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Industries (Hana Komiyama) TOP PAGE
Introduction
Listening to the term, “industries”, some people might think that it is a nasty and shameful place to visit so that they do not talk about the topic with others. According to Fujime (2005), this nasty image of the industry came from the process of modernizing Japanese society where they introduced the Western mindset of discriminating against women working in industries. He further explains that it was treated as “the [intimate] relationship of people except for married couple should be considered guilty that the […] workers are not pure”. Thus, after the Westernization of Japan, people began considering “business” as nasty and guilty, which, in turn, led to people to feel ashamed of being interested in those businesses. As is observed in the field research, people tend to ignore the signs of industries to avoid being seen by others. Yet, the Kabuki-cho area is still one of the homes of the capital industry while hosting one of Tokyo’s main entertainment districts (Japan Times, 2021). The official English version Kabuki-cho guide book (2020) explains that the erotic genres were particularly popular, being that Kabuki-cho was Japan’s foremost red light district. As is obvious from these quotes, the industries are one of the most significant features that support Kabuki-cho as one business field. This page will examine the signboards of industries since it is one of the main businesses that support Kabuki-cho as a market while they have been barely seen by the audiences.
Definition of Tatemae
The concepts of tatemae (建前） and honne （本音）are often used in explaining Japanese culture.
The two kanji ideograms that make up the word tatemae(建前) in Japanese are highly significant. The first one is used in words like “building”(建物 tatemono), where it means to build up. The second one, 前 mae, means “in front.” The whole phrase, thus, can be understood as “that which one puts before oneself” and refers to the official stance or the public attitude that the Japanese assume when in a confrontation or in the possibility of engaging into one. Tatemae is, therefore, a cultural concern by which the Japanese feel forced to act according to what they feel the community expects from them. (Ishii, Vargas & Vargas, 2011)
This concept of tatemae is significant in explaining industries in Kabuki-cho. That is, although the industries in Kabukicho are mostly officially running their business, some of the service contents are illegal. Yet, by enabling the girls (workers) to decide whether they will play the further business by earning extra pocket money, the fact at the point is that the store is NOT forcing the girls to play further service and the girls will take the responsibility to it. This concept is essential to understand how the signboards of industries in Kabuki-cho are trying to communicate with the customers.
Map
This is the geographical map, which has been the research area of this project. The research is all the areas in Kabuki-cho district, but the industries were relatively concentrated in the Shinjuku station side of Kabuki-cho. As is explained specifically above, this research mainly focuses on four types of industries in Kabuki-cho where the pins are placed on the map.
The pin color shows the difference in the businesses:
Methodology
The research is conducted by dividing the industries into five categories below since the services differ by the businesses. Since this research will be analyzing five types of businesses, the domains in each topic will be focused on two, which of those are the contents and strategies for appealing.
The signboards carry very important information including names of places, milestones, shops, hospitals, public and private buildings, traffic signs, navigation information, advertisements, public notices, and social and cultural messages (Bains, J. K., Singh, S., & Sharma, A, 2020). Thus, in order to, first, understand all the significant information that are on the signboards, the research will focus on the contents as the first domain in each business. Then, the research will be focusing on the ways of communication the signboards. According to the research by Knuth, Behe, and Huddleston (2020), the results suggest that information-rich messaging in high complexity signs, while seen as attractive, may give consumers too much information and a higher cognitive load, which makes decision-making more difficult. Therefore, then, the research will focus on the communication strategies on signboards in order to seek how the signboards are approaching the customers with non-in-person communication.
The definition of each business is also described in the sub-pages.
Pages
Introductory Pages
Conclusion
Although industries were analyzed on one page, there were a lot of differences between the signboards of each industry. That is, since their concepts and the service contents differ from each other, how they try to communicate with the audiences depended on the business contents. As is explained in the top page after the introduction, the Japanese tatemae culture highly affected how they are trying to protect not only their businesses but also how the privacy of the customers. For instance, because the soap land has the tatemae of the business as “rental shower room and bathing assistants”, the business protected its identity through the recruiting signboards by writing “companions” instead of “workers (girls)” while the work is still a worker. In addition, as the neon lights and the industries have a strong relationship, the neon lights seemed to be used not only to emphasize their business to the customers but also to create the communities as a “traditional” business district. By creating it as the community, sometimes signboards are not communicating their messages to individual businesses but to the community of the “red light district”, Kabuki-cho.
Other Pages Related to Signboards
Muryo-Annai Jyo (Kanon Iwata)