September 4th, 2006
Update
- Jay Navok
Gazing Westward
I have a couple of comments to get through before moving
onto today's long editorial.
First off, just regarding Sailor
Moon news in general, apart from the minor updates to Sailor Moon Channel,
there's been nothing (that comes to mind) to discuss. If there was any
breaking series-related news to be had, we'd certainly have it up here as we
did with the Lohan rumor. There's going to be a doujinshi event here in
Tokyo again on Sunday, so at the very least, I'll have more pictures and
stories from that next week.
Secondly, regarding WoL, I
apologize for the delay with Third Edition for those who've been wondering
about it. We're changing about a half-dozen images in the book, which is why
things are taking so long.
I wanted to mention that I'll be
speaking about the Warriors of Legend project (the book and the tour) this
Saturday at my fellowship university in Tokyo. The abstract is as follows:
|
Sophia University Graduate Fieldwork Workshop -
September 9th, 2006 Superheroes and the City
Jay Navok (Sophia University)
The geography and history of the city of Tokyo greatly
influence Japanese anime and manga, to the extent where "place," in
this case Tokyo, becomes the site where fantasy and reality collide.
I'll discuss not only how this occurs- how authors put their unique
impressions of Tokyo into the works they create- but how their view
of the city as inked in paper affects the millions of manga readers
in Japan and abroad, as well actually shapes the development of the
city today. From Sailor Moon Tours to the "otaku Mecca" of
Akihabara, from Spiderman's New York Guide to the imagined Mega-Tokyos
of Akira, we may not be able to leap over tall buildings in a single
bound in reality, but we'll take a hard look at how supeheroes and
the cities they live in draw us into their worlds and, in turn, help
us relate to our own. |
This is laying the foundation for a major project I'm undertaking
simultaneous to the work on WoL 2, and one which I hope bridges the divide
between the Warriors of Legend series (which is oriented toward my fellow
fans), and the larger audience interested in the phenomenon of Japanese
popular culture.
Somewhat related to this project is the following editorial, which
summarizes a few thoughts I've had lately.
Gazing Westward
Over the last decade anime in the West has grown into a
massive marketplace, with millions of fans across the globe. But what has
this meant in Japan- to Japanese anime fans, the media, and the industry?
Are they interested about the growth of anime in the West?
Akihabara has been, since its birth as the “electronic
city” of Tokyo in the 1970s, an international zone within the larger
capital. Foreign tourists mingled with the native population to see the
latest technological wonders that the land of the talking toilet had to
offer. Beginning around 1997 and continuing to this day, Akihabara changed
course from focus on computers and the latest electronics to otaku bunka;
the Japanese fan culture of anime, manga, and videogames that has been the
one rising star of the country’s economy in the near decade-and-a-half-long
recession that has plagued the country. Japanese and foreigners continued to
flock to the area, now in search of the latest gachapon or rare doujinshi
instead of audio accouterment.
Akihabara is an interesting place, both in terms of the
area itself, and the people who come there. To stroll through “Akiba,” the
area’s pet-name among those who come regularly, is to walk through a maze of
shops that, on the outside seem to all be selling the same goods, but each
having a specialization that the other lacks. To be able to negotiate Akiba-
to understand which shop a particular subset of fandom patronizes versus
another- is a step toward reading the language of Japanese fan culture’s
insular worlds.
Those who follow the Akiba-kei lifestyle, as it
is called in Japan, traverse between two bubbles. One is the bubble of the
home, their personal anime sanctuary where their collections are treasured,
and the other the bubble of Akiba, the public zone they engage with to both
collect what they bring back to the private abode, but to also interact with
other fans within their hobby’s particular gaze; being it garage kit
collecting, idol chasing, doujinshi drawing, or otherwise.
For all the talk of the internationalization of anime,
Japanese fandom remains focused on itself and its hobbies. The spread of
anime to distant shores matters not to the average Akiba-kei, apart from
being an anecdote of amusement. The language barrier is significant- even if
they were interested in interacting with sibling fandoms in other countries,
it’s a lot of work with little payoff. Like most fandoms around the world,
they remain focused on their hobby, collection, and particular circles.
Indeed, international anime is little more than a
curiosity to Japanese fans. The relevance of Stand Alone Complex
airing on Adult Swim to Japanese fandom is about the same level as 24
airing on Japanese TV to North American 24 fans. (24 is quite
popular in Japan.) The international fandoms (as opposed to the product) are
more interesting to them, but the level remains that of curiosity rather
than interest in serious engagement.
To illustrate this further, as you know I’ve attended a
number of
Sailor
Moon cosplay/doujinshi events in Tokyo. The small band of fellow
foreigners I’ve attended with have been the only non-Japanese in attendance.
These events are typically put together by a group of doujinshi authors who
come together a couple times a year, rent a small hall somewhere, and put
out about a dozen seller’s tables and a corner set aside for photography of
the same cosplayers who come session after session (albeit in different
attire.) It’s kind of like a mini-convention, but is more a get-together of
members from several connected internet forums.
The fans found our attendance interesting enough to
point and whisper, but in most cases that was the extent of our interaction.
Several fans were hesitant to chat with us, partly because of language
concerns, partly because many appeared to be socially awkward and did not
even talk much with other Japanese fans. There were cases where fans threw
themselves eagerly into conversation (in Japanese), and we would greet each
other at each successive event. Having attended several of these events over
my time in Tokyo, as the curiosity effect wears off and other fans become
used to your presence, it’s far more comfortable and you start to be
accepted into the Akiba world. To even begin this process, though, you need
to dress in the clothes of Japanese fandom, and I don’t mean cosplay. You
need to speak the language, interact regularly, and work within the confines
of the insular social network. Unless you have the ability to do that, the
fandom largely ignores its Western cousins.
I’ve been discussing the relationship between Japanese
anime fandom and that of the international scene, but what about on the
media or industry level?
If the clip of a Japanese News program’s coverage of Pop Japan Travel
that was circulating around the internet earlier this year is any
indication, it’s not just a curiosity but a source of laughter, as the news
programs skewered the attendees as love of their hobby at the same time as
they were impressed by their zealousness. To be fair to Pop Japan Travel,
the Japanese media ridicules Japanese fandom too, as indicated in
a series of videos on the lives of several Akiba-kei.
This bemused, slightly derogatory response to the
growth of international anime at first appears to stand in stark contrast to
public official and industry responses to international anime, who are
enthusiastic about the growth of anime around the world and seek to
highlight Japan’s “culture of cool.” But the role of public officials is to
paint a rosy picture of any possibilities for the growth of Japan’s economy
and “soft power.” The national tourist organization will suggest tourists “immerse
yourself in Japanese anime and comics” and bureaucrats will suggest
the government to promote anime overseas but they’ll do so not because
of anything inherent in anime but because it’s an opportunity that they can
take advantage of.
Japanese anime companies embraced the potential of the
international market with too much haste- they got pricked. Toei’s attempts
to go it alone sank (anyone buy Slam Dunk?), others attempted to strong-arm
the American companies into paying inflated prices for licenses only to
cause a host of difficulties. Nintendo thought it would make Pikachu this
generation of children’s Mickey Mouse; they succeeded, but only in Japan.
Toei has recently stepped back and moved into more familiar and successful
grooves with its announcement about working with Disney to produce cartoons
specifically for export rather than trying to widely distribute existing
product.
I don’t meant to discount the importance of anime’s
Western growth to the Japanese industry- it has injected life into an
industry that has been important in fueling both the development of Japan’s
economy into the start of the 21st century, as well as affected
the view of Japan abroad. But as much as I enjoy anime, one has to remember
that it’s still cartoons intended primarily for either children at 7am or
asocial geeks up at 1am. The fandom in Japan is largely uninterested, busy
as they are in their own circles. The media plays both sides, using it to
ridicule at the same time they marvel at the power these products have over
people. And the industry, tinged with both expectation and concern, still
sees it as a business.
As I mentioned last month, there is a new book coming
out in Japanese called “Otaku in USA.”
From the description of what will be in the book, it orients itself
through the above tropes, focusing on what’ll sell to Japanese readers- a
collection of sensational anecdotes on the growth of anime in America,
rather than the layered understanding of anime in the West. Perhaps the
Japanese just aren’t ready for it, but perhaps this book and others like it
will be the gateway for the kind of discussion about anime in the West
that’s needed for the Japanese to fully appreciate the cultural phenomenon
that they have unleashed.
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