GNC-Manga-Anime

From Plastic Toys to Plastic Boys: The Rise of K-Pop and K-Cool

November 25, 2012 by Jenny Lee

What is the ‘K-Wave’?

SHINee is one of the most popular Korean boy groups. But what is it that makes them so appealing?

While Japan has often been thought of as an Asian cultural superpower — with its trendy fashion, tech-savvy devices, and irresistible anime — another Asian wave of culture is steadily encroaching upon Japan’s established ‘coolness’: the Korean wave. Also called hallyu, the Korean wave is a term used to describe the tsunami of South Korean entertainment and culture that began flooding Asia starting from the 1990s, and now recently into Western parts of the world. The Korean wave includes Korean TV dramas, films, and pop music, which is known across the globe as ‘K-Pop.’ These cultural products have become staples in Asian markets formerly dominated by Japan and Hong Kong.

The Korean government has promoted hallyu, using it as a form of soft power, a term American political scientist Joseph Nye calls the ability for a country to attract rather than coerce another country as a means of persuasion. The Korean Foundation was established in 1991, a cultural tool that was formed much more recently than The Japan Foundation in 1972. In addition to the Foundation, the Korean government has also created the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, as well as the Presidential Council on National Branding, which aims to promote Korea’s global image, to right its misconceptions about Korea, its culture, products, and people, and to raise respect to support Korean business and nationals abroad.

Famous American artist MC Hammer poses with PSY at the American Music Awards.

Though the Korean government has taken extraordinary measures to encourage its students to travel abroad, this article aims to focus on K-pop and its effectiveness in the West. Korean pop music is a blend not just of Western and traditional, but of new and old. The music features catchy urban beats, easy dance moves, and lyric hooks that are often sung in English. Neither the boys’ nor girl groups’ lyrics or music videos generally refer to overt sex, drinking, or clubbing — which are usually the most popular themes in Western music. From PSY’s kooky horse gestures to Girl’s Generation’s sleek and slender legs, how exactly did the K-Wave become so big in such a small amount of time? Part of the answer lies within Japan’s globalizing methods.

J-Cool’s Globalizing Methods

K-Pop’s sudden craze in the West isn’t anything new. Koichi Iwabuchi’s Recentering Globalization capitalizes on the decentering of Western influence and the dispersion of non-Western influences that are progressively gaining more global influence — specifically Japanese ‘J-Cool’ since the burst of the bubble economy. This transnational model highlights ideas that culture is not limited to a national framework, does not flow in only one direction, and transnational cultural flows do not displace a nation’s established boundaries, thoughts, or feelings. In the case of Japan, Iwabuchi argues that Japan has little to no cultural presence in the goods it exports to other nations. Japanese products, he claims, are ‘culturally odorless’ (mukokuseki), as they do not contain many traces of Japanese cultural features within them and instead these features are erased or softened.

Iwabuchi’s theories of transculturation and odorlessness can be exemplified through Japanese music companies and the ways in which they dominated the Asian music industry. In the early 1990s, Japanese music industry aimed less to promote its Japanese musicians in the East and Southeast Asian markets; rather, the industry sought out indigenous pop stars who could then be sold to pan-Asian markets with Japanese pop production knowledge. In other words, the Japanese music industries took a back-stage role, and did not overtly promote its own Japanese artists across Asia. Instead of a Japanese band or musician, a non-Japanese artist was found and promoted across pan-Asian countries who could connect more to other Asian nations than Japan itself.

A CD cover for Shanghai Performance Doll.

An example of this can be seen through spin-off groups of popular J-Pop groups in Japan, where the spin-off group members were non-Japanese. A group called “Shanghai Performance Doll,” for example, was a secondary group to Japan’s J-Pop girl group “Tokyo Performance Doll.” Shanghai’s mandarin-speaking group was immensely popular in China, while Japan had its own original Japanese group.

In all, Japan has established itself as a cultural superpower not only in Asia, but also in the West. Using its capital, its management know-how, and its marketing strategies, Japan had taken a dominant marketing role rather than the stage role in the music industry. By using indigenous Asians as their stars, Japan’s cultural presence seemed almost ‘odorless’ and invisible. However, while Japan sits on a formidable reserve of soft power, Korea’s music industries have built off of Japan’s methods, and have now perfected the process.

How K-Pop has Perfected Japan’s Methods

Jessica was born and raised in California, and eventually recruited to be part of Girl’s Generation.

While Japan had searched for non-Japanese stars, Korea is different in that it specifically scouts for singers of Korean origin. This, in effect, makes K-Pop far from being deemed culturally odorless. Three music agencies dominate the K-pop industry: S.M. Entertainment is the largest, followed by J.Y.P. Entertainment and Y.G. Entertainment. The agencies act as manager, agent, and promoter, controlling every aspect of an idol’s career: record sales, concerts, publishing, endorsements, and TV appearances. The agencies recruit twelve to nineteen year olds from around the world, through both open auditions and a network of scouts – though contestants who are of Korean origin and can speak Native English or Chinese are highly prized and preferred. In addition to singing and dancing, the idols study acting and three main languages: Japanese, Chinese, and English. Though on average, only one in ten trainees make it all the way to a debut.

Lee Soo-man, S.M. Entertainment’s founder, is known as K-pop’s constructor. Lee retired as the agency’s C.E.O. in 2010, but he still takes a hand in forming the trainees into idol groups, including S.M.’s newest one, EXO. The group consists of twelve boys, where six are Korean members who make up “EXO-K,” and the other six is a mixture of ethnically Chinese members or Korean boys who can speak Chinese that make up “EXO-M.” The two subgroups release songs at the same time in their respective countries and languages, and promote them simultaneously, thereby achieving “perfect localization,” as Lee calls it. An example of this can be seen in EXO-K and EXO-M’s release of their first single, ‘Mama,’ which attempts to sell the groups as boys who are gifted with supernatural abilities. In reference to promoting EXO-M, a group that is not all ethnically Korean, Lee adds:

“It may be a Chinese artist or a Chinese company, but what matters in the end is the fact that it was made by [Korea’s] cultural technology. S.M. Entertainment and I see culture as a type of technology. But cultural technology is much more exquisite and complex than information technology.” — Lee Soo-man

S.M. Entertainment and other Korean music industries draw from Japan’s technique of creating spin-off groups containing members who are not of their national origin. They establish the Japanese idea of working behind the scenes when it comes to controlling the marketing and exporting techniques of the non-Korean group. However, while the idols sing in Japanese and Chinese, the sounds, style of the music, and videos adhere to Korean principles that had made them popular in Korea.

Members of boy group INFINITE practice their positions and gestures in a dance studio.

K-Pop companies further their success through manuals. In S.M.’s case, Lee produced a manual of cultural technology, abbreviated as “C.T.,” where he catalogues the steps necessary to popularize K-pop artists in different Asian countries. The manual, which all S.M. recruiters are instructed to learn, explains the camera angles to be used in the music videos, when to bring in foreign composers, producers, and choreographers, as well as the minute specifics, such as the precise color of eye shadow a performer should wear in a particular country and the exact hand gestures he or she should make. S.M.’s stars are made and perfected into idols according to a sophisticated system of artistic development.

Thus, K-Pop has been able to tap into Japan’s globalized music efforts and perfect them. They are so perfect, in fact, that Western artists are recognizing K-Pop’s prestige, like American artist will.i.am who collaborated with Y.G. Entertainment’s English-speaking girl group 2NE1. Even Nicki Minaj is inspired by 2NE1, to the point that some of her music videos contain Korean influences.

K-Pop Using Anime Fan Communities As A Start?

The members of VIXX. Starting from top left: Hyuk, Hongbin, Ken, Ravi, Leo, and N.

A large quantity of Japanese soft power derives from anime and manga — and lately, K-Pop groups are starting to tap into Western fan communities of Japanese culture. One recent example of this was at Otakon 2012, one of the bigger anime conventions held on the East Coast of the US. A rising K-Pop group called VIXX (which stands for Voice, Visual, Value in Excelsis) made their first Western debut in America at the convention, with concert, autograph sessions, Q&A, and all. The group was formed much like One Direction had been on Britain’s X Factor: they were formed by the judges, and then deemed the favorite group by the audience who voted for them in a popular Korean star-search show called My Dol.

VIXX even seems to portray itself as a group that comes out of a videogame, as seen in their latest music video, ‘Rock Ur Body.’

The group also has a video blog and video diary series on YouTube called VIXX TV, where fans can be updated of where the K-Pop members are, as well as see what they do on a daily life schedule. By having gorgeous faces and bodies, and by giving fans the ability to track their personal lives as a star, K-Pop groups almost seem as if they are fictional characters themselves from a pop idol anime — the only difference being that they are actually real, and in the flesh.

Who Is the Dominant Asian Cultural Superpower Now?

Though Japan has gained prestige as a cultural superpower in both Asia and the West, Korea seems to be catching up through its music industry. While Japan created a basic formula for dominating the music industry in Asia using mukokuseki, Korean pop companies have perfected Japan’s methods and have even popularized Korean music not only in Asia, but in the West as well. This brings one to speculate as to whether or not the K-Wave has the potential to take Japan’s place as the dominant Asian cultural power.

QUESTIONS

⑴ Could Korea’s effectiveness in the Western markets and in Asia be because of Japan’s ‘imperialistic’ history over Asian countries, and how Asia has harsh criticisms of Japan’s history?

⑵ Is there an overlap between K-Pop and Japanese anime/manga? Can K-Pop be seen as an easy transfer from anime/manga fans and be easier to be introduced to it? How?

⑶ K-Pop has imitated Japan’s music industry model, and has even started to tap into Japan’s fan communities of anime and manga. Can Azuma’s database model theory be applied to Korean Pop artists/singers/bands? (ex. hair styles, physique, legs, etc.) Why or why not?

⑷ Do you think it’s possible for both K-Pop and J-Cool to coexist? Or will one outdo the other in the future?

⑸ Is the J-Wave even on a decline? How so, or how is it not?

SOURCES

Bush, Richard. Public Diplomacy in Northeast Asia: A Comparative Perspective. 30 May 2012. TS. The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.

Iwabuchi, Koichi. Recentering Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. Print.

Nye, Joseph. “Soft Power.” Foreign Policy 80.1 (1990): 153-171 Print.

Seabrook, John. “Factory Girls: Cultural Technology and the Making of K-pop.” The New Yorker. 8 October 2012. 25 November 2012. Web.

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Manga-Anime, GNC-Music, postings_gnc

Loose Socks as Molotov Cocktails: Finding the Rebellion in Japanese Teen Girl Subcultures

November 18, 2012 by Isabel

Within examinations of Japanese girls’ culture, there lies a wide gap between a perception of traditional subcultures as docile, meaningless cultural consumption based only on non-Internet sociality, that belies the truth. Japanese female-driven subcultures have long been portrayed as more old-fashioned, in-real-life groupings than concurrent male subcultures. This is changing as female otaku become a more pronounced population in online communities and fandoms.
Most popular preconceptions of Japanese subcultures, especially in the Western world, tend to focus on otaku, which roughly translates as geek or dweeb. While the connotations of the word “otaku” have drastically changed in the past few decades, from a term loaded with derision and accusation, to one of pride, a constant element of otaku culture is that it (at least in the minds of both Japanese and Westerners) is mainly comprised of males. Most likely, this stereotype was driven into the public consciousness by the Miyazaki child murders (the so-called “Otaku Murders”) and other otaku-perpetrated crimes, and remains prevalent due to headline-ready, majority-male sub-subcultures, like the shut-in hikikomori.
While the advent of the Internet allows for female enthusiasts to enter the world of otaku fandom with far greater visibility, female otaku are not a new phenomenon. Contrary to the popular image of otaku as male, the market for female-directed doujinshi has been in full force since the advent of Comiket in the 1970s. The rise of otaku, commonly considered to be the 1970s, is concurrent to the rise of shonen ai (boys’ love) stories in shojo (girls’) manga. Today, the market for manga and anime made for female fans is easily comparable to the market for male fans, and female otaku are becoming a much more vocal part of online fan communities.
In contrast to this reality, many prevalent notions of female Japanese subcultures are often much more traditional notions of what a subculture should resemble. Unlike otaku, subcultures like loli and kogals are seen has participating in a face-to-face group, with tangible artifacts, largely independent of the internet. Frequently, these subcultures feature a strong fashion or visual component, where the participant must posses a certain aesthetic, and a devotion to that aesthetic in order to be considered genuine. Frequently, these groups are demonized either for their perceived sexuality (as with kogals, ogals, and loli), or conversely, for their lack of sexuality (as with the kawaii and kigurumin). Additionally, the necessity of in-real-life interactions within these groups has somewhat faded in recent years, as the Internet enables these groups to form and evolve without ever meeting in person. For a brief overview of these subcultures and their general aesthetics, please left click on the slideshows above, and select “View Image.”
Among the many subcultures formed by Japanese girls in their post-Bubble society, three have captured international imagination: kawaii, kogal, and loli girls. A few other such groups enter into this discussion of female fandom, like the lesser-known ogals/ganguro/manba and kigurumin. The subcultures described above have existed in Japan in some form for at least the past two decades, and are part of an international image of young Japanese femininity. Among those groups whose flame extinguished more quickly are the ganguro/ogals/manba family of subcultures, and the kigurumin.
While these subcultures might seem disparate, they all follow a few traits common among female subcultures in Japan. All employ cute aesthetics, although what is defined as cute might drastically change over time. Each of these groups has been demonized by mainstream Japanese society as a sign of society’s decadence, and the inability of youth to affect social change. Further cultural stigma is assigned to the girls of these groups if they are seen as either extremely sexualized, like kogals, or as purposefully asexual, like the original kawaii, as the desexualized kigurumin, and the seemingly repellant ogals.
Furthermore, these subcultures are widely seen in mainstream culture as meaningless consumption of culture devoid of value. The decline of post-Bubble youth is marked by their apparent failure to oppose the mainstream, with such youth revolt defined by the student protests of the late 1960s. However, Sharon Kinsella successfully argues that this consciously passive consumption of culture whose meaning is not defined by the mainstream is its own successful form of rebellion. Kawaii works as a reactive subculture because it does not register as particularly rebellious. Because the mainstream definition of youth rebellion is explicitly active, the mainstream fails to see a youth in revolt when girls tan, party, and don’t shower to excess. In other words, these girls are not seen as rebellious even as they utterly reject societal definitions of youth, aging, beauty, and femininity.
And while Dick Hebdige’s seminal work on subcultures in limited in its specificity to 1970s British youth and other Western groups, it still applies quite aptly in its discussion of subculture as an act of resistance. Hebdige’s discussion of drugs as aspect of style distinction is a bit less relevant in Japan than it was in 1970s Britain, but his definitional style elements like clothing, music, dance, and make-up are particularly appropriate when one considers the manba’s para-para dancing, and kawaii idols’ presentation within their own community. His trajectory of a subculture, from marginalized resistance to commercialized mainstream, is easily visible, especially within the everything-kawaii aesthetic visible virtually anywhere in Japan today, and the prevalence of loli subcultures outside the context of Japan. The marketing of cute, which has occurred concurrent to the emergence of kawaii, marked beginning of the end for that same subculture, as the opening of the Moi-Meme-Moitie brand similarly doomed the edginess of goth loli style. Furthermore, Hebdige’s ideas on subculture as an expression of rebellion against the raw materials of culture dovetail cleanly with the theory, as expressed by Anne McKnight in her work on French influences in Japanese subculture, that Japanese subcultures are a reaction against the American post-WWII Occupation.
Viewing all subculture as a form of resistance seems to help explain the motives for creating, entering, and consuming these subcultures. However, a single pat answer can never fully explain the complex motives behind self-identification. Chalking up all subculture, especially in the non-Western world, to some kind of rebellion ignores and dismisses other potential motivators, like a positive sense of belonging, a desire for a feminine, feminist space, or even more obscure subcultural sources. While the loli groups are commonly referred to as Victoriana-fetishists, who idolize all that is European, it is entirely possible that the loli aesthetic can also be attributed to the Japanese styles worn in the Meiji period, which, while Westernized, were rarely fully Western. What’s more, Japanese notions of what constitutes a subculture are quite different from Western ones, and the air of deviance that accompanies most Western subcultures is not necessary in Japan. Kawaii has progressed so far down Hebdige’s subculture life-cycle that it is now mainstream in everything but name, and kawaii goods are everywhere. In fact, kawaii aesthetics and manga are two alleged subcultures where it is far more revolutionary not to partake of them. Clearly, examinations of Japanese subcultures must be made even more specialized in order to analyze these subcultures within their own cultural context.
In Japan’s post-Bubble culture, young women and girls have frequently been pushed away from developing subcultures like otaku and its attendant online communities, while being pushed into subcultures which, through their non-Internet presence, tangible artifacts, and familiar set of distinct style elements, represent a more traditional model of subculture within Japan. Ironically, in maintaining seemingly harmless, meaningless subcultures built on cute aesthetics and seemingly meaningless style elements, young Japanese women are able to transgressively resist a mainstream culture that continues to work as a patriarchy, even as the wreck of the Bubble economy leaves other pillars of Japanese culture toppled.

Discussion Questions
1. Where do you think female otaku fandom and female subcultures might be headed in the future?
2. While not discussed here, how do you think Azuma’s database model might apply to female otaku? How might the system apply to non-otaku female subcultures?
3. How might female fandoms and female subcultures intersect?
How do you feel about the combined (Kinsella, Hebdige, etc.) idea of Japanese subculture as resistance, especially to the Occupation? How might resistance to the Occupation fit in here?

Sources

Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku, Japan’s Database Animals. Minneapolis, MN: University Of Minnesota Press, 2009. Print.
Galbraith, Patrick W. “Akihabara: Conditioning a Public “Otaku” Image.” Mechademia. 5. (2010): 210-230. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. < http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mec/summary/v005/5.galbraith.html>.
Hebdige, D. Subculture, the meaning of style. Padstow, Cornwall: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1979. Print.
Kinsella, Sharon. “Cuties In Japan.” In Women, Media, and Consumption in Japan. Lise Skov and Brian Moeran. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995. 220-254. Print.
Macias, P., I. Evers, and K. Nonaka. Japanese schoolgirl inferno, tokyo teen fashion subculture handbook. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books Llc, 2007. Print.
McKnight, Anne. “Frenchness and Transformation in Japanese Subculture, 1972–2004.” Mechademia. 5. (2010): 118-137. Web. 12 Nov. 2012. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mec/summary/v005/5.mcknight.html >.
Toku, Masami. “Shojo Manga! Girls’ Comics! A Mirror of Girls’ Dreams.” Mechademia. 2. (2007): 19-32 . Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mec/summary/v002/2.toku.html >.
Winge , Theresa. “Undressing and Dressing Loli: A Search for the Identity of the Japanese Lolita .” Mechademia. 3. (2008): 47-63. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mec/summary/v003/3.winge.html>.

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Art-Fashion, GNC-Cute, GNC-Manga-Anime, GNC-Shojo-Girls, postings_gnc

Lost Girls, Lovely Boys: Homosexual Romance in Shojou Manga and Anime

November 11, 2012 by Elizabeth Denny

Sailor Moon’s Michiru Kaioh and Haruka Tenou

Japanese fans who tuned into the English-language debut of the seminal “magical girl” anime Sailor Moon might have gotten quite a shock when two of the series’ most popular female charcters, Michiru Kaioh and Haruka Tenou, made their first onscreen appearance. “The look in my cousin’s eyes,” recalls Haruka in a voice-over, describing the first time she met Michiru, “was so intense.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Sailor Moon, this translation probably does not strike you as obviously inaccurate. Unfortunately, in the original Japanese, Haruka and Michiru are not cousins. They are lovers. And within the shoujo genre, they are hardly unusual.

Anyone following the early American anime scene in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, when distributers were rushing to capitalize on the craze for all things Japanese, will recall the extraordinary application of censorship that was required to make the shows “acceptable” to young, Western audiences. While most of what was required for male-oriented programs involved downplaying violence, with female-oriented or shoujo anime, producers faced quite the challenge trying to edit out the homosexual relationships that are a frequent feature of the genre, which were considered inappropriate for young audiences. As you can see below, the changes made to the English version of Sailor Moon resulted in the characters’ relationship seeming quite awkward and, at times, borderline incestuous.

Although female-female or yuri relationships, such as the one shared by Michiru and Haruka, appear relatively often in shoujo anime and manga, male-male romances are far more popular, some of which are prominent enough to merit their own subgenre, known as shounen ai or “boy’s love.” Some of these relationships are overtly sexual, but many are not. A casual observer might note these multitude of same-sex relationships and thus make the deduction that Japanese society has a relaxed attitude toward gay and lesbian individuals. Unfortunately, this is not remotely the case. This presents an apparent paradox to Western viewers – how can Japanese pop culture be so saturated with images of same-sex romance and yet segregate real-life homosexuals so fiercely?

It is important at this point to note that Japanese society does not place a moral stigma on homosexuality in the way that Christian-origin societies in Europe and America do – in other words, in Japan, the act of gay sex is not considered inherently wrong. Rather, in contemporary Japanese society, homosexual relationships are problematic because a woman who chooses to love a woman, rather than a man, cannot marry, have children, and thus fulfill her role in society. The same applies for gay men. Although there are gay and lesbian communities in Japan, the percentage of “out” individuals is far smaller than in the U.S., and societal pushback for these men and women is punishingly restrictive. What emerges from this situation is a status quo where expressions of homosexuality are tolerated and, particularly in the case of males, indulged – but only up to the point where they do not prevent an individual from fulfilling his or her expected societal role. A 34-year-old lesbian, who chose to identify herself only as “KM,” reinforced this perspective in a 2010 interview with CNN : [2]

KM explains that when she first started going to lesbian and gay bars in Tokyo 10 years ago, it was fine, until her friends began to ask questions. “They asked about my future. ‘When will you marry?’ ‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’ They would ask me, and it was trouble,” she says. (“Lesbians in Japan Struggle to Build Their Own Community,” CNN)

A scene from the anime adaptation of The Song of the Wind and the Trees, one of the earliest shounen ai titles for girls.

In other words, KM’s circle of acquaintances had no issue with her going to gay bars – not until signs began to indicate that she did not intend to marry a man. In fact, for many years, certain cultural outlets with homosexual overtones, such as the all-female Takarazuka Theater (whose productions feature women dressed as men performing in romantic scenes with other women, and whose aesthetics were crucial to the creation of the shojou manga), were praised as “safe outlet[s] for the budding passions of teenage girls and young women until they were older and their sexual desires had matured and shifted ‘naturally’ to anatomically correct men.” (Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan, 143) [3]

Readership, like sexuality, is a complex issue in Japan, but while gay and lesbian individuals do consume and produce this sort of shoujo content, as well as other media, they are not the primary topic of this post. This is because, despite appearances, by and large, these depictions of gay and lesbian romance in manga, anime, and other forms of entertainment are neither intended for, nor an endorsement of, homosexual individuals. Rather, they are produced and consumed almost exclusively by straight women, and within that category, the women are overwhelmingly in the stage of life known as shoujo (少女), literally meaning “young woman” and referring to the period between puberty and marriage. Social anxiety in Japan has focused on the shoujo since the beginning of modernity, largely due to the fact that if women do not perform their necessary societal duties by marrying, having children and then caring for the home and family, not only can men no longer fulfill their duties, but society itself will cease to exist as women are the producers of new citizens. [5] Depictions of same-sex romance in the pop culture products that these young women consume serve to simultaneously assuage these fears and undermine them. You will note that, while men are also expected to fulfill their end of the bargain, there are comparatively fewer restrictions placed on them – which in itself may explain why the seemingly counterintuitive “boy’s love” subgenre is so popular among these young women. [4]

Although it may seem counterintuitive, the reason these works attract such a huge straight female readership is that shounen ai or yuri romance is usually not about hidden homosexual desires, although there are individuals to whom this applies. But particularly when regarding most popular genre, male-male relationships, these stories are about expressing the desired qualities of romance that are denied to women in Japan’s normalized, heterosexual model. They do use these stories to subvert the traditional gender model in Japan, but not in the sense that they want to become men or even gay men. Rather, the ideas being expressed include the idea of romantic partners being equals (something that is impossible in the typical Japanese heterosexual relationship), the female desire to have access to the sexual freedom enjoyed by males, the concept of partners sharing a love so pure that it transcends bodily and cultural limitations (and thus is “not really gay”), and so on. [4] [6] These expressions of sexuality, safely cloaked in “youth” and male bodies, are thus accepted by society: either within the proactive discourse of a safe outlet, as was said about Takarazuka, or the passive one of tolerance, so long as exposure to these titles does not lead to actual homosexual or otherwise deviant behavior.

The romantically involved characters Yukito and Touya, from the shoujo manga Cardcaptor Sakura. Note their feminine features.

But as stated above, the idea of same-sex romance manga and anime as a kind of “nicotine patch” for gay tendencies, while not invalid, misses an important dimension of their appeal. Since these stories are written almost exclusively for female audiences, it has been often argued that particularly in the case of male-male romances, the male bodies depicted in these stories are less masculine than androgynous or even feminine, allowing them to function as, depending on the theorist, either feminine stand-ins or safe, genderless expressions of ideal romance. In short, depicting the ideal female romance through the bodies of two men removes the constraints of gender politics and allows readers to instead focus on the relationship. This view can also be applied to yuri romance, although those types of stories are far more tied to questions of female identity – a controversy that perhaps explains why they are less popular.

In other words, according to many observers and fans, the popularity of same-sex romances among heterosexual female consumers has little to do with these women being sexually stimulated by images of gay and lesbian romantic relationships. Instead, they are a way for them to escape the norms of heterosexual love and criticize its boundaries without drawing criticism themselves. Such relationships allow these women to safely express their desire to love in ways that are not open to them in contemporary Japanese society, and to be free from the sometimes repressive expectations of gender, marriage, and heterosexual life.

Discussion Questions

1. What purposes does female consumption of male-male romance serve for Western audiences? How is the popularity of “slash fiction,” or Western fan stories that pair straight male characters in romantic relationships, different from the appeal of Japanese shounen ai? How is it similar?

2. Although depictions of same-sex relationships in popular media are less “taboo” than in America, they are still a source of social anxiety for Japan regarding young women. Do Western media portrayals of same-sex relationships carry the same kinds of concerns? What group(s) are they directed at?

3. Although most theorists believe that male-male romance in particular functions as some sort of outlet for Japanese female audiences, there are many differing explanations as to why and in what ways. For example, some scholars believe that the gender of the relationship is irrelevant. Others link it to a desire on the part of young women to experience the kind of sexual freedoms that men do. Is there an explanation that you find particularly compelling or particularly inaccurate on this matter?

Sources:

1. Levi, Antonia, Mark McHarry and Dru Pagliassotti, ed. Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008.

2. Nakagawa, Ulara. “Japan’s Lesbians Still Scared to Come Out.” CNN International, November 19, 2010. Accessed November 11, 2012. http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/lesbians-in-Japan-struggle-to-build-their-own-community-814836

3. Robertson, Jennifer Ellen. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkley: University of California Press, 1998.

4. Saito, Kumiko. “Desire in Subtext: Gender, Fandom, and Women’s Male-Male Homoerotic Parodies in Contemporary Japan.” Mechadamia 6 (2011). Accessed November 11, 2012. doi: 10.1353/mec.2011.0018

5. Shamoon, Deborah. Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girls’ Culture in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.

6. Welker, James. “Flower Tribes and Female Desire: Complicating Early Female Consumption of Male Homosexuality in Shoujo Manga.” Mechadamia 6 (2011). Accessed November 11, 2012. doi: 10.1353/mec.2011.0018

The Otaku Database: The Movement Away From the Grand Narrative?

November 4, 2012 by tahogge

The three leading characters: Asuka, Shinji and Rei from the anime series “Evangelion”

In his work “Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals”, Azuma Hiroki claims that in a post-modern world, there is no longer a necessity for a grand narrative in the products that we consume. This applies to art, television, movies and books. Specifically, Azuma makes this claim in relation to Otaku culture in Japan, but his claim can be applied universally to Otaku culture across the globe. Azuma claims that this has occurred because of what he calls the database. To sum up his assertion simply, he claims that rather than there being a grand narrative (deeper meaning, bigger story, universal application) behind anime, there is a database from which series pull from. For example, someone might watch the show Evangelion simply because it is about robots, girls in tight suits, and an overly emotional boy with father issues.

To Azuma, these are the elements from the database that make the anime Evangelion what it is, rather than being driven by a deeper back story or grander narrative (30-33). A grand narrative can be thought of as a universal theme that is the driving force behind a work. For example, Hayao Miyazaki films, for the most part, have a grand narrative of environmentalism. Another reoccurring theme that has universal application within his films is that of humanism. To Azuma, post-modern works (such as anime) have moved from this grand narrative, and consumption is driven by the database elements found within animated works.

The cover of the game in which players took care of leading lady Rei Ayanami

Derivative Works as a Vehicle Away From the Grand Narrative: Consumers and Producers

Azuma speaks about derivative works as being a cause of the movement from the grand narrative. These works are created mostly by the fans and in many cases become more popular than the original product themselves. He states that “by contrast [to Gundam fans], many Evangelion fans required settings to empathize with the story’s protagonist, to draw erotic illustrations of the heroine, and to build enormous robot figures, and showed obsessive interest in data to that extent, but beyond that they seldom immersed themselves into the world of the works” (37). Azuma is telling the reader that the fans would create derivative works and create their own universe and situations for their favorite characters from Evangelion rather than staying true to the original works. From this, the company who created Evangelion responded, and gave the fans what they were looking for. They created games based off of the derivative works. “For instance, there were mahjong games, erotic telephone card designs using the Evangelion characters, and even simulation games in which players nurture the heroine Ayanami Rei” (37). So the database is not solely something that consumers partake in, but producers as well. They need to tap into this database in order to create a successful product that the Otaku subculture will consume and enjoy.

Database and Moe: Are They One in the Same?

Tsugumi from “Guilty Crown” donned with cat ears performs a stereotypical magical girl transformation sequence.

It can be argued from Azuma’s argument about the database, that the database is simply a conglomeration of what has been dubbed as moe. Moe itself is difficult to define, but it has been attempted by numerous scholars to do so. Thomas Lemarre defines it as such “Moe, which can be written either with the characters for “sprouting/budding” or “burning/blazing,” refers broadly to the affective responses to the elements that appear to sprout from manga, anime, or game characters, such as cat ears, colored hair, rabbit tails [etc.]” (258). He elaborates more into discussing if moe means a sexual attraction, or just something that people find alluring. Regardless, there is no true consensus on what moe truly is, but at its most basic, moe can be understood as the database that Azuma speaks of. Moe, as Lemarre puts it, can exist as a range of characteristics ranging from rabbit tails to pink hair. From an Azumanian point of view, moe and the database are one of the

Haruhi Suzumiya from the anime series “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”

numerous reasons as to why as a culture in the post-modern world we have moved away from the modernist notions of the grand narrative.

Anomalies within the Anime World

A fan made picture of Shizuo and Izaya from the anime series “Durarara!!”

It is true, that there are anomalies to be found as an exception to Azuma’s argument. Meredith Suzanne Hahn Aquila speaks about this point in her article “Ranma ½ Fan Fiction Writers: New Narrative Themes or the Same Old Story?” She states that “even within active, participatory fan groups, many fans are outright resistant to any sort of drastic change… We must remember: although technology makes all things possible, it does not make all things probable” (42). From Aquiia, it can be argued that even though fans may wish to create derivative works, if it goes too far beyond what the creators originally had intended it is rejected by the fanbase. It isn’t necessarily that it is removed too far from the database, but rather it is too far from the grand narrative that was intended by the creators of particular anime. One of the greatest examples of an anomaly within the anime world is Hayao Miyazaki. His fanbase is massive and crosses all sorts of cultural, religious and national borders. His social commentary and universal themes such as humanism keep his fans interested in his works, and allows discussion to occur on a deeper level concerning the grand narrative behind his works.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Azuma’s assertion that we are simply animals consuming from a database leaves the post-modern world with little hope of returning to a time when the grand narrative was something to be sought after. In many cases, this assertion remains true. Clothing, movies, television and books are all tailored out of a database, created by producers so that consumers will do what they are best at- consuming. This database is massive with millions upon millions of combinations in which they can be placed together. It can even be argued that this database has inhibited new material from being contributed to it, as “new works” are simply bits and pieces of the database thrown together to create a product that will sell. However, through Miyazaki there is some shinning beam of hope for the post-modern person. His universal themes that spark conversation have created a path on which those in the post-modern era can return to the golden age of modernism. But who is to say, that the wish for a return to the modernist age is another database element?

Discussion Questions

1) Can you think of any works that bring us back to a grand narrative? What is it about this work that brings us back to the grand narrative rather than simply consuming from the database?

2) Do you believe that Aquila is correct when she states that if a derivative work strays too far from the original that it is rejected by the fanbase? What examples can you think of where this has occurred?

3) I have made a claim that the database and moe are one in the same. Do you agree or disagree? Do you think that moe and the database is something limited only to Japan, or does this have a universal application?

4) Hayao Miyazaki’s works are famous around the globe. Do you believe that his themes are just another aspect of the database? Why or why not?

Sources:

Aquila, Meredith. “Ranma ½ Fan Fiction Writers: New Narrative Themes or the Same Old Story?” Mechademia Volume 2: User Enhanced 2 (2007): 34-47. Project MUSE. Web. 3 Nov. 2012. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mechademia/v002/2.hahn-aquila.html>.

Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2009. Print.

Filed Under: GNC-Manga-Anime, postings_gnc, topic-pop culture, topic-social phenomena

Blood-Spattered Innocents: The Cachet of the ‘Grotesque Cute’

April 15, 2011 by granzini

by Gregory Ranzini

Introduction: Attack of the Cake-Demon

At 11:56, on January 20, 2011, the popular Western imageboard 4chan’s (link not safe for work/life/anything) anime and manga board, /a/, was watching live Japanese TV. This was not, in itself, unusual- although not as (in)famous as its sister board /b/, /a/ too boasts a very active community of Internet addicts more than willing to while away a few hours in the middle of the day (or night) with scabrous chatter and streaming video. Nor was their choice of show particularly surprising: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica,, a mahou shoujo (‘magical girl’) program from the reliably competent SHAFT Animation that had been getting muted, but positive, buzz. It was not shaping up to be overly original, of course, but that was beside the point. Madoka was being marketed as a genre piece; therefore, as with many such codified forms, its appeal was one of familiarity: an ‘ordinary’ middle-school girl is offered supernatural powers, accessed through a talismanic gem and associated with a change in costume, that she might fight for her ideals and to protect others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: featured, GNC-Cute, GNC-Manga-Anime, postings_gnc, topic-pop culture

The Japanese Bestiary of “Cool”

April 11, 2011 by Arthi

by Arthi Aravind

Japan’s mythological creatures are a source of rich inspiration for the many anime artists who produce the pop culture which has exploded in popularity in the United States in the past two decades. The mystical creatures of this culture’s bestiary are a unique aspect of its gross national cool which differentiate it from the pop culture exports of other countries. These otherworldly creatures, which are so foreign to the Western imagination, contribute to the popularity of Japanese cultural products in the United States because of their novelty value. [Read more...]

Filed Under: GNC-Manga-Anime, postings_gnc, Uncategorized

Spirited Away and Anime in the American Cinema Market

April 20, 2010 by adhend

Far more Americans saw the clips from Spirited Away shown just before its Academy Award was announced than will ever see the movie. Despite anime’s extreme popularity in certain US markets, anime films have almost universally underwhelmed at US box offices and receive little general exposure in the states. What did it take for Spirited Away to attain its relative prominence in the American market and, if any, what effect has its story tell us about the possibilities for wide scale US distribution of anime films in the States? [Read more...]

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Film-TV, GNC-Manga-Anime, Uncategorized

Hayao Miyazaki: The Transnational Fantasy of Post-WWII Japan

April 5, 2010 by cdbarnewolt

Of all of Japan’s modern international cultural product, perhaps the most prominent is Japanese animation, or animé, and for more than a decade, Hayao Miyazaki has been the preeminent Japananese anime filmmaker. Wildly popular within Japan, Miyazaki’s influence has gone global, and his art is appreciated by both young and old worldwide. [Read more...]

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Film-TV, GNC-Manga-Anime, Uncategorized

Pokémon, Localization, and Cultural Odor

April 5, 2010 by cgbubb

The concept of mukokuseki is one used by many recent popular culture products emerging from Japan. The term, literally the quality of “statelessness” or “nationlessness”, is used by Japanese producers of popular culture items to make these items relatable and marketable all over the world. Interestingly enough, one of the products of Japanese popular culture to really send the foreign popularity of Japanese pop culture into the stratosphere was one that, in Japan, was littered with references and locales that only the Japanese would understand and appreciate, a “cultural odor” seen as foreign and exotic to those consumers outside of Japan. (Iwabuchi, 27) This product is one that most in the United States knows as “Pokémon” or, in Japan, “Pocket Monsters.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Gaming, GNC-Manga-Anime

Manga and the United States: New Life to Comics

April 5, 2010 by Charles Fliss

Walk into a Barnes & Noble, Borders, or almost any other American bookstore, and you are certain to find a section labeled “Manga.” Often two or three times the amount of shelf space devoted to the comics of the United States is given over to the small thick booklets filled with Japanese drawings. Why have the adventures of aspiring ninjas and timid schoolgirls taken over displays once devoted to Superman and Captain America? For the stores stocking manga the answer is simple: economics.

In 2007, Publisher’s Weekly reported the previous year’s sales figures for graphic novels in the United States and Canada. The results were staggering. The comic stories were worth approximately $330 million, with manga making up $170 – $200 million of that total.¹ Manga made up better than half of the total graphic novel profit, and additionally there were simply more titles published. In the same report Publisher’s Weekly noted, “There were about 2,800 book format comics published in 2006, up 12% from 2005. Out of that total, 1,200 are manga titles and 965 are American genre comics.”¹ With these numbers increasing every year manga is both more prevalent and more profitable in the United States – something that bears a stark contrast to its success in its home nation.

Even as Publisher’s Weekly reported manga’s success in the United States, USA Today reported the troubles it faces in Japan. “Sales of manga fell 4% in Japan last year to 481 billion yen ($4.1 billion) — the fifth straight annual drop, according to the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Publications.”² Citing the prevalence of cell phones, video games, and a lack of variety in the comics for the decline, the article nevertheless concludes with a quote from Tufts’ Professor Napier, “They [manga] are still a staple of Japanese life.”²

This raises the question of why this struggling Japanese staple is making such a huge splash in the United States. What is it that has attracted Americans away from their own comic culture and drawn them to one so different? The first answer to this question lies precisely in that difference. When Roland Kelts interviewed Studio Ghibli Director of International Relations Steve Alpert, he asked what first attracted him to the Japanese style. Alpert replied “The way they used the frame – they weren’t afraid to break it… The perspectives are so evocative.”³Kelts similarly writes of the works of Osamu Tezuka as “the beginning of what is referred to today by… Matt Alt as ‘the Mobius Strip’ of interrelations between Japanese and American artists – a crosspollination of influences.”³ Thus manga provides American audiences with a visual medium that initially seems extremely different, yet has been consistently and heavily influenced by their own culture.

This combination has allowed Americans to enjoy manga as an inherently “cool” other. Kelts notes, “Even the manga that is translated into English today retains certain Japanese phrases and writing in the native characters – undecipherable and illegible to most U.S. readers, but still considered cool.” This tendency can be seen in its extreme in the publication of American stories in manga form. Multiple Star Trek series have had new stories published in manga form, and even the classic Canadian superhero Wolverine has garnered his own manga. Therefore, manga is at once familiar and alien to Americans. Its otherness is exotic, cool, and comfortable – and so it sells.

In his article “A History of Manga,” first published in Viz Media’s Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, Matt Thorn similarly cites Tezuka’s work as one of the great turning points for the sale of manga. “Tezuka’s innovations led to a broadening of the manga market and had a consequence that would inevitably force a radical restructuring of the market: the children who were raised on the manga of Tezuka and his followers, unlike their predecessors, didn’t stop reading manga when they got to middle school. Or high school. Or college.”⁴ What happened in Japan decades ago has now happened in the United States. This training of the American consumer goes fundamentally against traditional American perception of comics as children’s reading. In the U.S. traditional times to outgrow comics – high school, college – have become essential growth times for American interest in manga. Entire websites such as www.bleachexile.com and www.onemanga.com are devoted to providing English language access to manga – sometimes releasing translations months, even years, ahead of a U.S. print release. Manga keeps its cool long after other comics have been left behind.

One of the problems plaguing manga at home has become a great strength for it in the United States. As reported by USA Today, Japanese consumers are “bored with the plots and characters manga offers.”² Yet these same plots and characters that are old hat to Japanese readers are totally new to Americans. American comics, in contrast, have trouble breaking out of their own set ways. Superman was created in 1932, and though he has had many new adventures since then, the character has remained essentially the same. Thus although the adventures of Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin (both enormously popular series in both countries) may bear strong similarities to other titles, they are new stories, new heroes, and from a new land.

Further, manga has managed to captivate a segment of the United States market never truly captured by American comics: girls. An entire “shôjo” genre “which is created primarily by women artists explicitly for audiences of girls and young women” has quickly drawn in American girls.⁴ As Barnes & Noble buyer Jim Killen told USA Today, “Manga offers something they weren’t finding in popular superhero-related comics.”² With an entire genre devoted to their interest, completely apart from American comics, it is no wonder that American girls have been drawn to manga.

Thus, in the United States manga has captured a large market because it appeals to readers on multiple levels. Telling new stories in new ways, telling stories specifically for girls, and keeping consumers interested beyond their grade-school days have allowed manga to become a cultural juggernaut, now inarguably a part of American youth culture.

Discussion Questions:

Manga is clearly a comic form like American comics, but it is also its own distinct tradition. How does the “mobius strip” factor into Japanese and American understandings of manga? To what extent is manga otherized by Americans? Is American produced manga valid, and if so does it have an American or Japanese cultural odor? Does any manga have a cultural odor?

Sources:

Reid, Calvin. “Graphic Novel Market Hits $330 Million.” Publisher’s Weekly 23 Feb. 2007 Web. 4 Apr. 2010. <http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/391509-Graphic_Novel_Market_Hits_330_Million.php>
Wiseman, Paul. “Manga Comics Losing Longtime Hold on Japan.” USA Today 18 Oct. 2007 Web. 4 Apr. 2010. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-18-manga_N.htm>
Kelts, Roland. Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print. p. 24, 33, 42. <http://www.amazon.com/Japanamerica-Japanese-Culture-Invaded-U-S/dp/140398476X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272007034&sr=8-1>
Thorn, Matt. “A History of Manga.” Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly. vol 4. 2, 4, 6. rev. 2007 Web. 4 Apr. 2010. <http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/history.html>

Entry contributed by Charles Fliss

Filed Under: gnc, GNC-Manga-Anime, postings_gnc

Introduction: Attack of the Cake-Demon

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