When did Halloween become so commercial in Japan?

[greg]

I thought I'd resurrect this old topic from last year. Last week I carved up my pumpkin with my daughter Ulan to make a jack-o-lantern. I took a video of it while explaining the process in my lousy Japanese and uploaded it to Youtube, since I have a lot of subscribers from Japan. I put it outside around 6:00 or so with a candle lit inside. I left it like that overnight. When I left the next morning for work, the candle was still lit! I was surprised.

There is one woman in the next apartment building over whom I have spoken to several times. She's a friendly person, and she has a 3 year old son that Ulan enjoys playing with. I have yet to meet her husband, but she too is disappointed with how unfriendly the other kids in the neighborhood are. I invited her to stop by on Halloween night with her son so that I could give some candy to him. The boy was so excited to see the jack-o-lantern! But here is why the concept of trick or treating won't work in Japan, despite Halloween's apparent popularity here: she brought a whole gift bag of stuff she'd bought at home decor store for us as a gift. I thought I had made it clear that I was just going to give him a few pieces of candy and that she needn't bring us anything. Japanese people's adversity to bothering other people along with their insistence of reciprocating will prevent the fun of Halloween from truly taking root in this culture. Halloween is all about being wagamama (selfish) and zuzushii (imposing) and those two concepts are contrary to Japan's established traditions. When I tell people here about trick-or-treating, they say, "Oh, America must be such a friendly country." Hah! Well, no. Americans just don't hesitate to bother each other.

The Japanese sense of kigane (reluctance to trouble others) runs deep. For the most part, I enjoy it. I can ride the train without some weird dink next to me asking me what book I'm reading, or walk clear across Tokyo without somebody begging me for some spare change. But when it comes to Halloween and such, it would be nice for people to shed their inhibitions and have fun. These kids really want to have fun like this, but it is an aging population, and the old people aren't going to change at all.

This year, the shotengai (shopping street) on the north side of the main train station had a Halloween event where kids can dress up and go trick-or-treating to all of the shops along the street. That's as close as they can get, I guess, especially because it wasn't even on Halloween night. Last year, I saw some parents making an attempt to take their kids trick-or-treating. I think it was coordinated by a kindergarten or something, and they would stop at only designated homes to ask for candy.

Lastly, I watched the "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Peanuts episode so many times in October, showing it mostly to elementary students, but occasionally to junior high. It's a Japanese DVD, so we could watch it in English with Japanese subtitles. Everyone knows Snoopy, but very few kids have ever seen a Peanuts cartoon... even the biggest Snoopy fangirls! The subtitles translate the show sufficiently, I guess, but I notice that the sarcasm is glossed over. There is a lot of sarcasm in Peanuts, and I never really noticed this until I paid attention to the Japanese subtitles. I once watched it dubbed in Japanese when I showed it to the handicapped JHS kids. They made the kids' voices too cute! They aren't supposed to be like that! They are supposed to sound more like miniature adults, full of adult concerns. Instead, the Japanese voice actors just treat the characters like they are so adorable. In English, when Charlie Brown puts on his ghost blanket costume with too many eye holes, Lucy just says, "Oh good grief." Instead of just having her say "mattaku," she instead says, "henna obake!" (strange ghost!) They toned down the exasperation and sarcasm in which the kids speak to each other. It was disappointing to hear this dubbed.

[kndy]

Is Halloween in Japan evolving?

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/11/01/i ... -evolving/

Since when was Halloween so popular in Japan?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/life ... r-in-japan

Halloween 2013 in Japan:

Halloween Parade in Kawasaki [Group-A]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... wlrURWupy0

Halloween Parade in Kawasaki [Group-B]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNSWOdjCOs8

Halloween Parade in Kawasaki [Group-C/D]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCImFs7NcZc



Zombie Walk-through at Tokyo Tower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... aFK-mU-8mA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... B3oJGHxrFk

[gaijinpunch]

I think while there is a larger foreign presence in Japan (oddly enough, Americans are probably the least represented on the western scale, and are the main ones that celebrate Halloween) I think Japanese are just cashing in on the event as an excuse to cosplay. There are still only a few select parts of town where you can wear a Halloween costume and people not think you're a total nut bag. I for one welcome it though. I love Halloween.

[greg]

Where I am at, people don't quite realize that is an excuse to cosplay. And by cosplay I mean dressing up as characters and such. They seem to view the dressing up part in the traditional way, being a witch or whatever. I had a small Halloween party with some of my adult students and others were surprised that he came dressed as a pirate. He grew up in Australia when he was a kid, so he's rather comfortable with Western culture. I told the others that Halloween has evolved into more of a cosplay holiday, so you can dress as Pikachu or Captain America just as much as you can a vampire or zombie. I've explained that to my younger students too, and they didn't know that.

The Peanuts Halloween DVD is an excellent way to introduce the holiday. Sally's never been trick-or-treating before, so her big brother Charlie explains the process to her. It shows going door-to-door and asking for candy as well as halloween parties. I tell them that I have never seen anyone play "bobbing for apples" though. Nowadays with the way American society has degenerated, I would be afraid of catching someone's cold sore or something and getting stuck with herpes for the rest of my life.

[usamimi]

I always wondered about that, too--I would think that the Japanese cosplay enthusiasts would LOVE Halloween, given it's a terrific excuse to go out in costume. (Most of my American/Canadian/UK cosplay friends love Halloween and spend just as much time and effort in their Halloween costumes as they do for costumes for legitimate conventions!) But yeah, the fact that you are both selfish and intruding probably doesn't help, as you said.

That's disappointing that they didn't translate the sarcasm in Peanuts! That's one of the best things ABOUT Peanuts! I would think the translators would have fun making Lucy sound like a bratty tsundere type. XD That's kind of a shame. But at least it would give kids a vague idea about Halloween...

I thought it was funny that one of my friends who teaches English to kids in Japan said that when she was doing a lesson on Halloween, she had a kid ask her when Americans "decorate their Halloween trees". Apparently he thought that it was common to have a tree, like at Christmas, and decorate it with Halloween stuff instead! (I actually HAVE seen some people do this, but she had to politely inform him that wasn't a common Halloween practice.)

[greg]

Well, the subtitles do a better job portraying the cynicism a bit more than the dubbing. The dubbing was just flavorless. One girl even recognized the tsundere qualities of Lucy and pointed it out.

IIRC, I was at either a JoAnn's or a Hobby Lobby in Arizona the last year I lived there and they had Christmas trees decorated with Halloween ornaments and strands of orange lights. I wouldn't go that far, but dammit, I wish I hadn't given away all my Halloween decorations before we moved! I don't really miss the Snoopy and Kermit the Frog stuffed dolls so much, but I wish I still had that strand of orange Great Pumpkin lights we bought at Suncoast Video nearly 10 years ago! I also had a Peanuts Halloween T-shirt that I donated before we moved. 10 years ago, Halloween wasn't popular in Japan, and all the years I visited Japan after that, I never came in autumn to see that Halloween's popularity had grown. I wish I had held onto some of that stuff!

[kndy]

A lot of my Japanese friends in Tokyo were full force this Halloween this year. Especially for the club scene as people I know who own a club were heavily promoting their Halloween event. But as you can see from the Kawasaki Parade YouTube videos (I posted a few links above), a lot of people were cosplaying at this year's parade.

[gaijinpunch]

But as you can see from the Kawasaki Parade YouTube videos (I posted a few links above), a lot of people were cosplaying at this year's parade.

Pretty par for the course. I took a bunch of photos, but film and had the flash set wrong (doh!).