New line of Japanese exports prepare to invade world

From Tokyo Bureau Chief Marina Kamimura

January 5, 2000
Web posted at: 12:36 p.m. HKT (0436 GMT)

NAHA, Japan (CNN) -- Japanese pop stars are starting to carve a niche for themselves on the international music scene and a school in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa is in the middle of the new phenomenon.

The Okinawa Actor's School has not only produced some of the country's biggest pop stars of the 90s with the potential to cross over into the global market, but it is also home to a new generation of performers with big talents and dreams.

"I'd like to become a world star, like Michael Jackson," says a 12-year-old at the academy.

Masayuki Makino is the founder of the school and says the last thing he wants to do is give his students the recipe for success, instead he wants to give them the opportunity to express themselves and discover their talents.

"We don't teach how to dance or how to sing. Our children are encouraged to create by themselves."

To the dismay of educational traditionalists, Makino is known to encourage some of his top students to skip formal education altogether. He says unless children are given more freedom, they will never break into the big leagues of the entertainment world.

Yet despite critics, there's no shortage of children who audition for a space in the school.

"Normal schools force us to do things even if we don't want to," says a student. "At the actors school, we instead have a responsibility to come up with our own ideas."

Most of those chosen are from the Japanese island of Okinawa. "Okinawans have mixed blood. In many ways, I think that mixing bloods increases possibilities."

And if Makino has it his way, Japan's exports of tomorrow will soon have a decidedly different appeal from the ones we know today.