Abstract
In 2008, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) launched their online distribution platform NHK On Demand (NOD). This service is land-locked within the geographical borders of Japan. Through an investigation of corporate and government documents and content analysis, I find that NHK’s move into virtual space presents an inward, domestic-focused version of Japanese nationhood and national identity that parallels the Japanese government’s global strategy for national branding, namely the Cool Japan initiative (soft power policy). In doing so, I argue that NHK—and by extension the state—cleaves their public in two: a domestic public based in Japan and a global public including overseas Japanese nationals, diaspora Japanese, and non-citizens. Virtual space becomes the stage for conflicting conceptualizations of Japanese identity through the creation of different publics and different goals for each.
Keywords
Introduction
With the development of online streaming in the early 2000s, commercial and public broadcasters across the globe began offering content in virtual space. In the case of public broadcasters, expansion into virtual online streaming often entails government involvement, interweaving state and broadcasting strategies. State messaging and ideals regarding citizenship that are carried over into virtual space broaden the reach of state influence and vary the ways through which this influence manifests both within and without geographic borders.
By considering the implications of public broadcasting’s move to virtuality, I examine how state definitions of citizenship and belonging emerge in virtuality and how the state conceives of and works to reach its publics in a world moving away from televisual broadcasting. Using Japan as a case study, I seek to answer the following questions: How do public broadcasters and governments conceptualize their public with respect to changing broadcasting environments? What logics do these institutions bring with them when (re)creating their public in virtual space?
Through an analysis of Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, or Japan Broadcasting Corporation), governmental documents, the programs offered through NHK’s online streaming service NHK On Demand (NOD), as well as its globally-aimed programming, I investigate NHK’s move into virtual space. The new environment of virtuality inadvertently produces an inward, domestic-focused version of Japanese nationhood and national identity that, whether purposeful or not, parallels the Japanese government’s strategy for national branding, namely the globally-focused Cool Japan initiative (soft power policy).
Importantly, both spaces reference nihonjinron ideology through which they frame such self-projections. Nihonjinron is the foundation of nationalistic conceptualizations of Japanese identity and nation-formation, and assumes that Japanese citizens all maintain or possess the same characteristics and values. Somewhat ironically, the impetus for the spread and adoption of nihonjinron ideology was the 1947 Japanese translation of American anthropologist Ruth Benedict’s book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, which was supported by the US Office of War Information during WWII (Befu 1992). Befu (1992) importantly points to how, in the postwar period under American occupation, nihonjinron replaced the symbols that had effectively communicated national identity and nationalism during the war: “the imperial institution, the ‘national’ flag, the ‘national’ anthem, the ‘national’ emblem, and national monuments and rituals” (Befu 1992, 27). Nihonjinron, as the new source of national identity and nationalism, was easily disseminated through popular culture and, as Lafontaine points out, popular culture is where “we witness nihonjinron’s greatest influence” (Lafontaine 2022, 40).
By confining some of its content to the geographical boundaries of Japan while disseminating other content globally, NHK creates two realms—and consequently two publics—within virtual space: what I call domestic virtual space, restricted to Japan’s geographic borders and to the citizens, or kokumin, who live within them; and global virtual space, located outside Japan’s geographic borders and includes overseas Japanese nationals, diaspora Japanese, and non-citizens (Hereafter, “diaspora” will refer to both Japanese nationals living overseas and diaspora Japanese, unless individually specified). I argue that in virtual space NHK presents varied, targeted conceptualizations of Japanese identity aimed at varied, specific publics.
A National TV Drama: NHK and Taiga
NHK launched their subscription-based online platform NHK on Demand (NOD), in 2008—almost an entire decade after Japanese commercial broadcasters first experimented with online streaming. 1 As a semi-governmental entity, NHK is essentially a private company that is majority-owned by the Japanese government. It not only has to follow Broadcast Act regulations like every other broadcaster in Japan, but it also must receive approval from the Diet, the parliamentary branch of the Japanese government, for yearly budgets, licensing fee pricing, etc. The decision to launch an online streaming platform had to be approved by the Diet and then added into the Broadcast Act, making it legally possible for NHK to move forward.
Through a technique called geo-fencing or geo-blocking, NOD has been land-locked within the invisible borders of Japan and therefore inaccessible in other countries since its inception. Even if you circumvent these barriers with a VPN (virtual private network), you cannot access the service without a Japanese credit card and address. NHK offers content to overseas audiences through its NHK WORLD-JAPAN channel, which—at its inception—was meant to disseminate Japanese news and culture to non-citizens (Okuda 2009), and this purpose still influences the service’s content (Please see Table 1 for a complete list of the streaming services and their target audiences discussed in this article). 2 NHK WORLD-JAPAN provides content and subtitles in multiple languages—mainly news programming and carefully curated offerings from its own content alongside non-NHK programs—and all are meant to equally appeal to both diaspora and non-citizens. 3 Despite now offering diaspora Japanese-language news, NHK seems to have made its international channel aimed at non-citizen audiences perform two jobs: promote Japanese culture and news content across the globe to non-citizens and keep diaspora connected to news from Japan. However, given that the same content is aimed at both audiences (diaspora and non-citizens), the two groups have been lumped into one.
NHK Program Availability on TV and Online Streaming.
Within domestic virtual space, NOD offers a variety of NHK’s entertainment programming, including its two most well-known genres: asa-dora (renzoku terebi shōsetsu, or morning serial drama) and taiga drama (period drama). Asa-dora began airing every morning on NHK in the 1960s with fifteen-minute episodes for 26 weeks. This genre is geared toward women, with a specific “look, sound, and emotional texture that viewers have come to expect,” including a bright and airy esthetic filled with comedic moments interspersed with dramatic, emotional ones for the heroine—always a heroine—to grow as a character (Yano 2008, 103). In contrast to asa-dora, taiga is a period drama genre that features (typically male) Japanese historical figures and tells their life story across an entire year-long airing schedule with hour-long episodes broadcast each Sunday night. Taiga often take place in the distant past, and include samurai characters and swordplay fight scenes.
Both genres use historical periods, figures, and events often to invoke the past as a way to reaffirm nihonjinron-inflected national identity or explore contemporary social issues. Keirstead (2013) connects Japanese period drama (broadly called jidaigeki in Japanese) to late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Japanese historians’ efforts to develop a new, modern history of Japan and its people. He writes that through both historical and legendary male samurai figures, “historians found [those] who exemplified exactly the sort of virtues they wished to bestow upon the modern Japanese polity” (Keirstead 2013, 427). Although Keirstead is concerned with so-called anti-samurai period drama films, he brings up the important point of the connection between the period drama genre and its production of a “historiography [that links] national identity and agency with masculinity and militarism” (Keirstead 2013, 428). In this sense, NHK’s asa-dora and taiga are part of a long trajectory of period dramas that serve nationalistic and national identity-forming aims.
As genres, asa-dora and taiga are synonymous with NHK due to the fact that they are only produced by the public broadcaster: no other broadcaster can lay claim to these genres. Although jidaigeki broadly are often produced by other broadcasters, taiga dramas are solely produced by NHK. Despite their many similarities, one of the more striking differences between taiga and jidaigeki is their broadcast schedule. Commercial broadcasters in Japan typically have a broadcast schedule of one cours, 4 or thirteen weeks, with each episode airing once a week. This is the equivalent of the US broadcasting term “one season.” Contrastingly, taiga productions air weekly for an entire year, beginning in January and ending in December.
The fact that these genres make up the bulk of NOD’s content illustrates their importance to NHK, with taiga drama in particular being highly valued. In 2022, on NOD’s homepage, the banner at the top of the page for the taiga drama section read: The Taiga Drama, a TV drama genre that is representative of Japan. Since its inception in 1963, it has continued to depict the history and emotions of Japan and the Japanese people from the Heian and Kamakura periods to the modern and contemporary periods (NHK 2022).
Additionally, in a two-part roundtable discussion for NHK Archives from 2006 and 2007, directors and producers for NHK viewed taiga drama as a “mirror” of contemporary society (NHK 2007). This illustrates how NHK views taiga drama as more than just a simple TV drama genre: they seem to suggest that taiga drama, and by proxy NHK, can accurately reflect Japanese identity and society. The discussants of the roundtable expressed the view that only taiga dramas could depict “Japaneseness.” For example, Director Ōhara, who joined NHK in 1960 and directed the taiga drama Akō-rōshi (1964) which would solidify the genre, says that taiga has the ability to educate the public on what it means to be Japanese (NHK 2007). Ōhara continues to explicitly state that “outside of taiga, there is no other TV drama that can theorize about the Japanese nation (nihonkokuron) and nihonjinron” (NHK 2007). Producer Shibuya, who joined NHK in 1963 and produced taiga such as Tokugawa Ieyasu (1983), Inochi (1986), and Kasuga no tsubone (1989), states that “the reason taiga drama has continued for this long is due to its consistent themes of theories of nihonjinron and theories of the Japanese nation” (NHK 2007). Director and executive producer Nishimura expresses that taiga drama is the “perfect program to think about Japanese history and questions such as 'What is ‘Japanese’? What is Japan?’” due to its specific broadcast schedule (NHK 2007). In this way, NHK reinforces the idea that taiga holds unique cultural power compared to other TV genres, implying that NHK has the ability and the authority to interpret Japanese identity.
The notion that taiga are uniquely positioned to best reflect Japanese society and national identity is also supported by some Japanese media scholars. Echoing the above statements by NHK staff, Gotō et al. (1991) praise NHK taiga dramas, writing “It can be said to represent the best in Japanese television drama. Moreover, because of its enormous appeal to the Japanese public, it may also be termed ‘a national drama’” (Gotō et al. 1991). Suzuki (2011) parallels these sentiments, writing that “regardless of gender, age, or occupation, the majority of people would probably say that NHK’s taiga dramas have been the center of attention and talked about the most amongst Japanese programming” (Suzuki 2011, i). Interestingly, this scholarship does not rely on any kind of survey research evidence to support their claims—the authors simply assume that taiga dramas resonate with and are beloved by Japanese audiences. Scholars invoking nihonjinron ideology imply that NHK and its content are able to tap into some core value(s) of Japanese existence by no other merit than merely being Japan’s public broadcaster.
Geo-Fencing/Geo-Blocking
From its inception, NOD has been land-locked so that it is only accessible within Japan through a technique called geo-fencing or geo-blocking. Geo-fences are “virtual perimeters that regulate access to content by geographic location” (Burroughs and Rugg 2014). Geo-blocking is a more general term that “refers to the practice of restricting access to Internet content based on the location of the user who attempts to access the content” (Trimble 2024). So, despite the seeming boundlessness of virtual space, physical geographic borders inform its boundaries, taking a seemingly infinite space and confining it to already established man-made borders. Users can circumvent these restrictions by using a VPN, tricking Internet service providers into thinking the computer is in another country.
Since the 1990s, public service broadcasters have struggled to adapt to an ever-changing media landscape. Now in the age of virtual streaming and increased audience fragmentation due to varied viewing options, geo-fencing has become common practice not only for commercial streaming services but also for public broadcasters. For example, the BBC states on the website for its streaming service iPlayer that “you need to be in the UK to stream and download programmes or watch BBC TV channels on BBC iPlayer” (BBC 2025). NHK takes it a step further to ensure that its content is only accessible within the confines of Japan’s physical borders. In addition to the geographic requirement, NHK also requires the user to register a Japanese address that is connected to their yearly television licensing fee and a Japanese credit card. In doing so, NHK risks excluding diasporic Japanese.
Despite geo-blocking being so commonplace not only with media content providers but also other industries like online vendors and marketplaces, some governments have started to regulate this practice. In 2018, the European Parliament, the law-making body of the European Union (EU), implemented a regulation regarding geo-blocking for e-commerce transactions, calling the practice “unjustified discrimination” based on nationality and place of residence or establishment (European Parliament and Council of the European Union 2018). However, the film-audiovisual sector is not included in the ban on geo-blocking, allowing for the film and TV media industry to continue its geo-blocking practices likely due to copyright issues.
In an analysis of this regulation, De Gregorio (2021) states that, in line with the main purpose of the Regulation, the limitation excluding audiovisual content “aims to avoid a race to the bottom to the quality of content due to the ‘pressure on content providers to assimilate their prices for the online provision of their services across EU Member States’” (De Gregorio 2021, 202). This highlights the challenge of upholding anti-discriminatory geo-blocking while ensuring fair competition. Although attempts have been made to include audiovisual content in the Regulation’s purview, the Commission has claimed that “it is not possible to conduct a complete assessment of the direct and indirect effects of the implementation of the Regulation. . .and will collect feedback from stakeholders. . .with regard to the availability of copyright-protected content” (De Gregorio 2021, 203). While audiovisual content may reasonably be excluded from geo-blocking regulations, this does not resolve the larger concern over how geographic restrictions shape access to online media. To my knowledge, Japan does not currently have any laws that regulate geo-blocking usage.
NHK and Its Publics
Park (2005) writes that, although the public broadcasting system “was not a stable and natural” one from its start, it was the tool through which nations in the chaos of the twentieth century helped create and explore national identities (Park 2005, 6). Hilmes (2012) also points to the importance of broadcasting (from radio to TV) in forming imaginary national boundaries and, through difference, solidifying a singular, national culture. As Scannell ([1989] 2000) states, the ethos of public broadcasting lies in its ability to make its wide-ranging content—from entertainment to political commentary—available universally as a public good. In doing so, public broadcasting helps to take fragmented audiences and form a cohesive, national public through shared media and culture: “By placing political, religious, civic, cultural events and entertainments in a common domain, public life was equalized. . .whereas previously such events had been quite discrete and separate, they took on new meanings as they came in contact with each other in common national broadcast channels” (Scannell [1989] 2000, 80). Scannell’s statement, despite being about the British context and during a time prior to online streaming, illustrates the process through which public broadcasters form their publics: primarily through universal access across national broadcast channels.
Thus, it is part of NHK’s mission as a public broadcaster to serve the “welfare of the public” and to provide “good programs” that “satisfy public needs, contribute to the improvement of cultural standards” and to, more specifically, “help preserve the excellence of Japanese culture of the past and to foster and spread new culture” (NHK, n.d, a). This mission and its focus on “the public” influences NHK’s decisions, including the creation of an online distribution platform and the content it hosts. NHK’s reports on expansion into virtual space consistently use phrases such as “equal access,” “trustworthiness,” or “good quality” (NHK 2025). The use of these keywords indicates NHK’s attempts to maintain its mission as a public broadcaster while expanding into virtuality.
The Broadcast Act’s wording regarding “the public” has been vague since its first iteration in 1950. However, there are other clues that can help define what NHK and the state mean when they say “the public.” In 2019, Yabe Shinya and Uehara Hitoshi, who were serving as Assistant Directors of the Broadcasting Policy Division in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Information Distribution and Broadcasting Policy Bureau, published a breakdown of that year’s revisions to the Broadcast Act. Throughout the sixteen-page document, the word kokumin, or “national citizenry,” can be found fifteen times and always in relation to the word “viewer,” or shichōsha (Yabe and Uehara 2019). By connecting “viewers” to “citizens,” we can understand NHK’s definition of viewers as always national citizens, which makes up their “public.” However, it is not so clear as to who makes up NHK’s “national citizenry.”
Stemming from nihonjinron attitudes, the creation of virtual borders through geo-fencing seems to indicate an attempt to separate Japanese virtual viewership from non-citizen virtual viewership, reinforcing the idea that Japanese citizens are only found in Japan (and conversely that non-citizens do not exist within Japan). Furthermore, this virtual border signals NHK’s—and by extension the state’s—definition of who is considered a “citizen.” Despite the numerous Japanese citizens that live and work abroad—not to mention the many diasporic Nikkei Japanese overseas—NHK makes NOD inaccessible to this large swath of citizens. 5 This is in line with governmental policy that severely limits Japanese citizenship. For example, if someone holds dual citizenship, Japanese law requires that they choose between their two citizenship claims when they turn twenty years old.
However, this governmental logic is contradictory. For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s, many Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese descent immigrated to Japan under temporary worker visas. As Adachi writes, “The government naively believed that despite the fact that these workers had never been to Japan, since they were nihonjin [Japanese], there would be no cultural or social barriers between them and the Japanese in Japan. However, these ‘returnee’ Japanese-Brazilian dekasegi [temporary migrant] workers experienced social, cultural, economic, and political discrimination as great as that experienced by migrant workers from other countries (if not more)” (Adachi 2010). As this shows, the Japanese government and NHK take a split stance on what determines a person’s “Japaneseness.” On one hand, someone can become part of NHK’s public and be “Japanese” just by being in Japan. On the other hand, someone can also be “Japanese” if they have Japanese blood, even if they live abroad—however, these diasporic groups have limited access to NHK’s online content, and therefore cannot fully be part of NHK’s “public.” So, by delineating borders within virtual space and restricting content to certain groups, NHK is in alignment with fractured governmental logics even in the unlimited possibilities of virtuality.
The Broadcast Act and The Domestic Broadcasting Industry’s Impacts on NHK
Ironically, Japan’s Broadcast Act may be one reason why NHK restricts online streaming content to only within Japanese borders. According to Article 15 of the latest iteration of the Broadcast Act, as a public broadcaster, NHK has a duty to provide “plentiful and good programs that contribute to public welfare and can be received throughout Japan” (emphasis added, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Japan) 2024). The inclusion of “throughout Japan” in the phrasing of the law seemingly limits NHK’s ability to cater to overseas non-citizen audiences and, more specifically, Japanese citizens overseas. However, Article 20 of the Broadcast Act goes into further detail regarding the kinds of services NHK is legally required to provide. These include “international programming for the Japanese diaspora and international programming for foreigners [(non-citizens)]” (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Japan) 2024). This addition makes it clear that NHK’s global programming is supposed to be aimed at two separate overseas audiences, both diaspora and non-citizen viewers.
As mentioned before, NHK indeed provides access to some of its content to overseas audiences (diaspora and non-citizens alike) through its international service NHK WORLD-JAPAN, which provides primarily English-language news content and minimal access to English-subtitled entertainment content. Interestingly, asa-dora and taiga dramas are not included in this iteration of NHK’s international broadcasts (with the limited exception of one service which will be discussed below). NHK’s latest streaming service NHK Plus, which launched in 2020, is also geo-fenced and inaccessible to the Japanese diaspora (unless they utilize a VPN, and can provide proof of address and a Japanese credit card). Despite the legal mandate to provide international content to overseas audiences, NHK continues to geo-fence some of its services, suggesting that a split public indeed exists in virtual space for NHK. This further implies that NHK’s restriction of its content to Japan may be shaped by factors beyond the Broadcast Act.
The structure of the broadcast industry landscape in Japan itself impacts how NHK moves in virtual streaming spaces. Humphery (2023) writes that intellectual property-focused industry strategy in the 2000s “significantly hampered Japanese dramas’ circulation abroad with the rise of streaming” (Humphery 2023, 38). Humphrey states that Japanese live-action dramas fall under a “bundled rights (in Japanese, kenri no taba)” copyright category (Humphery 2023, 45). This means that various actors hold the rights as a collective to any particular program, “from the networks that may hold the broadcast rights for the program to performers and their agencies who might hold the copyrights for songs used and the performers’ individual portraiture rights” (Humphery 2023, 45). In fact, TV networks seem to have used their copyright-holder power to “slow-walk the transition to streaming in Japan” (Humphery 2023, 50). By emphasizing and reinforcing strict copyright policies, Japanese TV broadcasters have—particularly in comparison to globally successful industries such as South Korea—structurally limited the circulation of Japanese live-action dramas beyond Japan. Regardless of the reason—whether it be IP-related structural limitations or ideological motivation—the impact on NHK’s position as a public broadcaster in virtual streaming space is the creation of a split public, inadvertent or not.
Beyond the impact of the law and domestic broadcasting industry practices, NHK’s status as a semi-governmental entity is both a blessing and a curse in expanding into virtual space. On the positive side, being connected to the government gives NHK the opportunity to receive large subsidies to produce programming. Oppositely, this close proximity to bureaucracy and politics influences production decisions. For example, members of NHK’s organizational governing body, the Board of Governors (keiei i-inkai), are directly appointed by the Prime Minister and must be approved by the Diet, highlighting the likelihood of the promotion of political and cultural agendas of the ruling government. The Board of Governors, as laid out in Article 29 of the Broadcast Act, is responsible for the overall management of the organization and has the final say in determining whether a proposed project is actually produced or not. In this sense, even though there are numerous producers and editors throughout NHK directly involved in the daily labor it takes to produce a program, it is not these employees but the Board of Governors who has the ultimate authority in crafting and shaping NHK’s programming.
Although NHK claims autonomy from state influence through its licensing fee system, with such direct involvement in the organizational and programming decisions of the broadcaster, it is clear that the state and NHK are heavily interconnected. Laurence (2023) writes that the “internal culture of self-censorship” at NHK exists in tandem with this structure of Prime Minister-appointed Board members (Laurence 2023, 41). The linkage between the state and NHK is also illustrated through certain changes to the Broadcast Act. Although often revised as technology advances, a significant revision was made to the Broadcast Act in 2007, just a year before NOD’s launch. This revision resulted in the creation of the Audit Committee to keep NHK’s producers, editors, and other employees accountable after numerous scandals in preceding years. 6 Although Laurence (2023) notes that since this 2007 revision, Board members are “forbidden from interfering with the content of individual programs” (Laurence 2023, 20), an internal report writes that the revision had the opposite effect: that alongside expanding internet streaming, “One of the pillars of the revised law is to strengthen the supervisory authority of the Board of Governors” (Fujino 2008). The scandals, investigations, and legal revisions unfolding at the time of NOD’s launch inevitably shaped NHK’s move to online streaming.
Cool Japan, NHK, and Nihonjinron
Around the same time as NOD’s launch in 2008, the Japanese government pursued a soft power initiative for national branding dubbed “Cool Japan,” inspired by the 1990s UK slogan “Cool Britannia.” Officially adopted in 2010 with the creation of the Cool Japan Promotion Office under the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), this initiative, aimed at non-citizens, continues to promote an image of Japan as technologically innovative and “cool,” with its use of flashy anime, manga, and other pop culture products, to increase “fans of Japan” and inbound tourism (Cabinet Office 2019). Tamaki (2019) states that Cool Japan’s version of national identity, conceived by the state and spread internationally by domestic industries, pulls from the myth of Japanese uniqueness, or nihonjinron.
This global image of Japan is far removed from its imperialistic and wartime past. Burgess (2015) links then-Prime Minister Abe’s conservative nationalism to Cool Japan, writing that the government’s usage and promotion of Cool Japan supported “the national interest because it helps reduce anti-Japanese feelings in Asia” (Burgess 2015, 24). Regardless of whether Cool Japan has actually reduced such anti-Japan feelings in Asia, recent scholarship has suggested that Japanese popular culture has softened the portrayal of icons typically associated with Japan’s imperialistic past. For example, anime and video games in recent years have tempered the image of the sword (Watabe 2021). Such soft power translates into an ability to shape global consumers’ understandings of modern Japanese history, according to Watabe (2021).
Importantly, Cool Japan and NHK are linked through their connection to the state. deWinter (2018) writes that the state leverages NHK’s broad reach domestically and globally through English-language content to push Cool Japan forward (DeWinter 2018, 48). deWinter states that Cool Japan—a TV program that frames Japanese uniqueness through a Western gaze that aired both in Japan and overseas through NHK WORLD-JAPAN—becomes a “domestic voice for interpreting Cool Japan” (DeWinter 2018, 49). 7 There are a few such Cool Japan policy-inspired programs made by NHK, including one entitled Kabuki Kool (2014–2022), which introduces one of Japan’s traditional performing art forms, kabuki, to non-citizen audiences in English. The program is easily accessible outside of Japan, as it is hosted on NHK WORLD-JAPAN (although since the show has been canceled, only a limited, revolving selection of episodes remains on the site as of this writing). One striking aspect of Kabuki Kool is its two hosts: kabuki actor Kataoka Ainosuke and singer Sarah Àlainn. Throughout each episode, we faintly hear them speaking in Japanese to each other, with an English voice actor dubbing over Kataoka and Sarah seemingly dubbing over herself. Sarah, who is mixed-race Japanese, acts as a body-double for the non-citizen target audience, ooh-ing and ah-ing at Kataoka’s descriptions and explanations. deWinter’s analysis of Cool Japan and the example of Kabuki Kool illustrate the importance of NHK as a public broadcaster in presenting the domestically-aimed and globally-aimed promotions of Japanese culture through Cool Japan policy.
While Cool Japan uses pop culture or traditional culture icons in its national branding campaign, NOD utilizes the two genres synonymous with NHK: asa-dora and taiga drama. As illustrated through the aforementioned roundtable with directors and producers, NHK views its taiga drama as a genre that in part speaks to nihonjinron and serves as an opportunity through which to ponder what it means to be Japanese. However, such nihonjinron ideals are sometimes disguised through characters, stories, and plots that do not obviously fit the mold. In what follows, I will introduce examples that illustrate how such obfuscation of nihonjinron ideals occurs in NHK programming in both domestic and global virtual space.
NHK’s Taiga in Domestic Virtual Space
The taiga drama Yae no Sakura (2013)—one of fifteen out of sixty-five total taiga dramas featuring a female lead—is an interesting example of how NHK maintains nihonjinron-inflected Japanese identity through a character who, on the surface, does not appear to conform to such an identity. The drama is set in the Aizu domain (now present-day Fukushima Prefecture in the northeastern Tohoku region of Japan) between 1851 and 1894 and follows its main character, Yamamoto Yae—based on the life of real historical figure Yamamoto Yaeko (1845-1932)—from childhood to death. 8 Yae no Sakura utilizes the second most popular time period for taiga drama settings, the Bakumatsu period (1853–1867, the end of the long Tokugawa Period, 1603–1867, leading to the beginning of Japan’s modern era; Please see Table 2 for a comprehensive breakdown of taiga dramas by time period).
Distribution of Taiga Drama Series by Historical Time Period Setting.
Note. The Bakumatsu and Sengoku period taiga dramas identified from 1963 to 2012 are taken from Suzuki (2011). Taiga dramas span decades and oftentimes cross time period boundaries, so for the remaining dramas, the categorization I do here is based on how NHK narrativizes the production on NHK Archives as well as the time period in which the bulk of the plot takes place.
The drama can be broken into two parts: the first half focuses on the Bakumatsu period and the Boshin War (1868–1869, fought between Tokugawa shogunate supporters and loyalists who supported the Imperial household); and the second half depicts the immediate aftermath of the Meiji Restoration (1868–1889). The drama seemingly challenges conventional Japanese identity with its gun-toting female protagonist, but inadvertently reinforces nihonjinron-inflected Japanese identity by framing Yae’s personality and nonconforming behavior within the bounds of samurai values including loyalty and filial piety, which have been often linked to nihonjinron since the early twentieth century. Beyond her interest in rifles, as a child Yae wildly climbs trees and tries to learn kanji (one of the three Japanese writing systems that, during this period, was solely used by male samurai and noblemen). While her teachers, parents, and the other children call her strange, one boy from her village, Yoshichirō, helps teach her kanji and does not think she is peculiar. The drama sets the two up as possible future romantic interests, but this idea is dashed when, in Episode 8, Yoshichirō marries one of the other village girls, a soft-spoken woman who dutifully completes her needlework—the complete opposite to Yae. Despite this, Yoshichirō tells Yae that she is “the embodiment of Aizu” (“aizu sono mono,” NHK 2013).
Interestingly, Yae no Sakura was produced with the idea that it would help reinvigorate the people of the Tohoku region after the 3.11 triple disaster (the Great East Japan Earthquake, the subsequent tsunami, and the nuclear reactor meltdown in 2011). 9 Taiga as a genre often frames the region within the larger context of the nation, which makes it ideal for post-3.11 rhetoric as well as nihonjinron ideals. Samuels (2013) writes that within post-3.11 narratives, the people of Tohoku “would rebuild their communities (machizukuri) and their region (kōikizukuri), and in doing so, that they would lead the way in the rebuilding of the nation (kunizukuri)” (Samuels 2013, 39). Yae no Sakura parallels this rhetoric through its setting and characters. The drama uses a turbulent time in Tohoku’s past—the Bakumatsu period and, more specifically, the Boshin War—to comment on a contemporary moment of crisis and how the region both then and now can valiantly overcome it all, echoing hopes that Japan as a nation could overcome the 3.11 crisis, too. In this sense, by connecting the regional to the national through setting, characters, and plot, the production of Yae no Sakura itself points to NHK’s efforts to frame the taiga drama genre as an inclusive one that can speak to the Japanese public, whether overtly or not, on the idea of “Japaneseness” or Japanese identity on the whole.
NHK in Global Virtual Space
Although structurally disconnected from Cool Japan policy, through NHK in global virtual space, the Japanese government has pulled from similar Cool Japan-esque logics in disseminating nihonjinron-inflected imagery through various international broadcasting services, such as the aforementioned globally-broadcast programs Cool Japan and Kabuki Kool hosted on NHK-WORLD JAPAN. One notable example of NHK’s international broadcasting services other than NHK-WORLD JAPAN is the TV Japan channel, which was available to paying subscribers through satellite and cable television in the United States and Canada from 1991 to March 2024. TV Japan began service under the NHK subsidiary NHK Cosmomedia America Inc., and just recently ended satellite and cable service in March 2024 before moving to online streaming under the new name Jme (pronounced jay-me). Before the switch to streaming, TV Japan provided paying viewers—both diaspora and non-citizens—with access to Japanese TV programs, both public and commercial, including taiga drama, asa-dora, popular commercially-produced dramas and variety shows, and even sports events.
Such programs are still on offer in virtual streaming space through Jme. However, unlike NHK’s domestic on-demand service NOD, Jme does not seem to offer very many taiga and asa-dora. At present, Jme only offers one asa-dora—the recently completed 2024 production—and four taiga dramas: Berabō (2025), Hikaru kimi e (2024), Ryōmaden (2010), and Atsuhime (2008). What is interesting about this lineup is that two out of the four dramas feature female leads which, as discussed earlier, is not the norm for taiga drama productions. Furthermore, none of these productions feature the “big three” samurai historical figures most often taken as protagonists in taiga: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. 10 The only taiga that is subtitled in English is Berabō (2025). Jme does have live streaming available for the 2026 taiga production Toyotomi kyōdai!, but subscribers cannot watch it on-demand—they must watch it during one of the scheduled weekend broadcast times. Episodes of currently airing shows are available only within a two-episode rolling window, with older episodes no longer accessible.
What does this say, then, about depictions of Japaneseness in global virtual space? Unlike the domestic depictions of Japaneseness through taiga offered on NOD, Japanese identity in programs available through global virtual space do not engage with samurai values to the extent that domestic offerings do. For example, the drama Ryōmaden paints the historical figure of Sakamoto Ryōma (1836–1867)—a man from the merchant class—as a modernizing force for a stagnant Japanese society during the tumultuous Bakumatsu period (the same time period in which Yae no Sakura is set). Here, the protagonist is not only not a samurai, but he also plays a crucial role in the downfall of samurai-ruled society. This is quite different from the arguably samurai-dominant image of the taiga dramas offered in domestic virtuality through NOD. As seen in the earlier Yae no Sakura example, values and behaviors associated with the samurai are valorized and idealized in domestic virtual space, even when the main character is not the typical male samurai.
Conclusion
When NHK restricts content to geographically-determined virtual space, it creates a separate and unequal service between its domestic public and global public, excluding part of its public and highlighting the continued reliance of physical national borders for definitions of ’“kokumin” (national citizenry). The public outside of Japan includes both diaspora and non-citizens and they are targeted together. NHK uses geographic logic to differentiate publics for which it has different aims, while still utilizing the boundlessness of virtuality to strengthen different kinds of control: control over image, control over constructions of identity, and control over access to content and information.
Unlike what we saw with the case of NHK, however, national publics in virtuality are not always defined by physical geographic space. The case of Indian public broadcasting offers a useful comparative. In the Indian context, both public and commercial broadcasters seem to have discarded conventional barriers to content in virtual space, following Prime Minister Modi’s model of embracing diaspora. When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in India in 2014 and Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, foreign policy shifted to include a new focus on the Indian diaspora. Unlike in Japan, however, where right-wing nationalism revolves around the strengthening of the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) and nihonjinron, right-wing Hindu nationalism in India manifested in a desire to reconnect with the Indian diaspora to encourage the development of a global Indian community. Modi’s focus on diaspora was meant to strengthen India’s place within the global community. This subsequently strengthens his own domestic image as a global leader, furthering his party’s right-wing goals.
Indian broadcasters have mimicked Modi’s approach to overseas Indians: the public broadcaster, Doordarshan (DD), has partnered with global distributors in various countries including Germany, the United States, and South Korea. Unlike NHK, which offers limited global content, DD hosts its domestic channel DD National on YouTube, offering full episodes of popular shows and live-streamed news content. Even commercial online video-on-demand services like Eros Now and ZEE5 that offer domestic Indian programming are not geo-blocked. ZEE5, in particular, prides itself on catering to a wide array of Indian populations: “As ZEE5 continues to evolve and broaden its horizons, it reaffirms its commitment to delivering unparalleled content experiences that transcend geographical boundaries, nurturing a deeper sense of cultural unity and connectivity among audiences worldwide” (Shyam 2024). By not limiting access to content, India’s public broadcaster and commercial streaming platforms like ZEE5 do not exclude overseas Indians from its services, and instead actively embrace the diaspora, fostering a global community.
What does it reveal about public broadcasters’ understanding of their “public” when they limit access to their online content in ways that appear to conflict with the principles of public service and universal access? In an increasingly competitive environment—where commercial broadcasters chase profitability, financial efficiency, and variety in programming—the legitimacy of public broadcasting as an institution has been called into question. The complication of bundled rights in Japanese broadcasting notwithstanding, commercial Japanese broadcasters have gradually opened to offering more content online domestically and globally. For Japan, there seems to be more availability to commercially produced content through distribution agreements with global platforms like Netflix. As competition between commercial media and public broadcasters increases alongside changing technological landscapes, the capability of public broadcasters to fulfill their mission as a public service becomes increasingly complicated. Creating—and being able to reach—a cohesive public is not so simple.
Even within virtual space, despite its boundlessness and overwhelming possibilities, the limitations of public broadcasting as an institution seem to remain, as they are inextricably linked with their governments and cultural contexts. NHK jumped at the chance to extend their reach overseas through satellite and digital technology, and each new technological advancement brings new possibilities to create new publics and new messages for these publics. As technological capabilities continue to change—and the role of public broadcasters continue to change across its varying national and cultural contexts—it remains to be seen what kind of control NHK and other public broadcasters will be able to maintain.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following individuals for their support during the preparation of this article: my advisor, Professor Katherine Saltzman-Li, for her invaluable guidance and unwavering support; Professor Jennifer Holt, for her generous feedback and advice; and my friends and colleagues Rachel Levine and Natalya Rodriguez, for their warm encouragement and thoughtful comments.
Ethical Considerations
This article does not contain any studies with human or animal participants.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data analyzed in this article is cited in the bibliography. Some of the data used is behind a paywall and restricted by geo-fencing making it inaccessible outside of Japan.