Upload
annas-marzuki-sulaiman
View
229
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
1/24
Animated Subjects:
On the Circulation of Japanese Animation
as Global Cultural Products
Jiwon Ahn
Division of Critical Studies
School of Cinema-Television
University of Southern California
OCR by [CiN]
I. Introduction
In an interview performed at the end of the 1980s, Fredric Jameson elaborates
on
his notion of the disappearance of nature in the postmodern, the
disappearance
of the unconscious, in this case:
Today I think one of the characteristics of the postmodern isvery
precisely this penetration and colonization of the unconscious. Art
is
commodified, the unconscious is itself commodified by the forces of
the
media and advertising and so on, and therefore it is also in that
sense
that one can claim a certain kind of nature is gone And I think
its
proper to insist on that there is a certain freedom involved in
being
no longer constrained by traditional forms of human nature.
What Jameson means by this suggestion is highly ambiguous: especially, the
way
in which commodification of the unconscious results in the release of
human
nature from its traditional limits is not clearly explained. Jameson
himself
admits that he remains ambivalent on the concept of human nature itself, yet
he
goes on further arguing:
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
2/24
instead of replacing those [the disappeared form of older,
inner
-directed personality, the acquisitive individual, the centered
subject,
etc.] with the rhetoric of psychic fragmentations, schizophrenia, and
so
on, one should return again to notions of collective relations,
but
collectivities of new types, not of traditional kinds. That would,
it
seems to me, be a way of looking at human nature as a social thing
that
would be in my opinion the most productive socially and culturally,
and
politically as well. (Jameson, 354)
Although deeply vague, it seems to me that Jamesons conceptualization of a
new
subjectivity that is both mediatized and emancipated in the
postmodernenvironments can be revealing about the cultures of globalization. That is,
to
the extent that postmodernism is considered as the cultural logic of
late
capitalism, which Jameson later relates more specifically with the
term
globalization,[1] his proposal on the disappearance of nature in the
postmodern
could be also used productively in thinking about our altered subjectivity
in
the process of globalization.
Besides, I find Jamesons basic theoretical premise in his major projects
-
that the interrelationship of culture and the economic is a
continuous
reciprocal interaction and feedback loopnot only provides a still
sensible
starting point in examining the current cultures of more
intensified
globalization. By being attentive to the intimate interrelation between
the
cultural and the economic, we can also recognize the fact that in the
current
phase of globalization, the relationship between the two realms becomes
so
extremely intertwined that now it is both ineffectual and impossible toconsider
the two separately. Thus, in this essay, I will examine the way in which
global
media products, produced through the complicated network of the cultural and
the
economic on an unprecedentedly transnational scale, circulate and interact
with
individuals and collectives at certain local junctures of global cultures.
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
3/24
The case I tend to focus on in the present essay is the varied manners in
which
Japanese animation is circulated in different regional cultures, especially
in
the local cultural practices in South Korea. As a media product, I would
argue,
of a distinctively global nature, Japanese animation seems to bring
about
interesting interactions between production and consumption, infra and
supra
structures, public history and private memories, the real and the fantastic
and
most importantly, conscious and unconscious appropriations of the
cultural
texts. Indeed, there seems to me to exist not only consciously
organized
numerous fan groups of Japanese animation in different local cultures
worldwide.
There also appear to be imaginary communities that latently exist among
broader,
younger audiences across national boundaries, who share the collectivememories
of consuming the same media texts and the common nostalgia for their
childhood
viewing experiences. It is in this juncture where I find a new
subjectivity,
thoroughly penetrated by commercial media, yet at the same time released
from
the restrictive forms of traditional (modern) human subjectivity, can
be
imagined in a very real sense.
Further, the fan reception of certain animation texts, such as Hayao
Miyazakis
works, can be said to provide an illuminating example of the global
media
phenomenon that calls into question the existing theoretical frame works.
In
this essay, therefore, I will mainly discuss the way in which South Korean
fan
appropriations of Japanese animation challenge various critical paradigms
and
call for a new approach to the cultures of globalization. In order to
properly
explore the profoundly multiple dimensions of the question, I would
first
contemplate on the reasons why Japanese animation needs to be considered as
acultural product of the global conditions.
II. How Global Is Anime?
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
4/24
As is well known, animation (called anime) and comic books (manga) are two
of
the mainstream forms of popular culture in Japan. To take only a few
examples:
about 23% percent of the entire printed materials in Japan are
reportedly
comics[2] more than 250 animation programs per week are aired on
television;
average 1700 (short or feature length) animation films are produced per year
and
about 2200 animated television programs produced per yearin other
words,
average 6 new works produced everyday--, which makes Japan a number one
producer
of animated video and television programs that comprise about 65% of the
world
production.[3]
The popularity of Japanese animation (anime, hereafter) has been
accordingly
phenomenal in Japan since the inception of the medium as a practicallypostwar
popular cultural trend[4] and has ever increased with the sophistication of
its
technical and literary languages. It is thus no wonder that tickets sold
for
anime films are estimated to reach about half the entire annual box office
sales
in Japan[5] and that Hayao Miyazakis 1997 record-breaking hit anime
Princess
Mononoke remains as the highest-grossing Japanese film to date.[6] Yet, what
is
more interesting about anime for the current discussion is its border-
crossing
appeal that has attracted numerous fans in many different regions of the
world.
While it is an intriguing question worth a separate critical investigation
how
such a local cultural development could translate to broad
international
audiences, it can still be said that anime texts travel abroad across
the
national-culutral boundaries as important media commodities. Certainly,
anime
has induced lively fan cultures all over the world, most noticeably in
South
Korea and Taiwan, the former colonies of the Japanese Empire, yet also aswidely
as in other Asian regions like Hong Kong, Thailand, other South Asian
countries,
in both Eastern and Western European countires and equally in North and
South
Americas including the United States. To take just one example, in Italy,
the
popularity of Yumiko Igarashis comic and animated series Candy Candy was
so
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
5/24
enormous in the 1980s that, after the end of the original Japanese
series,
Italian producers had to hire local artists to continue the series.[7]
However, the global quality of anime does not simply lie in the scope
of
international fan cultures. More significantly, the process of anime
production
reveals its status as a global media product, through its close connection
to
the transnational capital and the Third World labor. Firstly, we need to
think
about the magnitude of the capital and industry involved in the production
of
anime. As a lucrative commodity produced in a highly developed media
industry,
anime can be more fully understood within the web of influences
organized
according to the successful media mix strategy. That is, there has formed
a
full circle of related industries around anime in Japan: in many cases,it
starts, although not necessarily in a chronological sense, from the
original
manga (comic book) series; then the manga is adapted to animation series
in
television or film or both formats; also video production of the animated
series
follows, while video series (called OAV, original animated video or
OVA,
original video animation), are often directly created from the original
manga,
too; then almost simultaneously, various goods related to the manga and
anime,
including original soundtrack CDs, paperback books, fanzines, and
numerous
character merchandises like action figures, toys, stationery
goods,
confectionary products, etc., are distributed in the market[8] also, the
release
of computer games based on the manga and anime follows, which in turn
increases
the sales of the original manga series, magazines, books and videos
and
encourages the creation of extended editions of the original manga and
anime.
These close relations among several different cultural and commercial
industrieshave been apparently very functional on a business level, contributing
to
inaugurating such Japanese TNCs as Sony and Nintendo as notable players
in
global economy. Yet, at the same time, the media mix policy has been
very
significant in terms of the dialogic influences on all the forms and contents
of
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
6/24
the media products under the synergistic effect of the circle. For a
more
specific example, we can briefly digress to look at the case of the
recent
popular craze, the Pokemon series.
III. Pokemon, the Pick-pocketing Monster Idol of the
Global Culture
Pokemon, an abbreviation for poket monsters, originally started in Japan
in
1996 as a computer game for Nintendos Game Boy and has been quickly
morphed
into a global multimedia phenomenon of comic books, animated television
shows,
movies and videos, trading card games, collectibles and toys. The wholeseries
revolves around the adventures of a twelve year old boy who aspires to
be a
great Pokemon master, who trains various kinds of Pokemon
(biological
creatures with supernatural powers of an unknown origin) to defeat other
Pokemon
trainers and become a higher master.
Logically, the overarching theme of the series and games is to collect all
the
Pokemon, as is revealed in the consistently repeated catch phrase of the
series,
Gotta Catch em All. This phrase can be meaningful in a viewers real
life
too, since a viewer/player can also participate in the imaginary competition
by
consuming Pokemon products and become a trainer as in the diegesis,
who
captures each different Pokemon and uses it to advance to higher levels
of
mastery. Significantly enough, the most accessible, if not the only, way for
a
viewer to collect them all and become a great master is to spend more money.
In
this sense, it is no wonder and quite fitting that the detailed information
onthe several hundred kinds of Pokemonconcerning their names, fighting
abilities,
special features, various evolutionary stages, etc.-- requires such a
remarkable
amount of expertise from the collectors. For, to collect more and gain
more
knowledge, one needs to consume more of various products including books,
cards,
videos, and computer softwares.
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
7/24
Therefore, the Pokemon series clearly exmplifies the way in which the
whole
circle of media products function in close relations with each other,
utilizing
smartly designed themes and narratives that motivate and reward
more
consumption. Further, we can find the influence of related commercial media
on
the Pokemon anime, not merely in its narrative or thematic concerns, but in
its
formal techniques as well. As is seen in the example of Pokemon the First
Movie,
which was commercially successful in both domestic and international
markets,
yet heavily criticized (mainly by adult viewers) for its lack of narrative,
the
Pokemon anime often has a highly fragmented narrative line, with each
fragment
only loosely connected to each other without any strong causality.
This rhetoric, although it may bore uninitiated viewers, can directly appeal
to
regular audiences, as home shopping TV shows do, presenting each product
more
powerfully with the sensory stimulation of excessively repeated visuals
and
utilizing narrative devises only secondarily. At the same time, we can find
a
remarkable parallel between the formal strategies of the Pokemon anime and
those
of its original computer games. To name just a few, the battle sequences in
the
anime seems to derive directly from the computer game format, with
devided
frames, stylized action choreography, and conventional musical
accompaniments.
Similarly, the often implosive, schizophrenic sensory appeals of the
Pokemon
series, which constantly distract viewers from the experience of any
coherent
narrativity, could be explained in terms of the influences of its
original
computer games. Also, the fluid identities of characters in Pokemon can be
said
to originate from the computer game genre, in which we can pick any pair
of
fighters for battles: therefore, there cannot exist an absolute enemy orvillan,
as is exemplified by the ambiguously evil characters, Team Rockets in
Pokemon.
As is discussed so far with the example of Pokemon, the circulation of anime
is
closely interconnected with varied kinds of media and other consumer
industries
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
8/24
that function uniformly according to the logic of the transnational
capital.
Thus, an anime text could be best understood only when we take
into
consideration its status as a media product of global economy which
determines
not just production and distribution of anime, but affects its
communicative
dimensions as well. Another aspect of global quality of anime is caused by
its
connection to the Third World labor, which I will examine with a more
specific
example of South Korea.
IV. South Korea, the Surrogate Motherland of Anime
The labor intensiveness in the production of animated materials is hardly
unique
to the Japanese case: whether it is actually hand-painted or
mechanically
generated, (cell) animation in general entails the painstaking procedure
of
production in which thousands of animation cells are processed through
some
kinds of human labor practice. What is rather specific to Japanese animation
is,
though, that it is produced within a highly developed studio system with
a
rigorously rationalized division of labor.[9] Hence, it is not surprising
thatbecause of the high labor costs in Japan, since the 1980s only
preproduction
(script, storyboard, character design, etc.) and post-production (film
editing,
color timing, sound, etc.) of anime have been done in Japan and other jobs
of
the production such as coloring, inking, painting, background, and
inbetween
animation have been done in other less developed regions-- mainly in
Korea,
Taiwan and Hong Kong, but recently in Thailand and other South Asian
countries
as well[10]-- by delicate touch of largely young, female, low-wagedlabor
forces.
The South Korean case appears to be particularly interesting to think about
in
examining animes relation to the Third World labor. According to a
report
written in 2000, South Korea is the third largest producer of
animation
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
9/24
worldwide, following Japan and the United States: yet, 95% of its output
is
manufactured by foreign order and none of the 400 animation studios in Korea
is
fully committed to making domestic shows. Around 1995, the Korean
government,
recognizing the commercial potential of animation, began to support
the
animation industry in order to increase the domestic production, by
granting a
number of incentives, such as a lower tax base, low interest loans, and a
viable
infrastructure. As a result, many studios, formerly produced foreign
works,
turned domestic, bringing out about six features and numerous shorts that
deal
with Korean folklore and traditional cultures. However, by the late 1990s,
the
boom quietened down as the international markets for Korean domestic
productions
were hard to find and as the interests of local audiences turned out to betoo
limited to continue the domestic production.[11]
It is still early, in my view, to make any conclusion about the situation,
which
nevertheless, provides us with a series of questions worth scrutinizing.
First
of all, it would be necessary to ask about how to understand the
seemingly
exploitative relations of anime production in which there appears to be no
way
out. Does this simply reflect a new world order in the age of
globalization,
when the division between core and periphery grows even more severe
and
permanent? Or is there any possibility of change or intervention in
the
relentless operation of transnational media conglomerates? Moreover,
considering
the intricate past history between Korea and Japan (especially, the 36
years
colonial rule of Korea by Japan in the early 20th century), which caused
the
former to ban most cultural imports from the latter for almost half the
century,
we need to contemplate the validity in reading the current situation simply
asmanifestation of an economic and cultural imperialism. In other words, it
would
be necessary to question whether it is appropriate and useful to map the
current
involvement of Korea in the production of anime in terms of new
colonial
relations of domination and subjugation. More importantly, there is at stake
the
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
10/24
implication of anime fan cultures in Korea: what it means to be a fan of a
text
which is mass produced by the former colonizers culture industry through
the
compatriots labor practice. Indeed, it seems to me a significant question
to
ask what kind of meanings Korean (and other non-Japanese) anime fans
are
negotiating through the reception and consumption of the Japanese
animated
texts.
V. The Cultural Logic of Global Anime Kids
As is briefly mentioned above, the importation of almost all the
popularcultural materials produced in Japan has been prohibited by the
Korean
government for the past fifty years for apparently historical reasons. The
ban
was partially lifted only in 1998 and certain Japanese popular
cultural
products-- such as entertainment television programs and movies rated
for
viewers over 19 onlyare still not allowed for public exhibition in Korea.
Yet,
in spite of the strong nationalist policy of the government and
educational
authorities (or in a sense, because of them), there have been formed
ratherbroad underground cultural circles in which most renowned Japanese comics
and
animated materials were available for eager audiences.[12] Then, what it
meant
to watch anime prior to its legalization in Korea must have been very
different
from the implication of viewing anime in the current legalized environment.
Indeed, its banned status must have added a unique appeal to anime as
a
subcultural text, which was passionately embraced by the general public
whose
antigovernmental sensibility was visibly mounting against the dictatorialregime
of the 1980s. Looking back, it seems now quite bizarre and almost perverse
to
have utilized the light-hearted icons of Japanese commercial media, like
Totoro
(the adorable roundfigured imaginary animal in My Neighbor Totoro), in
making
serious political statements. However, it is certainly not accidental that
anime
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
11/24
was one of the most popular and regular components, together with
political
films from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in programs of college
film
festivals, which functioned as important venues for
antigovernmental
demonstrations in the Peoples Movement of South Korea in the 80s. Nor itwas
a
solely Korean phenomenon since the use of anime images as a symbol of
subversion
was witnessed in some other cases of socio-political turmoil as well.[13]
Anime,
in this context, can be said to have been appropriated to
disseminate
drastically alternative meanings of the culture, regardless of the
mainstream,
commercial origin of the text.
It is no wonder that by and since the time of the lifting of the ban in
Korea
(in 1998) the fan cultures of anime have become much more widespread, activeand
selfasserting. In fact, there exist thousands of anime fan clubs in South
Korea
currently operating through internet, grouped around specific shows,
characters,
genres, themes, creators, and so on. It is also understandable the
fan
activities of these younger generations do not necessarily have the same kind
of
political agenda as their predecessors projects did. Yet, I think it is
still
true to say that anime provides these young Korean fans valuable means to
build
communities with and share cultural vocabularies to express themselves with.
For
major fan activities of these groups are not simply confined to chatting
about
their favorite shows and sharing information about where to locate hard-to-
find
videos, but genuinely extensive, ranging from lively discussions on
various
current events to sharing and distributing their own creative works
including
drawings, anime works, diaries, novels, and so forth.
To take just one example, we can think about the practice of cosplay in
Korea,the fan activity that has become especially popular since the opening of
the
media market to Japanese popular cultural imports. Cosplay, which is a fan
term
originated in Japan as a shortened version of costume play, indicates
the
cultural practice of imitating anime or manga characters by creating the
same
costumes as in the shows and masquerading in
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
12/24
the costumes for public display or picture-taking.[14] For the past
decades,
cosplay has been practiced mostly in Japan, where extremely
sophisticated
costumes and photo works have been produced: yet, with the increasing
popularity
of anime, manga, and comic conventions worldwide, cosplay has quickly
gained
more visibility in various local cultural scenes throughout the globe.
Then, what seems to me particularly remarkable in the Korean example of
cosplay
is that, in spite of the still remaining anti-Japanese sensibility
(especially
among older generations) and the consequent criticism against anime fans
for
mindlessly accepting the Japanese trashy media products, the participants
of
cosplay in Korea readily utilize the cultural vocabularies most available
intheir everyday livesthe vocabularies of comics and anime-- in order
to
negotiate and construct their own identities. In other words, this Korean
case
makes it clear that however low or illegitimate the status of anime in
the
existing cultural hierarchies may be, fans are willing to use it as a
precious
channel of cultural discourses as far as it plays a significant part in
their
daily existence as cultural beings. (In addition, it is fascinating to note
that
the Korean versions of cosplay are said to be more community-based and
more
geared toward group performances on stages and in competitions than
their
Japanese counterparts, which are supposed to be largely dependent
upon
individual works created by rather isolated fans/artists, often
called
otaku.[15])
I have so far discussed the fan activities in Korea that consciously
appropriate
anime to create cultural and political meanings that differ from the
dominant
readings of the texts. There exists, I would argue, yet anothersignificant
layer of anime fan culture we need to look at in Korea: for those now
adult
audience groups (mostly in their late 20s and 30s), while not
necessarily
participating in any fan activities like collecting video tapes, chatting
on
internet, joining in fan clubs, etc., could still be said to comprise latent
fan
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
13/24
communities on a broader scale, by remembering the anime texts they watched
in
their childhood with strong emotional attachments and passionate nostalgia.
Of
course, it may not be new that people can develop a collective nostalgia
toward
certain popular cultural materials of certain historical times. However, in
the
case of the invisible fan communities formed around anime in Korea, there
seem
to be several noteworthy aspects that can help us better understand the issue
of
subjectivity in the cultures of globalization.
First, it seems to be appropriate to consider the specificity of the
cultural
context in which the aforementioned, less conscious fandom of anime has
been
formulated in Korea. That is, contradictory to the South Korean
governments
strong nationalist policy of banning theatrical release of any Japanesefilms, a
large number of Japanese animation series have been aired on the
Korean
television throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Surprisingly enough, there
have
been very few cases in which the broadcasting of Japanese animation
programs
became problematic: the networks, always in need of both cheap and
entertaining
programs such as anime, have convincingly pleaded that childrens
materials
retained universal values that had nothing to do with the Japanese
national
identity. As a result, younger viewers in Korea came to build rather
an
ambivalent relationship with anime, to the extent that they were enjoying
their
earliest cultural experiences through the Japanese animated programs at
home,
while learning about the evilness of the (national) origin of the texts
at
school. In other words, these younger generations must have developed
inevitably
split and radically fragmented subjectivity in the situation where
public
cultural identities were hardly compatible with private aesthetic pleasures.
Further, it is not difficult to imagine that there formed a sort of
rupture
between the cultural sensibility of these younger generation viewers and that
of
older generations who do not have the early memory of watching
Japanese
animation on TV. Unlike their seniors who had been educated in a
more
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
14/24
traditional way, taught more of long-standing values and trained to
experience
culture in a more coherent and orderly manner, the young anime kids had to
learn
instead, how to negotiate between contradictory domains-- between
official
cultures and subcultures, between high art and cheap entertainment,
between
public history and personal memories, between reality and fantasy and so
on.
Also, it would be barely fortuitous that so many texts of anime, which
itself
started as a communicative medium for Japanese youth in the devastating
postwar
situation, reflect the break (and almost disavowal) between generations,
usually
featuring parentless protagonists.
Yet, even more importantly, it is said that this unintended reception of
anime
and its influences by younger viewers happened quite similarly in Taiwantoo,
where Japanese animated programs were widely shown, owing to the loosening
of
the ban on Japanese media imports since the 1980s. Consequently, there have
been
formed an unprecedented scope of anime fan cultures among young audiences,
both
on conscious and unconscious levels, almost equally in Korea, Taiwan and
Japan
(as well as in other regions). For example, the majority of young audiences
who
had spent their childhood in the aforementioned East Asian countries can
be
considered to hold the common early memory of watching some anime TV shows
by
Hayao Miyazaki, who can be, judging from the extent and intensity of
emotional
impacts of his works, plausibly regarded as a spiritual father figure of
these
anime kids.
While renowned in the West for his animation films that are considered to
be
classics, such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro
(1988),
and Princess Mononoke (1997), Hayao Miyazaki has also contributed for
numerousTV anime series since 1963, mostly with the collaboration with Isao Takahata.
To
name just a few, Miyazaki has participated in the production of Gullivers
Space
Travels (1964), Little Witch Sally (1968), Animal Treasure Island (1971),
Ali
Baba and the 40 Thieves (1971), and World Masterpiece Theater since 1974,
which
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
15/24
included literary animation series like Alpine Girl Heidi (1974), The Dog
of
Flanders (1975), Three Thousand Miles in Search of Mother (1976), Anne of
Green
Gables (1979), and so on. Also, Miyazaki has made his directorial debut with
the
television series Future Boy Conan in 1978, which has become immensely
popular
in many Asian regions in the 1980s.[16] Although these programs were,
generally
speaking, more realistic, less predictable, and had more complicated plots
and
themes than regular childrens materialsparticularly so when compared with
most
of the Disney animation--, to the extent that they still conveyed
strong
messages of hope and belief in humanity to which the anime kids
nostalgically
hold on, I would argue, Hayao Miyazakis television works and other
anime
programs have stimulated a kind of imagined communities of collectivemedia
consumption, or communities of sentiment in Arjun Appdurais terms.
The latent fans of anime can certainly be called imagined communities in
the
sense that, as communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-
face
contact (which thus needs to be imagined), they retain certain comradeship
based
on same sensibility-- same imagination, frustration, longing, memories,
etc.-
which is mobilized by anime texts. And, if Benedict Andersons schematization
of
imagined community effectively showed the way in which print capitalism
roused
the sense of community in replacing the antiquated cognitive framework
of
religion with the then fresh concept of nation-state, I would maintain
these
communities of anime sensibility clearly illuminate how the notion of
nation
state is now significantly challenged by the fluid cultural identities of
fans
across national boundaries. If communities are, as Anderson justly remarked,
to
be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in
whichthey are imagined, the communities of East Asian anime fans certainly need
to
be taken seriously since they are, in spite of their illegitimate and
scandalous
origins, imagined in a possibly subversive style. (Anderson, 6)
One example that shows the magnitude of these dormant fan communities could
be
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
16/24
witnessed in South Korea in 1992 when a popular singer/song-writer
(Lee
Seunghwan) made a reproduction of the theme song of The Dog of Flanders (one
of
the television anime series aired in Korea in the early 1980s), which
became
extremely popular because, in my view, it smartly appealed to the
unnoticed
community of fans who share the yearning memory of watching the show in
their
childhood. Yet, the potential of the transnational anime fan communities can
be
speculated not just in terms of their commercially mobilized buying power
but
also in their evident influences in a broader discursive context. For
example,
we can think about the current trend in international art scene, broadly
called
Japanese Punk Art or poku (pop+otaku) art.[17]
Although it might be too recent a phenomenon to be fully acknowledgedand
grasped, the poku art seems to have been developed by a group of
young
Japanese artists who are, heavily influenced by anime, manga, and
comupter
games, committed to incorporating those popular cultural inspirations in
their
art works. This art movement, embodied both in the production of
commercial
merchandises like T-shirts and toys and in the creation of fine art
paintings
enthusiastically sought after in New York galleries, seems to me to reveal
the
profoundly mobile and versitile nature of the imagined communities of
anime
sensibility. In other words, the Japanese punk art proves both
geographically
and discursively, the imagined communities can be expanded to a truly
global
dimension, crossing boundaries of national identities and blurring
hierarchies
between fine art and popular cultures. For example, we can easily find
the
shared sensibility of anime communities in the following remarks of the
two
leading Japaense punk artists, Kenji Yanobe and Yoshimoto Nara, whose works
arewell received in various cultural sites outside Japan:
When I was a child, I saw TV animation, and got impression from them.
I
wanted to find the center of beauty from this [Japanese
popular]
culture.[18]
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
17/24
people say, You have a big influence from Japanese animation. No.
I
have a big influence from my childhood. The animations gave
me
influence, but they are not animations you can now watch on TV.
The
animations I saw before when I was a child. Sometimes, people have
kind
of nostalgic from my paintings.[19]
VI. Concluding Thoughts on the Cultures of Globalization
As I have discussed so far, the complexities and dialectic dimensions of
anime
fan cultures in Korea appear to me to disrupt all the binary frames
ofunderstanding such as the colonizer and the colonized, core and periphery,
the
First world and the Third world, and so forth. Especially, it is worth
paying
critical attentions to questions concerning the imbalance between the
fans
cultural attachment to the texts and the underlying implication of
economic
exploitativeness of the whole phenomenon; also, the broad scope of
imagined
communities latently formed and possibly mobilized around the collective
memory
of watching the same anime texts; and finally, the ambivalent subjectivities
ofthe young (Korean) audiences who are deeply split between guilt and
pleasure,
between public imbuing of official history and private consumption of
forbidden
media texts. What is engendered in this juncture is apprently not
onedimensional
reflections of the logic of the transnational capital, but dialogic
discursive
contexts that can stimulate alternative cultural practices while
reinforcing
hegemonic power relations as well. In other words, an apprent point here is
that
the global communities of anime fans cannot adequently examined in simpleterms
of cultural or economic dominance and imperialism.
Exploring the similar questions on reception of Japanese mass culture in
Taiwan,
Leo Ching maintained, although there used to be certain historical contexts
in
which the discourse of cultural imperialism could be used functionallylike
the
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
18/24
70s Chilean revolutionary situation which required anti-(American)
imperialist
manifesto such as Dorfman and Mattelarts How to Read Donald Duck:
Imperialist
Ideology in the Disney Comic (1975)--, now in a world of
transnational
corporations, telecommunication, information network, and international
division
of labor, the existing model of centerperiphery relations is no
longer
viable.[20] Pointing out the limits of both of the antiimperialist
diagnosis
and the deploticized, almost celebratory analysis of the prevalence of
Japanese
mass culture in Asia, Ching argued, Not only can the institution of
cultural
production no longer be isolated to a single center, but the passive
reception
of the periphery should also be questioned. Above all, the heterogeneous
ways
in which people use the dominant cultural texts in the periphery can neverbe
formulated effectively through any generalizing schematization:
If global mass culture represents the new configuration of a
changing
capitalist relations in which a nation-centered response or
resistance
is no longer adequate, we need, on the one hand, to recognize that
this
cultural process is spatially and temporally uneven and
discontinuous,
and on the other hand, to be attentive to the different, at
times,
contradictory and unintended, ways social agencies are articulated
and
empowered at every point of cultural practices. (Ching, 192)
Therefore, we can conclude, in examining such global media texts as
Japanese
animation, the necessity, and urgency indeed, to be attentive to
specificities
of each case has become unprecedentedly high. Only very local examples
could
shed lights on the blind spots of meta-narratives that have been so far
mostly
constricted to the topography of conflicting nation-states. As David
Morleyindicates, in globalization locality is not simply subsumed in a national
or
global sphere [but] increasingly bypassed in both directions: experience
is
both unified beyond localities and fragmented within them. (Morley, 9)
More importantly, the study of the individual and private patterns of
media
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
19/24
appropriation is now, more than ever, closely related to political
questions.
For, a new subjectivity in the age of the global/postmodern, which is
thoroughly
penetrated by commercial media, yet at the same time, released from
the
restrictive forms of traditional human subjectivity, can be possibly imagined
as
political agency. It might be too soon to share Arjun Appadurais hopeful
vision
of the political future of the imagined communities of global media
reception,
which he believes to be capable of moving from shared imagination to
collective
action and of creating the possibility of convergences in translocal
social
action that would otherwise be hard to imagine. There still remain a series
of
critical questions to be answered, on how the border-crossing
imaginary
communities can be mobilized as political agency and how theindividual
subjectivity formed within the global media environments can be returned
to
collective relations, and the like. Nevertheless, the implications of
being
actively engaged with global media texts and participating in
discursive
communities by becoming the remembering/imagining subjects in a certain
style
could be political. For, being animated by global media texts like anime
is, I
would argue, the most personal yet social activity, and the most
schizophrenic
yet liberating experience in the context of globalization.[21]
[1] Repeatedly, Fredric Jameson insists on calling the current
material
conditions late capitalism instead of post-industrialism
or
multinational consumer capitalism to emphasize the continuity
rather
than the break between different historical phases of capitalist
system,
borrowed from Ernst Mandels tripartite formula. Whichever terms
Jameson
prefers to use, though, what he means by late capitalism seems
toparallel to the series of new phenomena, which is now generally
called
globalization: Besides the forms of transnational business,
its[the
new systems] features include the new international division of
labor,
a vertiginous new dynamic in international banking and the
stock
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
20/24
exchanges, new forms of media interrelationship, computers
and
automaton, the flight of production to advanced Third World areas,
along
with all the more familiar social consequences, including the crisis
of
traditional labor, the emergence of yuppies, and gentrification on
a
now-global scale (Quotes from Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic
of
Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991. p. xix)
[2] Frederik Schodt, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. p. 4.
[3] Kwang-woo Noh, A Study on the International Manufacturing of
Korean
Animation.. p. 48.
[4] Of course, animation has appeared in Japanese film history as
early
as in 1917 as a form of avant-garde experiments and the firstcell
animation feature film (A Life of White Snake) was, although
arguably,
released for the public in 1958 (Rak-Hyun Song, 50 Years of
Japanese
Animation History Pink. September 1995). However, it seems to
me
reasonable to consider anime as a distinctly postwar cultural
phenomenon
since, let alone mangas development as a cheap and easily
accessible
popular entertainment form in the postwar situation, from which
anime
originated, the real break-through in anime came with Tezuka
Osamus
famous Astroboy Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) series in 1963.
[5] Richard Corliss, Amazing Anime Time 154 (22 November 1999), p.
94.
[6] Susan Napier, Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke. p.7.
[7] Frederik Schodt, Ibid. p, 148.
[8] For instance, In 1984/85, anime TV shows like Voltron, Defender
of
the Universe, Robotech, Transformers, and Gobots generated anastounding
boom in toys, coloring books, and even locally scripted and
drawn
comics. Hasbro Bradleys robot toys, Transformers (designed
and
manufactured by Takara) reaped $100 million in their first year
to
become the most successful toy introduction ever. Quotes from
Frederik
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
21/24
L. Schodts Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo, New
York
and London: Kodansha International, 1997. p.156.
[9] Understandably, the rationalization of production and recruitment
of
the inexpensive Asian labor in animation production was first started
by
Hollywood studios since the 1960s, which have established
their
production facilities as many regions as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan,
the
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India,
Indonesia,
China, and maintained them to the extent that about 90% of
the
American television animation is still produced in Asia (John A.
Lent,
Animation in Asia: Appropriation, Reinterpretation, and Adoption
or
Adaptation, p. 6.). Nevertheless, the relationship between theAsian
labor force and the Japanese animation production, in my view, needs
to
be considered in a more elaborate way than that between the Third
world
labor and Hollywood studios. For, let alone the geographical
proximity,
we need to think about the complicated historical past
(Japans
colonizing project in the first half of the 20th century) and
the
intricate cultural present (the laborers attached relations to
anime
texts).
[10] Kwang-woo Noh, A Study on the International Manufacturing
of
Korean Animation. p. 48
[11] John A. Lent, Animation in Asia: Appropriation,
Reinterpretation,
and Adoption or Adaptation from Screening the Past, Issue 11
(Nov.
2000) (www.latrobe.edu.au/www/screeningthepast).
[12] Editorial, Korea Times (28 June, 2000), p. 2.
[13] The Japanese critic Ueno Toshiya is said to have been shocked
to
find an image of Kaneda, a juvenile delinquent character in
Otomo
Katsuhiros anime Akira, among the political posters in war-
stricken
Sarajevo, Serbia in 1993: other posters are reported to have
featured
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
22/24
the images of Mao Zedong and the Chiappas liberation group (A story
from
Susan Napiers Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke, p. 4-5.).
[14] Widya Santoso, What is Cosplay
on
www.nyx.net/~wsantoso/cosptext.html.
[15] Kim Ki-sun, Korean critic and host of a website on cosplay,
has
remarked that, after five years of practices, the cosplay in Korea
have
become to be characterized by group performances, differently from
the
Japanese version that still remains as a form of costume party
in
which individual players get together and display their separate
works
(From The Future and Possibility of the Korean Cos-Culture
on
www.cosnara.com).
[16] Filmography with Selected Manga in Helen McCarthys
Hayao
Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation: Films, Themes,
Artistry.
Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 1999.
[17] Otaku is defined simply as an obsessive fan or collector of
anime
in the West, although the term has broader and often more
degrading
connotations in Japan. Takashi Murakami, one of the leading artists
in
the punk art trend, prefers to call his art poku (pop+otaku)
because
Murakami identifies himself with those isolated, discriminated,
and
hopeless subscribers of subcultures. (Takashi Murakami, an
interview
by Mako Wakasa in Journal of Contemporary Art, 2001. www.jca-
online.com
).
[18] Eric Nakamura, Protective Art: Kenji Yanobe Invades the US
with
His Art, Giant Robot. No. 8 (Summer 1997).
[19] Yoshimoto Nara: Kids, Dogs, and Knives on Canvas, an interview
by
Eric Nakamura, Giant Robot. No. 20, p. 26-27.
[20] Leo Ching, Imaginings in the Empires of the Sun: Japanese
Mass
Culture in Asia in Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture,
John
Whittier Treat, ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
23/24
8/11/2019 Animated Subjects
24/24
Paik Nak-chung, Seoul, 28 October 1989, Global/Local: Cultural Production
and
the Transnational Imaginary. Eds. Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake. Durham
and
London: Duke University Press, 1996. p. 348-371.
Lent, John A. Animation in Asia: Appropriation, Reinterpretation, and
Adoption
or Adaptation, Screening the Past, No. 11 (Nov.
2000).
(www.latrobe.edu.au/www/screeningthepast).
McCarthy, Helen. Filmography with Selected Manga Hayao Miyazaki: Master
of
Japanese Animation: Films, Themes, Artistry. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone
Bridge
Press, 1999.
Morley, David. Where the Global Meets the Local: Notes from the Sitting
Room,
Screen 21, no. 1 (1991).
Nakamura, Eric. Protective Art: Kenji Yanobe Invades the US with His
Art,
Giant Robot. No. 8 (Summer 1997).
Nakamura, Eric. Yoshimoto Nara: Kids, Dogs, and Knives on Canvas, Giant
Robot.
No. 20. p. 24-28.
Napier, Susan. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing
Contemporary
Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
Noh, Kwang-woo. A Study on the International Manufacturing of
Korean
Animation. (A Masters Thesis: Korea University, 2000).
Schodt, Frederik L. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo, New
York
and London: Kodansha International, 1997.
Wakasa, Mako. Takashi Murakami: an Interview Journal of Contemporary
Art,
2001. www.jca-online.com