and his investigation reports have won the Japanese magazine award. Kuronuma originally thought that Enko participators are those “bad girl” type girls.

However, quite a lot of those Enko girls are studying in famous schools with outstanding academic results. Therefore, what makes the girls want to earn money that much? Still according to Kuronuma’s reports, the girls making money mainly for enjoying middle-class living style, that is enjoy famous brand products and high level consumption. Most of the girls were born in Japan’s “lost decade”, therefore it is rather difficult for them to maintain high consumption living style by themselves.

Also, they are not willing to give up the high costing lives. Enko then comes with the tide of fashion. Hong Kong local Japanese culture research worker and writer Tong Ching-siu, points out that one of the Enko reasons is the popularity of mobile in his newspaper column in August 2009. Japanese usually use mobile e-mail and network services, service charges would naturally increase. However, the more important point is that most people have used services of dating sites, so an over 10,000 yen bill has become their basic expenses every month.

After the economic environment of Japan became sluggish, the average wages of chain restaurants can be as low as 600 yen an hour. While girls can get 20,000 to 30,000 yen every time by Enko, Tokyo girls can get as high as 50,000 yen. As those girls have tried once, it is more difficult for them to return to the normal part-time jobs. The world tends to blame those girls who doing Enko, but they still have their own value of decision-making about sex and every girl’s reasons of doing Enko are different. Anyway, Enko is just the process but not the purpose. Instead of just criticizing them, the more important is we need to make an effort to understand them, accept them and solve the problem from different aspects of society, in order to let Enko is no longer their only way out.