Short dramas in Japan: Preferred to be refined rather than rough | Focus on international short dramas ①

The Japanese micro-short drama market is developing rapidly, and Chinese creator Director Wang Xiaoxi has successfully created micro-short dramas that suit the tastes of Japanese audiences with his rich experience, exploring the potential and challenges of the Japanese micro-short drama market.

Interactive topic: How far have Japanese short dramas evolved?

Before the second half of 2023, director Wang Xiaoxi did not expect that vertical screen dramas would become popular in Japan.

With eight years of living experience in Japan and more than ten years of directing and editing experience, Director Wang Xiaoxi and his lover completed the production of their first vertical screen drama "The Return of the Deceased Wife" at the end of 2023, and it was launched in February this year.

Today, director Wang Xiaoxi has penetrated deeply into the Japanese micro-short drama market and has produced the high-quality micro-short drama "Electric Wedding, President 様とのトキメキ爱", and he also has an ongoing project "Divorce and Three Rich Man".

Director Wang Xiaoxi on the set

Wang Xiaoxi: Director, manager and editor of Shenyang Mengzhedao Culture Communication Co., Ltd. He has mature and rich work experience. His major award-winning works include "Daily Rent Villa", "Saving Wu Dalang" and "Grandpa's Letter".

While short drama overseas platforms are targeting the lucrative North American market, Japan is becoming a new small but beautiful overseas market for short dramas. In February this year, the short drama app TopShort once surpassed Netflix in the Japanese iOS app best-selling list.

Relevant data show that from August 2023 to June 2024, the revenue scale of Japan's micro-short drama market reached 13.22 million US dollars, and the number of downloads of Japan's overseas micro-short drama applications exceeded 3.2 million, far higher than Japan's domestic micro-short drama applications.

The accelerated development of the Japanese micro-short drama market is the result of the hard work of many creators to create high-quality micro-short dramas. No. 1 had the honor of interviewing Wang Xiaoxi, the director of Japan's high-quality micro-short dramas, and discussed in depth the methodology of the hit Japanese micro-short dramas.

01 Conservative and rebellious audience

Slow and cautious, sticking to tradition and maintaining a sense of boundaries are the perceptions that are ingrained in the Japanese people. For overseas products and brands, only if they are sufficiently refined and localized can they attract their attention.

Director Wang Xiaoxi said, "Japanese people are slow to understand and accept new things, but they have very good paying habits; once they accept the content in the form of short dramas, they will have good consumption stickiness." Therefore, it is most appropriate to summarize Japanese audiences as "slow to warm up but loyal."

At present, the main audience of Japanese short dramas is between 20 and 40 years old, mainly young people in first-tier cities. So, what are the psychological motivations for young people to watch short dramas?

It is reported that the number of marriages in Japan fell below 500,000 for the first time in 2023, the lowest level since the war. A quarter of young Japanese people feel uneasy about the future and choose not to get married, fall in love or have children.

Marriage trends in postwar Japan (NHK) Image source: Guancha.com

However, Professor Masahiro Yamada of Chuo University in Japan once said, "If the satisfaction of real love decreases, the value of virtual love will increase."

Although more and more young people remain single in Japan, they still seek to satisfy their emotional needs through real or virtual idols, games, and film and television dramas.

People still yearn for romantic love, love that pays more attention to individual needs and has certainty, and micro-short dramas are a way for them to meet their intimate emotional needs. Micro-short dramas focus highly on the emotional lines and individual growth of the male and female protagonists, and can provide the audience with a complete and certain love experience in a short period of time.

In addition, "the powerful otaku culture has given the Japanese a special obsession with mobile phones, which is the biggest potential guarantee of the Japanese micro-short drama market." Micro-short dramas enrich the content on mobile phones, giving the Japanese people, who are immersed in otaku culture, another option for emotional sustenance.

"The most popular vertical screen dramas in the market are still those about workplace bickering, flash marriages and romance, or incest."

Among them, workplace governance dramas are the most popular. For example, the popular dramas "My Lady's Pawara Taiji" and "My Lady's Only Now, Intern" on TopShort are all stories about a young lady who hides her identity and works low-key, and then tears up the green tea actress and her boss to rectify the workplace.

The representative of the flash marriage love drama is "Electric Marriage, President-like Tokimeki Love" released by Director Wang Xiaoxi on TopShort, which focuses on the flash marriage of the domineering boss and the sweet love plot. The micro-short drama "Divorced, Talking to Three Rich Men" produced by Director Wang Xiaoxi is a sweet love setting with a divorce counterattack and multiple male protagonists.

In addition, romantic dramas with immoral elements such as "cheating" and "infidelity" are also very popular in Japan.

"Extremely submissive yet extremely hate being ordered around" and "Extremely brave yet extremely timid" are the best summary of the duality and contradiction of the Japanese national character.

Combined with the unemployment and poverty of Japanese women and the long-standing "good wife and good mother theory", Japanese women have long been neglected and oppressed. These "immoral" short plays allow their emotions to find a reasonable outlet through a rebellious "heroic narrative."

However, overall, the Japanese short drama market is still in its early stages, and the subject matter is not yet saturated. Director Wang Xiaoxi mentioned, "At present, there are no high-quality suspense dramas, time-travel dramas, sadomasochistic dramas, and BL dramas in the Japanese short drama market. The diversity of themes needs to be more comprehensively developed."

02 Creators who adhere to the spirit of craftsmanship

How did the "picky and difficult" Japanese audiences win over Chinese vertical screen short dramas? Director Wang Xiaoxi emphasized that the fast pace is just a form, and the high-contrast emotional value is the secret to the success of short dramas.

"After the Taiwanese version of Meteor Garden became a hit, the same IP was remade many times in different countries. We in the old days often lamented that there would be no Daomingsi after Jerry Yan. Looking back now, perhaps a less overbearing boss like Jun Matsumoto is more in line with the original work itself and more authentic to Japan."

In the context of domestic short dramas and online articles, "domineering CEO" is often linked to the keyword "forced love". Emotions in domestic short dramas tend to be expressed directly, while the Japanese national character is introverted and cautious, and the expression of emotions is euphemistic and implicit. Therefore, the image of the domineering CEO in Japanese short dramas may not be Long Aotian, but more of an "atypical domineering CEO" in the style of Matsumoto Jun.

Without dramatic conflicts and exaggerated performance styles, Japan can still have its own "domineering literature".

Director Wang Xiaoxi mentioned, "As long as the Japanese audience feels that they can gain enough emotional value from watching the show, the short play is successful. We don't need to deliberately create a scene of yelling just for fun. The fast pace of the short play is just a form, and what we output is the high-contrast emotional value itself."

This model of Japanese micro-short dramas not only verifies the diversity of the image of the "domineering president", but also verifies the diversity of the styles of overseas micro-short dramas.

Secondly, only high-quality micro-short dramas combined with dedicated actors can continue to produce hits and create a flywheel effect for micro-short dramas.

"Japan is a developed country with a population of 125 million and one of the largest entertainment industries in the world." Japanese audiences have a great demand for film and television dramas, and generally have strict requirements for TV dramas. Japanese audiences do not buy into the domestic micro-short drama model. Therefore, when making localized micro-short dramas in Japan, the quality of the script and the picture is the first priority.

From a creative perspective, practitioners in the Japanese film and television industry are also full of expectations for Chinese micro-short dramas and trust the Chinese micro-short drama production team. The premise of all this is to provide good content.

Director Wang Xiaoxi pointed out that Japanese actor agencies need to have a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the script when reviewing projects, including local Japanese actors, who also hope to be able to perform in high-quality short dramas.

"Japanese actors are generally very well-educated, have strong professional ethics, and are hardworking. As long as we can make reasonable commitments to the script and production, they can accept harsh conditions such as overtime. This is the hardworking quality unique to the Japanese."

The Japanese actors used in the two dramas directed by Wang Xiaoxi, "Dengeki Marriage: Tokimeki Love with the President" and the currently in production "Going to Divorce: Talking about Three Rich Men", are all experienced stage actors. These actors have their own fan base and are willing to invest more energy in high-quality content.

Yuki Nakanishi filmed "Magic Travel Agency" in China

Yuuki Nakanishi: Japanese actor, singer, the heroine of "Electric Wedding, President 様とのトキメキLove", her representative work "Magic Travel Agency" has represented China in the Tokyo Film Festival.

Izawa Koma: Japanese actor, the leading actor in "Electronic Marriage, President 様とのトキメキ爱", representative work "Military Prince" """ etc., and sang Chinese songs as a youth exchange ambassador at the "OneAsia Asia Festival 2022" and the Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Festival.

In a nutshell, only by using high-contrast emotions, adhering to the spirit of craftsmanship, and meticulously crafting the work can we create high-quality micro-short dramas that suit the tastes of Japanese audiences.

03 A promising market

Back to the creative process, the production time of overseas short dramas is generally longer than that of domestic ones due to geographical location, team building, cultural differences, etc.

Director Wang Xiaoxi mentioned that it took her a full three months to develop the script for her drama "Demon Marriage: President-Style Tokimeki Love" until it was finally released, while the polishing time for a domestic drama is basically about one month.

Going overseas is never an easy task. So, what are the factors that hinder the export of short dramas to Japan?

First of all, it is difficult to localize the script. "Japanese has relatively few words for real arguments, and the Japanese are more reserved. If you want the audience to get better emotional value from the short play, localization is more difficult than in other countries."

Without relying on traditional thrills, how can we enable Japanese audiences, who are accustomed to implicit expressions, to obtain high-contrast emotional value? Perhaps only by employing local Japanese screenwriters and creators can the localization problem be better solved.

The second reason is that the shooting time has to be extended due to reality. Japanese crews do not have the habit of staying in hotels together or staying up late to rehearse scenes. There are also strict time limits on the use of shooting locations, which invisibly prolongs the shooting time of short dramas and increases the crew's expenses.

The third is the shortage of film crews. In Japan, there are relatively few film crews, and even when Director Wang Xiaoxi brought people from China to Japan for filming, the crews on site were often stretched to the limit.

"Moreover, the production budget for short dramas in Japan is generally less than half of that in North America. They are also shot in developed countries, which is a huge challenge for the production team."

The difficulty of localizing the script, the almost strict time limit, the shortage of filming crews, and the budget that is half of that of North American micro-short dramas make the filming of Japanese micro-short dramas full of challenges and variables.

However, Japan’s investment and promotion channels are not as abundant as those in China, and capital recovery mainly depends on platform apps. Does this mean that Japanese micro-short dramas are not cost-effective?

Director Wang Xiaoxi once again emphasized the importance of high quality to Japanese short dramas. "If we want to gain paying support from a wider audience, I think it is necessary for Chinese platforms to come up with content that is as good as Japanese TV dramas and movies to conquer Japanese audiences." With high-quality short dramas, a large paying group can be cultivated without relying on traffic.

Unlike domestic short dramas that rely on streaming, Japanese short dramas place more emphasis on the actors’ appeal to fans and audiences. For producers, it is better to trust actors with higher fan retention value than to trust streaming channels.

Perhaps a more suitable business model for Japanese micro-short dramas is to leverage the inherent characteristics of Japan's trusting society, promote micro-short dramas with the help of actors and fan groups, build a solid audience base for micro-short dramas, and consider capital recovery from multiple sources.

While Chinese platforms are exploring the local market for Japanese short dramas, local Japanese platforms are also actively developing short dramas such as BUMP and GOKKO. Will this pose a challenge to domestic creators?

Gokko Club produced a short play "Trippers" Image source: Gokko Club official website

"There are many production companies developing Japanese short dramas, but there are very few teams that have truly experienced the baptism of domestic short drama production experience."

In terms of the output volume and quality of short dramas, the short dramas produced by Japanese local companies are still far behind those produced in China and North America. It can be seen that in the process of localization of Japanese short dramas, Chinese creative teams will still be the main force in the future, which also sends a positive signal for the export of Chinese short dramas to Japan.

Conclusion No. 1

The essence of short dramas going global is the export of culture, and the foundation of culture is language. The differences between different languages ​​are not only differences in vocabulary and grammar, but also in cultural background and way of thinking.

Director Wang Xiaoxi pointed out that for new entrants, learning the language is the first step to entering the Japanese micro-short drama market.

Compared with dubbed dramas, localized micro-short dramas will inevitably be the future trend of overseas micro-short dramas. Getting involved in overseas micro-short dramas without learning the language is tantamount to offending the market, and blindly relying on the translation and communication of middlemen is not conducive to the realization of localization.

Therefore, whether it is the platform or the producer, or the newcomers who are still on the sidelines, learning the language and understanding the local cultural customs and issues that the people really care about are the only way for Chinese micro-short dramas to set sail overseas.

"Bring the most passionate emotions, bring the most professional production, meet with sincerity, and treat each other with empathy; I believe that Chinese short plays will flourish in every corner of the world."

References:

Misunderstood, "Young Lady, Workplace" can't represent the aesthetics of the Japanese micro-short drama market? XGL Co., Ltd.: Details are king

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Gd_EPtRflYHbyI3WPXrtng

Chinese short dramas landed in Japan: a single drama cost over 100 million yen, half the cost of the US

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/MDVgO_iiNBw0C-K_YCVdcQ

Author｜Yao He This article is written by the operator [Media No. 1], WeChat public account: [Media No. 1], original/authorized to be published on Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.