Considers the phenomenon of musicals in Japanese cinema by focusing on the problem of genre, both in terms of the general issue of the structure of genre in the Japanese film industry and the specific problem Japanese musicals have faced in trying to pursue what is often perceived as a Hollywood genre. The paper takes up two examples of the salaryman musical, Harikiri Boy from 1937 and You Can Succeed Too! from 1964, to explore how Japan too could succeed at the film musical.