Shakespeare, Manga and the pilfering of Japan’s soft power

The publication of a series of Shakespeare Manga by the British company SelfMadeHero affords the opportunity to consider the motivations and methods behind such publications. Visual style, audience, expressions of identity and attempts to modernize through the youth appeal of technology, gore and a preponderance of the visual are all examined. The motivation behind these phenomena is not just an attempt to emulate a financially successful form of Japanese popular culture, but to appropriate some of the soft power that Japan has accrued through the almost worldwide success of its manga. Soft power is the ability to get what one wants through attraction, and Japanese manga’s infiltrating of not just western cultural products but imaginations confers soft power on Japan. These slim volumes promote Shakespeare while trying to lay claim to some of this soft power. Finally, a deliberation of whether these books are western or eastern leads to the conclusion that they are a part of a new Metaculture space that is both and neither at the same time.