Why Japan is a step closer to heaven

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Nono wears earring crucifixes during the Wonderful Hearts Winter 2006 concert.

Just received, among other things, °C-ute's “Tokkaiko Junjou” single (with PVs) that I should have ordered last year, but didn’t. In the backstage segment, it was somewhat amazing to see some of the members showing off their fancy crucifixes hanging around their necks.

Now crucifixes are nothing new with Hello! Project’s singers. Nono had twin crucifixes hanging from her ears in the Winter 2006 concert. Morning Musume members sport crucifixes during many a performance – glitzy secular costuming notwithstanding.

The point is: Japan does has its magnificent, samurai past, and the religions that tend to be associated with it – Buddhism and Shintoism among them. Back in the 1960s when I lived in Japan as a schoolkid, I remember my Japanese Culture teacher one day say something like: “In the Shinto religion, everything is believed to have a spirit.” He grabbed a ruler and said: “This ruler has a spirit” as far as the Shinto religion is concerned.

But times and culture change. The fact is that, these days, Japan has become a Protestant Christian nation, hence the H!P crucifixes. Even back in the 1960s, Christianity was big and exploding in Japan. It was at tiny rural Kanto Mura Baptist Church just outside Yokota Air Force Base in Japan that, in 1963, I converted to Protestant Christianity at the age of 8 – mostly due to the urging of many fellow Japanese congregants.

This is not to disrespect Catholics, but as evidenced in James Clavell's landmark novel and movie, "Shogun," the Jesuits, an offshoot of Catholicism, carry heavy political and historical baggage in Japan and Asia in general through their missionary work in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Suzuki, right, sports yet another designer crucufix, with fellow °C-ute member Saki looking on.

That Protestant Christianity’s dogma might not precisely mesh with young girls dressed in flamboyant Las Vegas showgirl-style costumes and singing zesty, clearly secular pop songs is certainly not lost with J-pop fans. However, rules that govern Tsunku’s units tend to lean toward chastity and moral high ground, as Aibon found out in 2006.

But the great thing about Japan is, simply, the people enjoy just about everything about life. The Japanese appear to over-organize themselves in work and business – with the expressed purpose of having enough time and cash to then indulge in as much fun as humanly possible the minute they get off work, or get out of school for the day.

One thing I learned quickly as a child is that the typical Japanese person lives frugally. They certainly did in the 1960s, and when I went back last January, that same principle held true. Now we’re talking about the average Japanese person. But because Japanese business, especially the live-performance music industry, tends to limit the compensation to top executives, much of the wealth generated does reach the workers – not to enable the workers to be richer, but to hire more workers!

This videographer, to the left of Morning Musume's JunJun, was one of many camera-crew members recording every moment of the Hello! Project Winter 2008 event at Yokohama Arena, Jan. 27.

See for yourself. Pick out any Hello! Project arena-concert DVD you might have in your collection and start watching. But instead of paying attention to the performers, try and pick out the little details, glimpses of the support people making this magic happen. Look at the credits at the end of an arena-concert DVD. It is a cast of dozens, even hundreds.

The reason I recommend an arena show DVD to run this test is that the support people involved are innumerable and more visible. For example, if you compare the Wonderful Hearts Winter 2008 theater show to the Hello! Project Winter 2008 concert at Yokohama Arena, it’s easier to pick out the videographers, security personnel and a multitude of others who makes these spectacular shows possible at the Yokohama Arena version.

This is a shared experience, evidence that Japanese society isn’t in it just for the money, but for life itself, and a deep-rooted personal faith that comes with that. It is doubtful that a show the magnitude of a Hello! Project concert could ever be duplicated in the West. Japan, indeed, is a step closer to heaven than the rest of the world.

This is Rad signing off – for now.