by carterjmrn | Feb 25, 2019 | Carter Group Viewpoints
I must admit to witnessing the recent KonMari phenomenon with some bemusement. Like millions of others I did indeed buy Marie Kondo’s book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up some time ago. Since I read the book I have tried to be mindful of its...
by carterjmrn | Sep 27, 2018 | Carter Group Viewpoints
While September is viewed as the start of the school year in the US. Japan’s school year starts in April, and my eldest son will enter the local elementary school. While there is pride as a father, there is also a sense of trepidation, as a number of decisions have to...
by carterjmrn | Sep 8, 2018 | Carter Group Viewpoints
You can love it or you can hate it, but there’s no denying that Nike’s latest iteration of the Just Do It campaign is the most culturally significant piece of U.S. advertising in many years. The greyscale portrait of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin...
by carterjmrn | Jul 10, 2018 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Politics is Downstream from Culture Before he passed away in 2012 the controversial American right-wing alternative media figure Andrew Brietbart often repeated the mantra ‘politics is downstream from culture’. Many would agree that American politics and culture have...
by carterjmrn | Apr 12, 2018 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Some of them look as though they’ve just rolled out of bed before making their YouTube upload, pausing just long enough to make a cup of coffee before hitting “record” on their camera or smartphone. Others have props and lighting, costuming, fancy graphics and their...
by carterjmrn | Apr 3, 2018 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Japan is a Unique International Market The Japanese market is rich with opportunity, but it is also full of unique challenges and risks not faced in other international markets. Japan has a dense population composed of the most educated, capricious, and quality...
by carterjmrn | Mar 23, 2017 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Much has been written and spoken lately about the “Cool Japan” initiative. With the slogan having been in common use since the early 2000s, the idea of Cool Japan is not a new one. It encompasses a large range of modern Japanese cultural outputs that have struck a...
by carterjmrn | Mar 26, 2016 | Carter Group Viewpoints
One aspect of Japanese leisure culture to which nearly every visitor to Japan is exposed is the ubiquitous practice of karaoke — the practice of singing popular songs with recorded background music — usually involving copious libations and a modicum of...
by carterjmrn | Mar 24, 2016 | Carter Group Viewpoints
She has over 170,000 uploaded YouTube videos, 1,000,000created artworks and 100,000 original songs under her name, some of which have been topkaraoke picks in Japan for several years in a row. She has 2,3mn (and growing!)followers on Facebook — more than any...
