Girugamesh, Sakura-Con, & Copywhat?

Posted on 14 April 2009 by Alex Leavitt

Since Sakura-con‘s release of their promotional commercial to YouTube, a lot of buzz, both positive and negative, has swept across the Internet.

On top of the initial reactions in pure text (such as the video’s 2000+ comments as of the publication of this article), even Anime News Network’s Chicks on Anime picked up on the fandom’s backlash.

As much as anyone would like it, I’m not here to discuss the fandom or whatnot. Instead, my interest lies in a connection to a project that I’m helping out on and blogged about before: YouTomb, a project through the Students for Free Culture group at MIT where we look at the takedowns on YouTube.

The tale I will relate has already been told numerous times across the blogosphere. Little Kuriboh, a video producer on Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series. He, as well as many other creators on YouTube, made spin-off productions of the Sakura-con commercial. The commercial seems to have caused quite a ruckus over at 4chan and even made it into the Encyclopedia Dramatica, which catalogues most of the memes and miscellaneous “creativity” that occurs on the 4chan boards. On top of the multiple mashups available on YouTube, LK decided to post his own version of the commercial, entitled GUHROOGAMESH!!!1, onto the video site, which parodied the commercial’s audio using clips from the Yu-Gi-Oh animated series. Eventually, the video was removed by YouTube.

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To Be Continued

Posted on 6 April 2009 by Alex Leavitt

The faculty over at the Department of Alchemy will be on break for the remainder of the week. We didn’t post anything since the beginning of last week, unfortunately, but we did end up switching domains on top of that, so that counts as an update, right? We’ll be at the Popular Culture Association national conference in New Orleans this week; if you’re around, come hang out or drop by the Japanese Popular Culture panel on Wednesday. It’s about anime, and Alex is demonstrating this fine presentation:

Otaku and the (Un)popular Fandom

Over the course of the past three decades, the term “otaku,” a moniker for fans of Japanese animation and its related passions, has survived a multitude of public and private appraisals. “Otaku” describes the conceptualization of a generation’s adherence to fan values, society’s opprobrium toward a targeted yet indistinct group, and the market’s generalization of an obsessive consumer.

What are the politics surrounding this categorization of loyalists to the anime fandom, in which “otaku” remains a negative classification even in the eyes of contemporary fans? What has caused Toshio Okada, theorist of the otaku culture and self-proclaimed Ota-king, to declare that otaku are dead? And in the cultural translation of the anime fandom from Japan to the United States, how have all things otaku blossomed into a mature consumer culture and an accelerated educational progression in the past decade?

From the beginnings of the “otaku movement” (Thomas Lamarre) established in the pursuits of the founders of Studio Gainax, we will examine the rise of otaku culture in the science fiction conventions of Osaka, its public disapproval stemming from media portrayals of Akihabara and hikkikomori, and the subsequent revitalization of anime fandom in the United States as the socialization of otaku proliferated in conventions, across the Internet, and eventually in local bookstores.

The actual presentation will probably not reflect most of the abstract (it was written back in December), but the paper will be uploaded to the blog come Saturday, so look out for it. Until then!