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Paper short abstract

This paper traces the representation of law in prime-time drama series between the 1980s to the 2020s. It argues that the surge of popular cultural interest in law around the turn of the century has flagged during post-COVID Japan, and links this televisual analysis with litigation data.

Paper long abstract

One of the enduring debates in Japanese law is whether law “matters” in society. Certainly, comparative litigation data show that, despite a surge of cases around the turn of the century, litigiousness remains low in Japan, even by Asian standards. The paper conducts a historical analysis of the representation of legal themes in Japanese prime-time television dramas from pre-bubble 1980s to post-COVID 2020s, to explore possible explanations for this low legal consciousness. Deploying affect theory and the sociology of emotions, this paper rejects popular explanations based on ‘structural’ accounts – whether cultural or material – in favour of a more dynamic theory that draws on non-discursive emotion.