For the average Japanese salaryman, the core of their entertainment diet is not prestige drama, but the Variety Show. These programs occupy prime-time slots and are a cultural shock for Western viewers.

Unlike American talk shows (interviews + monologue) or British panel shows (quiz + banter), Japanese variety TV focuses on "reaction" and "challenge." Shows like Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende! involve comedians being slapped on the buttocks with a plastic bat if they laugh during a silent library game.

The most infamous rule of the idol industry is the unofficial ban on romantic relationships. In the West, a pop star having a boyfriend is tabloid fodder; in Japan, it can be career suicide. Idols sell the fantasy of the "virtual boyfriend/girlfriend." When a member of the supergroup AKB48 revealed she had a boyfriend, she famously shaved her head and posted a weeping apology video to appease furious fans. This highlights a critical cultural clash: the Western value of authenticity versus the Japanese value of Wa (harmony and maintaining the illusion).

While the West obsesses over "hardcore" console gaming, Japan’s working adults have pivoted to mobile gaming. Games like Fate/Grand Order and Puzzle & Dragons generate billions of dollars through the "Gacha" system (selling random virtual items)—a mechanic that is essentially a digital, legalized slot machine, now replicated by gaming giants worldwide.

| Aspect | Japan | South Korea (K-ent) | USA (Hollywood) | |--------|-------|--------------------|------------------| | Global Export Strategy | Moderate, historically insular | Aggressive, gov’t-backed | Full global saturation | | Fan Interaction | Controlled, paid events | Intense via livestreams, fan cafes | Distant, management-mediated | | Talent Training | Scouting + agency system | Rigorous trainee system (years) | Open calls, networking | | Digital Adoption | Late but accelerating (2020+) | Early, native | Native but fractured | | Work-Life Balance | Poor (entertainment sector) | Very poor (notorious) | Better (unions exist) |

When Westerners think of the Japanese entertainment industry and culture, the first image is usually a character with large, expressive eyes and spiky hair. Anime (animation) and Manga (comics) are not merely genres in Japan; they are a mainstream medium covering everything from cooking and sports to economics and existential horror.

A world of geom

ggplot2 builds charts through layers using geom_ functions. Here is a list of the different available geoms. Click one to see an example using it.

geom_bar geom_bin geom_boxplot geom_density geom_error geom_hex geom_hist geom_hline geom_jitter geom_label geom_line geom_point geom_polygon geom_rect geom_ribbon geom_rug geom_segment geom_smooth geom_text geom_tile geom_violin geom_vline

Annotation with ggplot2

Annotation is a key step in data visualization. It allows to highlight the main message of the chart, turning a messy figure in an insightful medium. ggplot2 offers many function for this purpose, allowing to add all sorts of text and shapes.

Annotate with geom_text

geom_text() allows to add annotation to one, several or all markers of your chart.

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Annotate with geom_label

Very close to geom_text, geom_label produces a label wrapped in a rectangle. This example also explains how to apply labels to a selection of markers.

Rectangle

Learn how to use the annotate function to add a rectangle on a specific part of the chart.

Segment

How to add one or several segments to the chart.

Arrow

Basically the same as for a segment, with just one additional argument.

Abline

Add horizontal or vertical ablines with geom_hline and geom_vline.

Curved arrows

Dicover how to draw curved arrows in ggplot caribbeancom 100113445 ayumi iwasa jav uncensored link

Marginal plot

Marginal plots are not natively supported by ggplot2, but their realisation is straightforward thanks to the ggExtra library as illustrated in graph #277.

Scatterplot with rug

Add rug on X and Y axis to describe the numeric variable distribution. Show how geom_rug() works.

Marginal distribution

Add marginal distribution around your scatterplot with ggExtra and the ggMarginal function.

Marginal boxplot

Using boxplots is another way to show the marginal distribution. Find more in this post. For the average Japanese salaryman, the core of

ggplot2 chart appearance

The theme() function of ggplot2 allows to customize the chart appearance. It controls 3 main types of components:

Axis: controls the title, label, line and ticks
Background: controls the background color and the major and minor grid lines
Legend: controls position, text, symbols and more.

Axis

Customize ggplot2 axis: title, line, labels and ticks.

Background

Customize ggplot2 background: color, major and minor grid lines.

Legend

Customize ggplot2 legend: position, title, text, key symbol and more. When Westerners think of the Japanese entertainment industry

Re-ordering with ggplot2

When working with categorical variables (= factors), a common struggle is to manage the order of entities on the plot.

Post #267 is dedicated to reordering. It describes 3 different way to arrange groups in a ggplot2 chart:

Using the forcats package
With dplyr
With the reorder() function of base R

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Tidyverse

Here’s the official ggplot2 cheatsheet created by Posit. It covers all the key concepts of the library.

I've also compiled it with the most useful R and data visualization cheatsheets into a single PDF you can download:

ggplot2

A cheatsheet for quickly recalling the key functions and arguments of the ggplot2 library.

ggplot2 title

The ggtitle() function allows to add a title to the chart. The following post will guide you through its usage, showing how to control title main features: position, font, color, text and more.

Basic

Learn how to add a title with ggtitle, default options.

Appearance

Learn how to change title font, size, color, text and more.

Position

Check how to change title position.

Use custom fonts with ggplot2

If you don't want your plot to look like any others, you'll definitely be interested in using custom fonts for your title and labels! This is totally possible thanks to 2 main packages: ragg and showtext. The blog-post below should help you using any font in minutes.

Custom font

Learn how to add a custom font using the ragg or the showtext library in a ggplot2 chart.

Small multiples: facet_wrap() and facet_grid()

Small multiples is a very powerful dataviz technique. It split the chart window in many small similar charts: each represents a specific group of a categorical variable. The following post describes the main use cases using facet_wrap() and facet_grid() and should get you started quickly.

Facet_wrap

Facet wrap allows to build small multiples using one categorical variable.

Facet_grid

Same idea, but using 2 categorical variables for the faceting.

Customized

An advanced examples to make sure you know how to make your small multiple pretty.

Strip features

Customize the general layout with the strip option.

Mixing charts

How to combine several charts together with ggplot2.

A set of pre-built themes

It is possible to customize any part of a ggplot2 chart thanks to the theme() function. Fortunately, heaps of pre-built themes are available, allowing to get a good style with one more line of code only. Here is a glimpse of the available themes. See code

→ ggplot2

default theme_bw() theme_minimal() theme_classic() theme_gray()

→ ggthemes

theme_excel() theme_economist() theme_fivethirtyeight() theme_tufte() theme_gdocs() theme_wsj() theme_calc() theme_hc()

→ other

theme_article() theme_pubclean() theme_bigstatsr() theme_ipsum()