Creating an Award
I would like to touch now upon a few innovative developments before I conclude my address to you tonight.
One is an award which will be presented to up-and-coming foreign manga artists. We haven't yet settled upon just the right name for it, but it will be an award that will serve as a gateway, leading to even brighter careers for these prominent artists.
Manga, as a genre originating in Japan, is truly unique in its form of presentation and expression. In manga, it is possible to depict the realities of life or convey to the reader a person's innermost thoughts.
There are people who argue that diplomacy is the art of negotiation, but if you were to ask me, I would respond that if you really want to know what diplomacy entails, you should read the Yugo series by Shinji Makari.
Yugo appears as a running manga strip in the magazine Evening. It's the story of a tough negotiator who takes on all sorts of challenges around the world, wielding words as his only weapon.
In any event, I would like for Japan, as the origin of manga, to award to the standard-bearers appearing in the world of manga all around the globe a prize which carries real authority\the equivalent of a Nobel prize in manga. And I hope that by receiving that prize, they will have a feeling of association with Japan.
A second innovation would be conducted as a trial and would take the opposite approach.
The truly superior works among the visual works and animated films made by Japanese creators have easily succeeded in overcoming barriers of language and culture, as demonstrated by Hayao Miyazaki.
Miyazaki's Spirited Away is a truly impressive work, succeeding in conveying the Shinto concepts of impurities and purification along with the mood that is associated with a polytheistic worldview instead of a monotheistic one.
For that reason, what I would like to do is seek out young, promising visual and anime artists and present them with an award, in order to enable more Hayao Miyazakis to emerge.
We could call the award winners something such as Cultural Ambassadors for Anime, and I would like to see people from around the world enjoy their works, making use of our full network of embassies and consulates.
If possible, I would like to have that job of introducing such works to the local people done by staff raised in the local culture who are of the same generation as the local youth and understand their feelings and viewpoints.
The third innovation I would like to introduce tonight is a system called Cultural Exchange Interns.
Through this program, students at foreign schools and universities would be accepted as interns at embassies and consulates for a fixed period of time to work in the area of cultural exchange.
These interns would have no access whatsoever to confidential diplomatic information. And as the interns would be unpaid, this program could be implemented at no cost. We could also perhaps issue certificates of completion in the name of the ambassador or consul at the end of the internship to those young people who worked with Japanese for a month or two and made efforts to disseminate Japanese culture to the local areas.