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ToolsTSUJI, Hirohito (2025) The Enka Popularity's Potential Revival and Youth Culture in Late 20th Century Japanese Society: A Case Study of Hideo MURATA and Michiya MIHASHI. In: The Subcultures Network Postgraduate Conference, 2025-04-10 - 2025-04-11, University of East Anglia.
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Abstract
Enka is the category of popular songs based on traditional Japanese folk music, which is formed by fusing elements of Western music. It reached a period of prosperity after WWII and played a role as one of Japan's popular songs, but since the 1980s it has been pushed aside by other genres such as J-pop, and its main supporters have remained the older generation only. On the other hand, there had also been a movement among young people to re-evaluate certain big-name enka singers. Enka is known for its continuous influence on Japanese society through the combination of lyrics that address unique Japanese landscapes and lifestyles with the pentatonic scale originated in East Asia. The enka musicians' world is a conservative one, where a feudal apprentice system was the norm to cultivate the high-level singing ability to sing traditional melodies, with male singers dressed in kimonos or tuxedos and female singers in kimonos or dresses. However, against this backdrop, the character and singing ability of the singers themselves, rather than the appeal of enka itself, has attracted support from young people, and the recent trend of enka influencing other genres of performing arts, such as comedies, is noteworthy. The ‘Mucchī’ boom of Hideo Murata and the ‘Micchī’ popularity of Michiya Mihashi are typical examples. This paper analyses the evolution and recent trends of enka in the context of the history of Japanese subcultures from the perspective of the globalisation and transformation of Japanese society.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | japanese studies,arts and humanities(all),social sciences(all),general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Nov 2025 16:30 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2025 00:35 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101151 |
| DOI: | 10.13140/RG.2.2.30132.36486 |
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