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Intellectual discourses on the World Cup in Japan and the unspoken consensus of Japaneseness

My task in this essay is to respond to Hong Sungtae’s essay ‘The World Cup, Red Devils, and the Related Arguments in Korea’, which charted the way in which Korean intellectuals discuss the relationship between the 2002 Korea–Japan World Cup, the enthusiastic fanaticism called the ‘Red Devils Phenomenon’ and nationalism. Hong brilliantly categorized Korean intellectuals into several groups and critically evaluated each from his viewpoint as a cultural and social activist. As I have not had a chance to come across these arguments, his essay is of great help for me in order to grasp the general arguments in Korea. Then, I thought, I should in turn analyse the arguments made by Japanese intellectuals in the same way as Hong Sungtae did, rather than merely make a comment on his analysis. It would be a supplement to his essay and hopefully propose a comparative study between Korea and Japan. However, as soon as I started to look at intellectual arguments in Japan, I found it difficult to examine them in Hong’s way. The World Cup certainly received abundant media coverage, but most of it was either on a new political and cultural Korea–Japan relationship, on how to enjoy the World Cup, or on the criticism of the mal-organization of the event, in particular, of FIFA. The fanatic phenomenon was rarely discussed in relation to nationalism or politics, let alone fascism, although Japanese football supporters were as enthusiastic as Korean ones. In short, the World Cup was seen primarily as an ephemeral cultural event without a ‘political’ impact. However, I am going to follow Hong’s argument deliberately, despite this difficulty, because I believe that the difference of political agenda in each country would come to be clearer by doing so. Needless to say, it is not my intention to overemphasize the difference between Korean and Japanese intellectuals, dividing them only by their national boundary. There are also crucial differences among the Japanese as well as among the Korean intellectuals. It should be also pointed out that not a few Japanese share a common problematic with the Korean arguments. However, I am more interested in pointing to Japanese national specificities, by provisionally appropriating Hong’s framework into the analysis of intellectual discursive formation in Japan, because they have been often too naturalized to be discussed.