Cool Japan: A Look Into Exotic Anthropology

Via Japan Society

A response to coverage of the KRAZY! anime & manga art exhibit at the New York Japan Society and a preview of my lecture/presentation at the Popular Culture Association national conference on Wednesday 8 April.

If geeks had never thought of anime as cool, it would never have become popular in America. This is a basic but true statement, hands down. One intrinsic tenets of being a fan of something is that we want more of it. So when science fiction geeks back in the ’70s noticed this new thing called anime being shipped over to the States, they wanted to get their hands on more. Once they were able to do just that, the opportunity to discover more about Japan became a reality.

I’m not here to say that geeks in America were the first to jump on the “Japan is awesome” bandwagon. In fact, interest in Japan hit another peak of popularity before the ’70s, when ukiyo-e block prints were exported to the States (to end up primarily at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). It’s almost common knowledge nowadays that ukiyo-e were not respected by creators of high art in Japan; the Wikipedia page confirms this, describing the prints as “mainly meant for townsmen, who were generally not wealthy enough to afford an original painting. The original subject of ukiyo-e was city life, in particular activities and scenes from the entertainment district.” But artists — particularly those Impressionist painters in Europe, like Van Gogh, — thought the prints were cool (or at least different), picked them up like a frequent browser in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and brought them home to share with their friends. The story of art and the story of fans.

Even before the Impressionist interest in ukiyo-e, people have been viewing Japanese “stuff,” or really Asian “stuff,” with that “This is certainly different” perspective. Edward Said, professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, even wrote a book about it, On Orientalism (1978). “According to Said, the West has created a dichotomy, between the reality of the East and the romantic notion of the “Orient. The Middle East and Asia are viewed with prejudice and racism. They are backward and unaware of their own history and culture. To fill this void, the West has created a culture, history, and future promise for them. On this framework rests not only the study of the Orient, but also the political imperialism of Europe in the East” (Western Michigan University). From the quoted description, basically, foreigners place fantastic identities over the realities of the East. In other words, we look at the East as different, then identify the East based on our assumptions, perceptions, etc.

Susan Napier, author of Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (2001, 2005) and professor at Tufts University, attempts to tackle the obsession over Orientalism in her most recent publication, From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West (2007). While Said presents the material in a relatively ambivalent tone, Napier takes a supportive stance on the matter, encouraging the Orientalist worldview. Almost in response to Said, she writes, “And yet Japan also shared one major element with its fellow Eastern Others, and that is its position as an object of fantasy to the West, or, more accurately, as the embodiment of a variety of fantasies to the West. I use the word ‘fantasy’ to suggest a range of connotations. Generally, ‘fantasy’ is interpreted in a positive light, as a wish-fulfilling dream…” (Napier 3). She goes on to mention the opposite, darker side of seeing the East as different (eg., “the fantastic term ‘Yellow Peril’”), but the comment is essentially dismissed by the following chapters of the book.

It may be a valid perspective to take on the issue of a “cool” Japan, but I do not believe that it is what Said meant to insist. Although he sees the study of the East as a positive reaction, ultimately the negative, sister-reaction is the imperialism of identity, or forcing extravagant, exotic, and overall exaggerated views on something like anime or manga. Yes, it’s true that Japanese culture can be weird, or pornographic, or violent, but 1) that’s not all it is, and 2) nowadays, what isn’t? That a book can be published twenty-five years after Akio Nakamori wrote “Otaku Studies” in Manga Burikko, calling Japanese fans “those kids — every class has one — who never got enough exercise, who spent recess holed up in the classroom, lurking in the shadows obsessing over a shogi board or whatever. That’s them. Rumpled long hair parted on one side, or a classic kiddie bowl-cut look. Smartly clad in shirts and slacks their mothers bought off the “all ¥980/1980” rack at Ito Yokado or Seiyu [discount retailers], their feet shod in knock-offs of the “R”-branded Regal sneakers that were popular several seasons ago, their shoulder bags bulging and sagging — you know them. The boys were all either skin and bones as if borderline malnourished, or squealing piggies with faces so chubby the arms of their silver-plated eyeglasses were in danger of disappearing into the sides of their brow; all of the girls sported bobbed hair and most were overweight, their tubby, tree-like legs stuffed into long white socks” (translation via Neojaponisme).

The problem today is that the Weird Japan perspective is still dominant in the American mindset. Perhaps it’s in part due to the proliferation of Japanese game shows in the early days of YouTube (and that, frankly, would be kind of awesome if it were the true reason). However, the fact that foreign policy is now dictated by seeing Japan as weird or cool is a bit strange and most likely the wrong attitude to take. Douglas McGray wrote his Japan’s Gross National Cool in 2002, stating that “Japan is reinventing superpower again [because] Japan’s global cultural influence has only grown” (in Foreign Policy magazine). When McGray quotes Toshiya Ueno (who recently spoke in a lecture at the Krazy! exhibit, which I will talk about more later) as confessing “I can’t always distinguish elements of traditional Japanese culture from Japanese culture invented for tourists,” I feel that such a confession proves Said’s point, in that America has looked upon Japan as an entity entirely different from its reality. To reiterate that point, I wonder just how many people think that anime is popular in Japan (because it’s not when you disregard the otaku — it’s seen as a kid’s thing, and if you’re in middle school you’d better not still be watching it unless you want to be branded as uncool). I could go on to argue that Japan’s governmental effort to export popular culture won’t work, because the fandom abroad didn’t grow on being fed, and that’s not how things become popular (just like how marketers trying to make something “viral” or “a meme” online will fail), but I’ll save that for another blog post.

But to approach the question I want to ask: Why do some people still see Japan as exotic? It’s been proved that we can look at the history of anime and fans in detail and with context — research that leads to well-founded results. For example, in 1999 in his book The Anime Companion: What’s Japanese in Japanese Animation, Gilles Poitras writes definitions in a faux-dictionary format for many Japanese and American terms that relate to fandom or animation. When he describes “otaku,” he does not illustrate the term à la Akio Nakamori, but writes, “The use of the term otaku has an interestig history. Literally, the word is written as a combination of the character for ‘house’ and the honorific prefix o- and can be translated as ‘your house.’ The word can also be used for ‘you’ as a very polite way of addressing another person in conversation. For many of the shy, socially inept young males who are anime and manga fans in Japan, such a safe way of speaking is common… The word sticks and is used by the media and fans to describe anyoe obsessed with a particular subject…” (Poitras 103). Clearly not a detailed elucidation, but fairly succinct nonetheless. The conflict occurs between the perspective of the fan (Poitras) versus the perspective of the media. Two years later, we still saw a popular media outlet like Wired Magazine publishing an article where even in the title, The Incredibly Strange Mutant Creatures who Rule the Universe of Alienated Japanese Zombie Computer Nerds (Otaku to You), by Karl Taro Greenfeld, the exoticism stands out. Perhaps it’s just the fact that the overall stereotype of the fandom today remains something like this:

I am not against people viewing Japan as cool. In fact, I support it, because Japan is cool. I went there; I know. Actually, the reality things there are so different (read: occasionally pretty f—ed up) makes the Japanese quotidian lifestyle, popular culture, food and sex and everything even cooler. It’s even better when people celebrate that fact. A few weeks ago I talked to Ian Condry (professor of Japanese at MIT, author of Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization, and founder of the Cool Japan Research Project lecture series at MIT) about graduate school and anime studies, and we discussed the Cool Japan project for a few minutes. It’s basically an awesome set of lectures to attend if you’re ever in the Boston area. And it provides great access to things that are cool about Japan; this academic year, for instance, the lectures have focused on anime, politics, mobile phones, robots, and being… well, uncool. The project’s goals are described: “The project presents colloquia, international conferences, and arts events to examine the cultural connections, dangerous distortions, and critical potential of popular culture. The goal is to encourage scholarly debate, research, and networking in the Boston area for faculty and students interested in media and globalization related to Japan.” But nowhere do we see anything about some amazing new thing from Japan that’s weird and will blow your mind away. Here, Japan is about interest, not surprise.

However, the Japan Society in New York has a different perspective. From Friday 13 March to Saturday 14 June, they’re putting on an art/film/music/a-lot-of-other-stuff exhibit called KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games. Now, when I heard about this initially on the Anime/Manga Research Circle list, I was physched, because I’m still of the mind that greater access (to anything… usually…) is a good thing. What caught my immediate attention, though, was the name: Krazy! But not just that, because there’s also the blatant capitalization, the use of the word “delirious,” and the much-appreciated (read: much-sarcastic) application of plus signs. I guess I’ll go backwards to explain.

1) Not really sure why addition is a theme in the title of the exhibition, but since I can’t argue now, I can only explain. Perhaps the plus sign, up against the now-outdated (?) ampersand [&], is an artistic representation of the virtual future implied by Japanese animation and its related culture.
2) Delirious. Adjective. a) In an acutely disturbed state of mind resulting from illness or intoxication and characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech. b) In a state of wild excitement or ecstacy. — Not sure the reasoning behind the use of the word delirious, but besides the fact that it embellishes and hyperbolizes anime and its following way beyond their actual nature, my guess would be that most attendees to the exhibit can’t even define the word and just glaze over it. One more point scored for institutions of higher education.
3) Using “krazy” is probably my biggest gripe. Subtitles can, for the most part, be ignored. But a headline like KRAZY! is overkill. The exclamation point. The capitalization. The misspelling. It reminds me of modern advertising that uses the word “like” as if it were correct grammar, the intent being to try to draw in a younger, more “modern” audience. It seems like the same thing is happening here. For the kids, the title attracts. For the adults, and especially the parents, it intrigues. KRAZY! is modern marketing at its best (which means the history of advertising at its worst).

But I’m not here to dismiss the exhibit. In fact, I still want to attend (even though I probably won’t be able to until the end of April, or after graduation in May. What I want to express is my continual irritation with what I see as exotic anthropologizing. Anime isn’t mainstream (look for a post on that in the future), but it’s not like it hasn’t been around in the states for a few decades, or at the very least hasn’t been prominent in the media since Miyazaki won his Academy Award on primetime American television in 2002. I have to live with the fact that the media will continually see popular culture as a bad thing — be it video games as violent, anime as pornography, the Internet as unsafe — but grad school would be boring if this wasn’t happening, because I’m interested in cultural perspectives with regard to media. And also, it’s been the story of the term “otaku” in Japan, ever since the media pegged Tsutomu Miyazaki as the otaku killer.

My reaction to KRAZY! was propelled by fellow anime bloggers’ personal reactions. It all started with JP and Hinano over at 見ないで! ひとり言. JP makes an eloquent point: “It reminds of the kind of cultural dilettantism that rubs me the wrong way, where some culture (and more accurately, some random aspect of culture that gets to stand in for the whole) becomes “so in right now” and is then stripped of context, recontextualized through the dilettante’s cultural lenses, and then is discarded,” which essentially becomes an irritation about non-fans trying to explain anime fandom, whether in the US of Japan. Ian Condry and I discussed that during our meeting, and it came up in my five-hour conversation with Lawrence Eng when I met him at South by Southwest this past weekend. Essentially, the question is not if scholars have a right to approach these topics, but whether they can sustain study in it long enough that anime doesn’t become an academic fad. Eng did bring up the issue of writing from the perspective of a fan (and writes at length about it in his PhD dissertation on otaku and technology), but the current trend seems to dictate that fans are more willing to come at academic or generally in-depth studies from a more objective angle. More coverage of the event (and definitely more positive coverage) can be found at Omonomono and Ogiue Maniax (the latter who, happily for me, writes, “Overall I didn’t get too much of a “HEY GUYS! ANIME!” vibe from the exhibition”). The most interesting piece of press ended up in the New York Times, where Ken Johnson reported that “the show is, in some ways, more like a faddish boutique than a museum exhibition.” However, Johnson does go on to say, and this sums up my point, that because the exhibit “leaves out fine art, it doesn’t make a strong case for why nonaficionados should take seriously genres that appear to be aimed at children and teenagers.” What I mean to say is that it’s not about whether or not it’s high or low or middle art, but that it’s already been appreciated, so it should be cultivated.

I’d definitely support going to see this exhibit. It seems fun, and I feel that interesting incentives like a Yoko Kanno listening booth add much to an exhibit “about anime, manga, and video games.” It seems that, although the poster and media depend a lot on Afro Samurai as a main attraction, there’s a lot of obscure or overlooked pieces on display (see About.com‘s review).

Also, this article has been a little exploration into a topic that I’m presenting a panel-form lecture on at the Popular Culture Association national conference in New Orleans, Louisiana at the beginning of April. If you’re down that way, maybe you can stop by and check out the Japanese Popular Culture: Anime panel that I’m on (that is, if the PCA doesn’t charge $100 just to see one or two talks). Otherwise, I’ll post my paper here online after the conference. If you’re looking through the PDF of the schedule I linked to, you can find me under “Otaku and the (Un)popular Fandom.”