Ask John: Is Manga Hair Gel the Beginning of a Trend?

Question:
I was intrigued when I came across an advertisement for ‘Manga Head’ hair gel in one of the main streets of the city in which I live (Sunderland, England). Do you think we can expect more products like this? Do you think this is just a one-off thing?

Answer:
God help us, I certainly hope that instances such as Garnier Fructis Style Manga Head are a “one-off thing.” I may be accused of being too critical, but I cannot see this product as anything besides a crass, poorly researched and plainly insulting attempt to cash in on a perceived market trend. The website and the product it promotes exhibit a clear lack of respect and understanding of manga and the Japanese culture that Garnier is attempting to sell. The “manga story” on the website contains factual errors, gross stereotypes, and confusing misrepresentations. To cite a few examples, the comic story incorrectly defines “shojo” as comics for boys and “shonen” as comics for girls, incorrectly identifies Osamu Tezuka as a surgeon turned artist (Tezuka had a medical degree but was never a practicing medical doctor or surgeon), and incorrectly identifies “cosplay” as people who dress in manga inspired costumes (those are “cosplayers,” not “cosplay”). The illustrated story on the website also makes stereotypical statements such as referring to Japan as, “A world where everything is made up of bright colors and bubbles,” and manga as being filled with characters with wildly styled and colored hair. Even allowing for literary freedom, such generalizations may still seem irresponsibly misleading and grossly exaggerated to some readers.

Garnier’s marketing approach and hair gel product exhibit only the most superficial grasp of Japanese artistic culture, and attempt to market a serious cultural art form as a ridiculous fashion gimmick. As a fan of manga and anime myself, I find it personally insulting that a respected international company with clearly no understanding of Japanese art would attempt to insinuate that fans like me would be eager to dress in absurd clothes and style my hair in such unnatural ways. The punk movement has done just that for decades, but the punk movement has no relation whatsoever to Japanese pop culture art. I personally find the Garnier Fructis Style Manga Head product offensively disrespectful and condescending to both Japanese society and people worldwide who have a serious interest in Japanese culture and art.

As far as I’m aware, this hair styling gel is not marketed in America, and I’m not aware of any similar products or marketing ploys in America that exhibit such a tremendous absence of consideration and respect toward manga and anime culture. Possibly the most overt examples of anime being marketed to mainstream America come in the form of General Mills’ Yu-Gi-Oh breakfast cereal, cereal bars, yogurt, and packaged fruit snacks first released in 2003. But these items are as much an example of a singular franchise being merchandised as the anime art form and its culture itself being marketed to mainstream America. There have also been mainstream American attempts at marketing with anime and manga. In 2003 T-Mobile commissioned Production I.G. to produce a series of Johnny Chase animated ads. In late 2004 Nike commissioned Studio 4C to produce two animated segments for its LeBron James Chamber of Fear advertising campaign, and the Benihana restaurant chain produced an anime style television commercial. In 2005 Coca-Cola commissioned Texas based D7 Studios to produce an anime style Nascar themed animated ad. And Geico has used re-dubbed Speed Racer footage to advertise car insurance. Unlike Garnier’s Manga Head, these American advertisements haven’t tried to market anime or manga culture itself to consumers; they’ve tried to associate the trendiness of anime with their products. I personally feel that TOKYOPOP has misappropriated the term “manga” with its line of Japanese film comic style “Cine-Manga” that cover distinctly non-Japanese culture related topics including the NBA, Lizzie McGuire, and Family Guy, but American publications of Japanese style color film comics date back to at least the Marvel Super Special issue 25: Rock & Rule comic, published in November 1982. So, once again, in this case I think TOKYOPOP is simply trying to take advantage of the image that the word “manga” evokes rather than distinctly try to market the NBA as somehow related to Japanese culture.

While I wouldn’t say that America, at least, has yet seen such an egregious attempt to profit from interest in Japanese popular culture as the Manga Head hair gel distributed in the UK, I’m not prepared to say that such a thing won’t happen in the future, or happen again. As a serious and devoted aficionado of contemporary Japanese popular art and an active member of the English speaking fan community for that art, I hope that anime and manga do continue to expand into and influence Western culture, but in a respectful, dignified way.

Addendum added May 17, 2005
At some time after this article was originally written and published, the “manga story” available on the Garnier Fructis Style Manga Head website corrected the error referring to “shojo” as comics for boys and “shonen” as comics for girls.