Micro-genres: Key intentions/connection to place

Categorising

A 2002 underground music magazine 'G-modern' criticised oversea compilations for creating and enforcing the idea that categories needed to be used, Japanoise. 'Japanese Noise' was presented to foreign audiences with no common basis or standard of comparisons, forcing Noisicians to define themselves against an Orientalist projection. 

The large number of compilations with sexual and violent imagery as the cover art disturbed and frustrated many of the Japanese performers as they did not think it represented the Japanese Noise scene accurately. Shocking images of sexual bondage and hysical violence were used on the covers of several early recording by Japanese Noise artists in the 1980s - Merzbow, Music for Bondage Performance (1). The cover art featured artsy black and white photogrpahs of women bound in Japanese rope-tying bondage technique called Kinbaku. Associations with deviant sex quickly became a important part of oversea knowledge about Japanoise, leading onto hentai which is a 'strange/perverted' anime. North America began to use images inspired by Merzbow, featuring Japanese pornography and then juxtaposing scenes of extreme sexuality against a backdrop of modern Japanese cities or cultural symbols. 

1

Japanoise was seen to be a mirror of distorted perspectives that could only refract the projection of an outsider back into their own view.It was suggested that Noise should remind us of some sort of torture; and then, that being exposed to these sounds transforms torture into pleasure. This distorted reception of Noise has meant that artists change their works in order to avoid being categorised under these terms.

Source

Connection to place
Novak argues that Japanoise is not a singular local entity or simply a result of foreign misappropriation, but rather, it is a reflection of "an intricate historical relationship with the United States, through which Japan has been constructed as an antisubject of Western Modernity". Japanoise is thought to link to Western mediations of Japan's global modernity in the wake of post-war economic revival and the plans were fulfiled much quicker due to the feedback between Japan and North America. 
Modernity refers to a period marked by a questionng/rejection of tradition; the prioritisation or individualism, freedom and formal equality; faith in inevitable social, scientific and technological progress and human perfectability; rationalistion and professionalism; industrialisation and urbanisation. 

This is interesting because it suggests that a lot of the Japanese economic revival post-war was heavily influenced by North America. The Japanese economic miracle was Japan's record period of economic growth between post-World War 2 era to the end of Cold War. Japan rapidly became the world's second largest economy (after US) by the 1960w. By the 1990's, Japan's demogrpahics began stagnating and the workforce was no longer expanding, despite productivity remaining high. 
The U.S established a significant presence in Japan to slow the expansion of Soviet influence in the Pacific. It was in their every interest to ensure the growth of the Japanese economy because there was a risk after WW2 that a poor Japanese population would result in communism and this would mean that the Soviet Union (communist party) would control the Pacific. 

There were 4 stages to the economical miracle:
1. the recovery (1946-1954) - There was an inclined production of raw material including steel, coal and cotton.
2. the high increase (1955-1972) - The support from the United States allowed for the process towards industrialisation to take place and result in Japan being the firt developed country in East Asia.
3. the steady increase (1972-1992) - The Plaza Accord was successful in reducing the U.S trade deficit with Western European nations which failed to alleviate the trade deficit with Japan (import costs exceed the export costs) due to increased oil price and high demand needed to run the production lines; resulting in a bubble economy in Japan.
4. low increase (1992-2017) - The establishment of the Japan Development Bank provided the private sector with low-cost capital for long-term growth.