Tokyo, Japan - Some of this country’s top carmakers, with a reputation for quality performance wrapped in often bland design, are turning to the country's pop culture to give them “J-factor” and help set them apart in a world of increasingly look-alike cars.
The designers of Nissan's GT-R sports-car, for example, borrowed from the popular “Gundam” sci-fi anime franchise to give the blunt-nosed R1.5 million coupé a mechanical, robot-like appearance, with a squared off rear and round tail lights.
“Take a look at the car's window and roof line,” said design chief Shiro Nakamura. “It doesn't flow smoothly from front to rear, it's bent. We wanted to express the awkward but cool, powerful shape of the Japanese anime robot.
“We wanted to set it apart from Porsche, Ferrari and other supercars, which are designed to mimic the streamlined beauty of a hunting animal, like a jaguar.”
Nakamura, who has also designed for General Motors and Isuzu, wants Japanese cultural aesthetics to help Nissan stand out from the crowd, noting that “globally, cars from the mainstream brands have started to look more and more alike.”
“We stress Japan because we're a Japanese brand,” he added. “Unless you derive design and styling from your own cultural DNA, there's no chance for continuity, and you lack confidence.”
Nissan and others hope that efforts such as these can help them differentiate in a market where so many of today's cars are difficult to tell apart.
“Efficiencies of mass production, economies of scale, brand globalisation, a risk-averse corporate culture, ergonomics, and infrastructure and regulatory constraints all play into this phenomenon,” said Richard Kong, managing partner at Montaag, a California-based design firm, who was previously a chief designer at Ford's Lincoln brand and also worked at BMW's design subsidiary.
Others, too, are searching for that J-factor.
The grille and angled LED headlights on the latest version of the Toyota Prius C hybrid are said to make the hatchback look a little like Pikachu, the tough but cuddly hero of “Pokemon”, another popular, long-running Japanese anime series.
However, Toyota's global design chief Tokuo Fukuichi said the resemblance was not necessarily intended, and was more to do with engineers' efforts to improve the car's aerodynamics.
New Toyota Prius: The inside story
For Toyota, and especially its premium Lexus brand, the J-factor is more in the car's functionality than its styling, Fukuichi said, “the way the doors open and shut and how knobs and switches and the steering wheel feel when you touch them”.
“For example,“ he explained, “we try to put the importance of visibility to reduce blind spots ahead of how the car looks.
“We stress the craftsmanship; that's our DNA and J-factor,” he said, referencing a national culture where a bullet train stops at the platform within just 10cm of where it should, and the conductor apologises if the train is 30 seconds late.
At Nissan, Nakamura has experimented with a modern interpretation of Japanese pop culture's affinity for cuteness.
He says he has been told that the Nissan Juke, a mini-SUV, looks not unlike Monkey D. Luffy, a piratical lead character with a large grin in Japanese anime “One Piece”. He says he has no issues with this, though any resemblance was unintended.
“That cuteness is also Japanese pop culture DNA, which we try to convey in some of our cars while keeping them modern,” Nakamura said, also referencing the Cube microvan, which is boxy and squat but has a modern look and an asymmetrical wraparound rear window.
“Symmetry is a Western concept,” he said. “Japanese are more comfortable with imbalance.”