Asian pop culture

Open it after playing: the correct answers are here.

1. Question 1. Which studio produced Spirited Away?

   • Studio Ghibli
   • Toei Animation
   • Madhouse
   • Production I.G

   Answer: Studio Ghibli. Released in 2001, Hayao Miyazaki’s film held the Japanese box-office record for nineteen years and won the Academy Award for best animated feature as well as the Golden Bear in Berlin, the only animated film so honoured.

2. Question 2. What does the word "manhwa" refer to?

   • Korean comics
   • Chinese animation
   • A Japanese novel genre
   • A calligraphy technique

   Answer: Korean comics. Manhwa (만화) is the Korean term, manhua (漫画) the Chinese one, manga the Japanese: all three use the same characters. Manhwa is now read mainly as webtoons, a vertical format designed for phone scrolling.

3. Question 3. Which film won the Palme d’Or and then the Oscar for best picture?

   • Oldboy
   • Parasite
   • Burning
   • Memories of Murder

   Answer: Parasite. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite took the Palme d’Or in May 2019 then four Oscars in February 2020, including best picture: the first non-English-language feature to win that award.

4. Question 4. What does the term "hallyu" mean?

   • The Korean cultural wave
   • A traditional dance style
   • The talent agency system
   • A Seoul music festival

   Answer: The Korean cultural wave. The expression 한류, "flow from Korea", was coined by the Chinese press in the mid-1990s to describe the success of Korean drama and music. Seoul then adopted it as an instrument of cultural policy.

5. Question 5. In which magazine is One Piece serialised?

   • Weekly Shōnen Jump
   • Weekly Shōnen Magazine
   • Big Comic Spirits
   • Afternoon

   Answer: Weekly Shōnen Jump. Shūeisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump has published Eiichirō Oda’s series since 1997. The magazine once printed more than six million copies a week, an all-time record for any periodical.

6. Question 6. City pop originated in which country?

   • South Korea
   • Japan
   • Hong Kong
   • Taiwan

   Answer: Japanese city pop of the 1970s and 1980s accompanied the economic bubble: polished production, funk and AOR influences, imagery of picture windows and urban expressways. The genre found a second, global life from 2017, driven by YouTube recommendations.

7. Question 7. What does the Chinese wuxia genre tell?

   • Urban police investigations
   • Wandering chivalrous martial arts heroes
   • Imperial court chronicles
   • Science fiction narratives

   Answer: Wandering chivalrous martial arts heroes. Wuxia (武侠) combines wu, martial arts, and xia, the righter of wrongs. The genre goes back to Chinese chivalric novels and was popularised in the twentieth century by Jin Yong, whose serials sold in the hundreds of millions.

8. Question 8. What is Hatsune Miku originally?

   • A manga character
   • A voice synthesis software
   • A masked singer
   • A studio mascot

   Answer: A voice synthesis software. Miku shipped in 2007 as a voice bank for Yamaha’s Vocaloid engine, sampled from actress Saki Fujita. The illustrated character was meant to sell the software; it was the tracks written by users that turned it into a concert act.

9. Question 9. Which Korean act first reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100?

   • BTS
   • Blackpink
   • PSY
   • EXO

   Answer: BTS did it in September 2020 with Dynamite. Eight years earlier PSY had spent seven weeks stuck at number two with Gangnam Style, behind Maroon 5.

10. Question 10. What is a "c-drama"?

    • A Hong Kong action film
    • A Chinese television series
    • A filmed opera
    • A short mobile format

    Answer: A Chinese television series. By analogy with Korean k-dramas and Japanese j-dramas, Chinese series are called c-dramas. They often run to forty or sixty episodes and stream on platforms such as iQIYI, Youku or Tencent Video.