I am
beginning to find Otaku Studies really really interesting! My prejudice of the
otaku phenomenon, which has been informed and influenced mostly by popular media
depictions of otaku as being “socially awkward”, “manias”, and slightly “hentai-ish”
(such as in the anime/ manga series Gintama), has gradually changed since reading some of
the critical works on otaku culture.
P.S. If you haven't seen the Otaku Arc from
Gintama you must! It's one of my favorite animes!! and yes, Hijikata is my favorite character~
http://animeget.net/category/%e9%8a%80%e9%ad%82anime
Otaku Japan’s Animal Database (In response to Chapter 2)
The second
chapter provides the theoretical framework of “data base animal”. Azuma makes
an intervention in critical debates and discussion on “post-modern
characteristics of otaku culture” (25) to ultimately interrogate their patterns
of consumption in relation to broader ideas of grand narratives (or lack
thereof).
One of the things
that caught me off guard about Azuma’s use of the phrase “derivative works” is
that he avoids contextualizing it in relation to theories of adaptation and fidelity
criticism. This is because “quotations” “influences” and “parodies” all “presuppose
a unit such as an author or work,” (49) whereas Azuma’s notion of “derivative
works” resists ideas of a single author. Instead, he demonstrates how the
database of Di Gi Charat, for example, “was driven by the power of fragments”
(41). However, I do not find Azuma’s definition of “derivative works” so
different from Linda Hutcheon’s definition of adaptation. Hutcheon writes that
an adaptation is “ a derivation that is not derivative—a work that is second
without being secondary. It is its own palimpsistic thing” (9). The difference
may be that while Hutcheon seems to be writing against fidelity criticism, destabilizing
a hierarchy of original works vs. derivative works, Azuma draws attention to
the importance of fidelity in both the commercial and non-commercial success of
derivative works. Azuma talks about fidelity without ever using the term. He writes, " It is
not enough to “extrac[t] and imitate[e] only the simulacra as designs
(literally at the surface level) without understanding the database of
moe-element” (65). In other words, one must demonstrate a deep understanding of
the conventions of the genre (database), but also be able to identify the difference
between simulacra and database to produce “good” quality works. Azuma
emphasises how issues of fidelity are integral to understanding the trends in
otaku culture .
The cultural production of character/character goods ties in
nicely with Ian Condry’s Anime Creativity: Characters and Premises in the Quest
for Cool Japan. His ethnographic study of “anime in the works” is quite
interesting, and his essay reminded me of the manga Bakuman. Condry offers an
insider perspective of the production of anime to suggest alternative ways of
analysing the cultural and aesthetic significance of the medium. In doing so,
he renegotiates definitions of “cool Japan” by demonstrating the how this idea
fosters a “brand label” that encourages orientalist discourses about Japanese
culture. Much of the scholarly work on anime, according to Condry, focuses on
narrative rather than characters. This is an interesting point in relation to
Azuma’s argument about the emergence of Di Gi Charats because it indicates the
pervasiveness of kyara (characters) and how these kyara don’t necessarily have
to belong to a (grand) narrative, but are invested with cultural meanings on
their own
Feminist Interventions
Throughout this chapter, Azuma
focuses primarily on the cultural production of Di Gi Charat to demonstrate the
ways in which that these characters/characteristics are not “a simple fetish
object, but a sign that emerged through market principles” (42). Azuma further
contends that “Di Gi Charat is not so much a project that naively relies on the
desire of chara-moe but a complex project that, by pushing that desire to the limit,
has become a satire for the present market dominated by moe-related designs” (47).
Azuma’s justification is an attempt to de-fetashise the enterprise of Di Gi
Charat by suggesting that moe-elements are in fact “satire” and therefore
should not be taken seriously or at least interpreted in a comedic light. What
are moe-elements satirical of exactly? In his assessment of the representations
of chara-moe, Azuma does not seem to take into consideration how moe-related
signs uphold patriarchal ideologies of a certain kind of femininity. The image
on page 43 illustrates a bricolage of signs that constitute the chara-moe (See
Fig 6).The lavish costume design and excessive use of accessories for an otaku consumer
may signal excess and therefore the character is rendered in a parodic light,
but how would this character be interpreted for a non-otaku consumer? The fact
that a woman’s body (or that of a child’s) is used as an instrument to rewrite
and redefine constructs of “femininity” and “cuteness” etc is troubling because
it validates, to some extent, the
objectification of the female body as something to either laugh at or something to desire. OR as Sharon Kinsella contends in her essay, "the increasingly intense gaze with which young men examine girls and girls' manga is, to use the words of Anne Allison "both passive and aggressive" (qtd in Kinsella 306).
This concern emerges from the idea that if the database is
an archive of signs generated from numerous sources and functions as a
representation of the collective imagination, then, to what extent the database
specifically one that is exclusive to otaku? and one that is specifically Japanese?
Sharon Kinsella’s “Japanese
Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement”
I
was particularly drawn to Kinsella’s introduction of her essay, but especially
her attention to place and setting:
A limitless
secret world of smoldering underground clubs where baby girls in bikinis wield
Uzi submachine guns and Russian Eskimos D.J. in Elizabethan court dress. Grey
catacombs of deserted rain-swept streets where beautiful women in impeccable
Nazi uniforms sport unexpected erections. Nameless back streets scattered with
the limpid green lights of opium- soaked noodle shacks where Oxford dons chop
up giant squid for hungry pairs of lusty French school boys. Such is the stuff
that amateur manga is made of. (289)
Kinsella’s description makes references
to Russia, Germany, England, and France suggesting that amateur mangakas prefer
to set their stories in the West. I find this a peculiar gesture, and it is an
aspect within my own research that I continue to explore. Why do Japanese
mangaka turn to the West to tell their stories? To articulate anxieties of
gender and sexuality?
I think one of Kinsella’s main
arguments is that the otaku culture emerged in relation to and also in response
to the dojinshi phenomenon. She argues that otaku’s “adoption” of girl culture had
(and continues to) evoke social and cultural anxieties (moral panic) of effeminate
men.
There is one last point that I
would like to contend. In her essay, Kinsella argues “The yaoi style emerging
from Japanese dojinshi is clearly the Japanese equivalent of Anglo-American
slash” (307). Here she equates slash and yaoi as similar genres, however,
critics such as Mark John Isola “Yaoi and Slash Fiction: Women Writing, Reading,
and Getting Off?” and Marni Stanley “101 Uses for Boys: Communing with the
Reader in Yaoi and Slash” provide counter arguments. [Both articles can be
found in Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the
Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre.]
Hemman's blog provides a useful and informative analysis of dojinshi
culture. I was really intrigued by how Ghibli films have been parodied and
appropriated and quite impressed by the aesthetic quality of some of the
illustrations.
http://japaneseliterature.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/286/
