Happy New Year, 皆さん！ I feel like the blog dropped off in the last few months of 2009, but I finished up all of my PhD applications (albeit having to drop a couple schools in the end) with ease, so hopefully I’ll be back in the blogging business during the rest of this month! Look forward to (and I’m actually, finally, serious about this) new essays, commentary, and — OMG, really? Yes, really! — new audio podcasts!

In the meantime, take a look at this lecture by Mia Consalvo, who’s currently a Visiting Professor in the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT (where I work). Last semester, she gave a presentation on “western otaku”: American video gamers who interact with Japanese players and culture through MMORPGs. It’s a good, detailed talk, and you can even see me ask a lengthy set of questions at 64m10s. Enjoy!

From Nintendo’s first Famicom system, Japanese consoles and videogames have played a central role in the development and expansion of the digital game industry. Players globally have consumed and enjoyed Japanese games for many reasons, and in a variety of contexts. This study examines one particular subset of videogame players, for whom the consumption of Japanese videogames in particular is of great value, in addition to their related activities consuming anime and manga from Japan. Through in-depth interviews with such players, this study investigates how transnation fandom operates in the realm of videogame culture, and how a particular group of videogames players interprets their gameplay experience in terms of a global, if hybrid, industry.

Or download the video!