Chapter 3

Modern Japanese Culture, Art and Apathy

An angle that remains largely unexplored in the study of artistic activism is the result of individual countercultural sentiments without a larger subcultural arts movement within which to unify. The current artistic and activist climate in Japan allows an examination of countercultural sentiments when surrounding artistic subcultures targeting a mainstream oppressor are absent from the environment.

Unlike the high rates of violence in South Africa, criminal activity is rare among youth in Japan. Yet several other symptoms reflect a different type of alienation from mass culture: Japan’s birth rate is among the lowest in the world, while the country suffers more suicides than any other wealthy developed nation. In 2005, there were roughly 10,000 more deaths than births in Japan, officially marking its shrinking population (Zielenziger 9). Equally disturbing, Japan has the most hospital patients with mental illnesses of any nation in the world. The nation’s mental institutions record an average stay as over a year long (Zielenziger 142).