Magical and Girls and Rapelay

I can't believe the semester is drawing close to an end. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussions we had in class (particularly on gender), learning about Japanese games culture, and reading everyone's blogs. The readings that were assigned and the presentations were definitely eye opening. This course encouraged  me to delve deeper into Japanese popualr  culture and to rethink and re-evaluate some of my own assumptions and prejudice of about Japan,  otakus and games/gaming in particular.

 

Before reading Hemmann’s blog on "Sailor Moon and Femininity, I would have agreed with critics like Napier and Allison who are critical the ways in which Sailor Moon represents “femininity”.

 “Napier, for instance, finds the Sailor Scouts “lacking in psychological depth,” while Allison finds it troubling that the “girl heroes tend to strip down in the course of empowerment, becoming more, rather than less, identified by their flesh,” a trademark visual feature of Sailor Moon that “feeds and is fed by a general trend in Japan toward the infantilization of sex objects” (qtd in Hermann)

 

 I remember as a child, I had a collection of Sailor Moon scepters, wands, and compacts, and I would pretend to “transform” into Sailor Venus (for she was one of my favorite characters) and defeat imaginary villains. There weren’t many strong female heroes that I could relate to and I think as a child, I was glued to Sailor Moon for this reason. In relation to Napier’s and Allison’s concerns, then, I think, one the implications of their argument is that although they are resisting patriarchal definitions of femininity (from a Western lens), they themselves are ascribing a particular kind of femininity as the correct version of femininity. The fact that both critics draw attention to the representation of  women as “flesh” and “infantile”—as primary factors of Sailor Moon’s disempowerment—suggests that if Sailor Moon didn’t show so much skin, and if she looked a bit older, then, she would be ideal super heroine. So what would Napier’s and Allison’s version of a progressive heroine look like?

Why can’t powerful or magical women wear short skirts? Or show flesh? How dare they reveal a kneecap! Why should the outfits that the Sailor Moon characters wear define their Being? Or undermine their, agency, individualism, and power that they possess?

In the introduction to Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture (1999) by Sherrie A. Innes,  she writes “traditionally, men have learned that they should be the stoic brave heroes, capable of overcoming any obstacle that stand in their way. Women have learned that toughness has little to do with them” (7). Althought Innes specifically refers to American popular culture, we can see how Sailor Moon, at the time of its production, was ahead of its time, particularly in envisioning women as focalising agents of a narrative in which they become the hero of the story. Sailor Moon is not made to appease a male-audience, but rather to encourage young girls that they, too, can achieve great things in life.

 

RAPELAY

 I am not quite sure what is more disturbing… the actual game itself or the comments made during the gameplay.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b83SvMrNv08

 

 

While the game is highly problematic because it justifies rape as a legitimite form of revenge and suggests that these women deserve to be raped, the comments made by the player further validates random acts of violence against women.  Throughout the gameplay, the player states:

These fuckin women are always trying to talk over me… I’m not narrating this shit especially when these cunts are talking over me”

“Japanese women normally sound like they’re having sex when they talk”

 

Comments like these reinforce Azuma's claim that “What’s important isn’t the images in these games, but how such images are consumed and the environment of their production.” In other words, the ways in which Rapelay is consumed by this particular player, is revealing of how sexist and racist discourses are naturalised and remain unproblematic ....because according to the player “it’s just a game”.

Week 9: Role Playing Games

I found the readings this week really insightful, although, I think, to many avid players of games, this would be common sense. I am beginning to realise that although I am interested in examining games (particularly BL games) in theoretical ways, I lack the practical experience of playing games, which limits me from delving deeper into the field of Game Studies.

For those of you who are interested in BL games I recently came across this youtube page. It's definitely not scholarly, but it does introduce a variety of games for you to explore.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/OtomeBLGames

 

 

Now in relation to the readings...

 

 

 

It is fascinating to see the plethora of RPGs and JRPGs, its history, and development over the years. I did, however, find the reading slightly isolating…since the only game titles that I recognized were Final Fantasy and Zelda… both of which I have not played.  HOWEVER, despite my insufficient knowledge of the gaming world, I am particularly interested in the controversy/ debates of what makes RPGs culturally distinct.

"

Yet as Japanese console RPGs became increasingly more dominant in the 1990s,^[76] and became known for being more heavily story and character-based, American computer RPGs also began to face criticism for having characters devoid of personality or background, due to representing avatars which the player uses to interact with the world, in contrast to Japanese console RPGs which depicted characters with distinctive personalities. American computer RPGs were thus criticized for lacking "more of the traditional role-playing" offered by Japanese console RPGs, which instead emphasized character interactions.^[50] In response, North American computer RPGs began making a comeback towards the end of the 1990s with interactive choice-filled adventures.[77]

                                                                                                                                                            "

 What lies at the heart of this issue, it seems, is that it does not matter if RPGs are culturally distinct since through adaptation and parody, RPGS, generally speaking, blur cultural difference to ultimately produce a commodity that sells. The market of RPGs is primarily concerned with capital, and one can argue that capitalism is not marked by ethnicity or gender. In other words, RPGs that borrow from both the American and Japanese models neutralise cultural and aesthetic differences, promoting, to some extent, the idea of  global RPGs??

Week 8: Gaming and Nostalgia

          A friend of mine for her MA thesis last year proposed the idea of nostalgia and its relationship to a national memory that is potentially gendered. Although her project mostly examined Canadian legal documents on immigration policies etc, I think her idea of nostalgia correlates particularly well with Jaakko Suominen’s “The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture”. Suominen makes the connection between digital cultural production to nostalgic sensibility, which made me think of the cultural implications of retrofitting classic (video) games in our day in age. To clarify, I think that the reappropriation and redistribution of games like Space invaders, Super Mario etc invokes national sentiments, particularly of Japan’s emergence on the global stage, which was achieved partially through the game industry market. The repackaging of retrogames (speaking specifically of Japanese games here) may be seen as a gesture to appease cultural anxieties about the declining interest and investment in Japanese game products as discussed in last week’s reading? Moreover, in what ways can we consider retrogames, or even contemporary games as promoting or invoking a nostalgia that is gendered? Say in sengoku jidai games, for example? Or perhaps questions of gender and nostalgia are superfluous?

        In relation to Newman’s readings on narrative and space, I am intrigued by his idea of gaming as a bodily experience. He writes, “videogame spaces are experienced viscerally with the whole body. The exploration of videogame space is a kinaesthetic pleasure” (122). Video games as he describes, or so I have interpreted, are extensions of our own living space and reality. That in embodying technology we are able to transcend from one reality to another…kind of like cyborgs. This idea of blurring "real" and virtual space needs further interrogation, I realise, and perhaps I may  return to it...