But what do I mean by an “academic review”? Well, put most simply, the fundamental form of academic writing is the literature review, and the social tenet that holds academic published research together is the citation. If you don’t understand this latter point, hit up Google Scholar, throw in a search term, and you’ll see that the “most important academic works” are those with high “cited by” counts.

Anyway, so how can we provide an academic bent to review writing? Well, there are technically already “academic reviews” available: simply pick up a copy of Mechademia and flip to the back pages, where you’ll find a host of critically insightful reviews of anime and manga titles. These reviews provide references to and citations of other academic texts, but tend to avoid other reviews from professional reviewers, other academics, or whomever.

The idea I would like to put forth in this short article, though, is that there’s another type of “academic review” that is not really used: reviews that reference previously-written reviews, as if the networks of reviewers mirrored the networks of academics that make up contemporary academic research matrices.

Looking through some criticism about writing reviews for anime and manga, once in a while I see authors writing, “So-and-so has already said enough about this title, so I don’t really have much more to say.” But I want to criticize these stances, because a reviewing author should take into account what others view about a piece of media, at the very least to inform his or her own opinion in the review-to-be-written.

I’ve been meaning to add more reviews of anime and manga titles to this blog, but I’ve continually taken the approach of writing critical, exploratory essays about the titles rather than mere reviews. So starting soon, I’m going to attempt to publish a few academic reviews on this blog that reference reviews currently written in the blogosphere.

Of course, I perceive an interesting gap in the current anime/manga blogging phenomenon, which is that there’s not much written about what both the Japanese- and English-language spheres are saying about a particular work. In the hopes that this will help (read: force) me to translate more Japanese writing about anime and manga, particularly from notable — though probably random — Japanese bloggers, I’m going to start writing reviews that reference the current discourse on Japanese popular media. Because that’s what academic is all about: creating, interacting with, and maintaining critical discourse about topics.

I hope that this will help foster greater communication between, or at least appreciation and understanding of, the Japanese and English fandoms.

I’d love to hear what others have to say about this referential approach: please leave comments! And hopefully I’ll have a review up in the next week or so. I’ll be starting with Asano Inio‘s relatively-unknown manga, Goodnight Punpun (Oyasumi Punpun).

I’ve had this short interview with Shoko Nakagawa at Anime Expo 2008 from Anime Genesis in my Firefox tab queue for a number of weeks, but I finally got around to clicking play this evening.

If Japanese otaku fandom is a bit under the radar for you, Nakagawa-san’s name has garnered a lot of attention in the past couple years. Besides obviously singing the intro theme to Gainax’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, “Shokotan” (as many fans call her) is notorious for calling herself an otaku (or, well, “not really”). Whether or not she cares about authenticity, she runs a blog on which she at least sometimes posts about otakudom. Patrick Macias wrote up an article about her for the Japan Times at the beginning of this year if you’re interested in reading that here.

The blog must be mentioned, since it caused a stir on 2channel, but particularly because in the Anime Genesis interview above, she draws a connection between blogging, the Japanese otaku community, and the contemporary reception of otaku in Japan. If you were too lazy to watch, the translation reads, “Times have changed and the otaku culture is certainly more accepted in Japan right now, because everyone blogs and there are community sites where you can share your interests with other people.” I’m not so certain if the public sentiment toward otaku has improved because of blogging. But it seems that Nakagawa-san suggests at minimum a stronger, maybe even reestablished, sense of community among otaku in Japan, certainly post-Miyazaki. Obviously there’s been a huge cultural shift in otaku habits to the Internet, particularly at 2channel. However, I can’t really judge the relative impact of the Internet on Japanese fandom, mainly due to the dichotomy between blogging and general Internet communities and where 1) discussion, 2) critique, and 3) socializing occurs.

The Internet has also visibly helped out the American fandom in solidifying regional bases and connecting fans on a wider scale across the nation (which of course is much larger than Japan). But my thought is whether the American fandom needs anime bloggers. Japan for the most part lacks any events similar to American anime conventions, so I can understand how blogs have aided in the dissemination of ideas for otaku. However, anime conventions in the United States were created for the explicit purpose of connecting fans to watch and discuss Japanese animation. As a lot of the fandom established headquarters on the Internet, we saw the convention circuit explode with new faces and names, as staff circles could be more easily formed and marketing of events more easily announced. But what has blogging as a medium done for the American fandom?

First, I must distinguish between the mediums over which fans communicate. Basically, there exist forums and blogs, which serve different purposes: the former to foster discussion, the latter stimulate long-form writing. In theory, blogging would have replaced fanzine articles. But I’m not so sure that it has. In my limited experience of looking at anime blogs, I see more articles relates to episode-centric impressions than anything else, but how many times does this observation have to be repeated?

One thing we certainly don’t see much of anymore is fansites. The fall of Geocities possibly heralds the end of that form of fan-propelled curation of information. But with free services like blogs replacing services like web hosting, we won’t see much more of the intense excavation of series as we did with fansites, on which the creators wrote as much as possible about one (or more) series. The modern equivalent of this is Wikipedia, which I suppose might make fansites pointless.

But if blogs aren’t going to connect fans to information, or at least critique, then I’m not so sure that blogs matter in the long run to the anime fandom. Or is it really that communication as a fan activity has decreased as well? It seems at modern conventions we see a minority of discussion about anime, with more focus spent on masquerades or what have you (this observation has also been beaten into the ground). But if panels are the only surviving artifact of fans sitting in a room talking about anime, then perhaps the fandom is slowly breaking apart, returning to a bunch of people in the same country watching the same shows. At the same time, though, American fandom hasn’t suffered from the social affects (ie., 義理) as has the Japanese fandom (here I blatantly mean the repercussions of Miyazaki in 1989). Then there’s also the question of how many fans actually use blogs or read them at all.

Not many is my assumption.

I thought it already difficult to take notes and eventually blog after a live feed had already informed the people who cared about the content. Is there really a point in taking notes if the original content is available in full? Probably not. But I don’t want to suggest that blogging is out of the option. For one, blogging, although a form of journalism, is also a form of exploration, through essay form. The author may process the original content and produce reactions: argument, hypothesis, questions. The blog medium may also take on a hypertextual nature, unlike paper or televisual journalism, so even more information can be accessed to provide more context for the audience. In fact, blog articles plus original visual media is possibly the best opportunity for the digital author, because he has a primary text to reference directly, like a film.

I bring all this up because Berkman@10 is webcasting the conference’s panels and lectures, and will most likely publish the video recordings as it has done in the past. The Berkman Center’s actions help push forward initiatives like BU’s OpenCourseWare project to get videos of lectures, and other course materials, online for public use. And I’m happy about that.

Because of academic and extracurricular duties though, I had to skip out on all of the events Friday and Sunday (and, to be honest, Saturday morning, because I overslept). However, I did attend two very interesting panels on 1) Chinese religion versus secularization, and 2) comic and animation culture in Asia, presented by Professor John Lent. I was drawn to Lent presentation and it proved to be worthwhile. He went over a broad range of animation and its history in Asia, surprisingly with little inclusion of Japanese animation, instead focusing more on Western, Central, and Southern Asian comics.

I really want to the conference next year and dedicate a good amount of my time toward… being present. I think I’ll also try to prepare two white papers, because a lot of students presented small talks, panels, and discussion seminars based on personal research.

Last Thursday (10 April), I biked myself breathless after work over to MIT’s Bartos Theater to attend a panel discussion, hosted by the MIT Communications Forum, between Yochai Benkler and Cass Sunstein (heralded also by Henry Jenkins) entitled Our World Digitized: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The talk focused mainly on the positive and negative consequences of the digital age when global and communal populations converge in Web 2.0.

I really liked the panel, although it began with a very philosophically-styled debate between Benkler and Sunstein. Also, the former is much more suited to talk to an audience (sorry, Sunstein, but you’re such a lawyer, and hence sound like one). Sunstein seemed to focus more on the “bad” and Benkler the “good,” but both agreed on the positive connectivity present in the WIkipedia system. The main concern, said Sunstein, will be group polarization: a clustering of like-minded individuals that will further a predisposition or agenda (eg. Democrats and, say, pro-choice) so much so that it becomes violent and harmful. However, both agreed that the Internet will run its course based around two schemes: clustering and, the virtue, curiosity.

At both events, I dragged along my clunky PowerBook G4 to take notes (I might add quickly that most of Mac laptop users at both events were using the modernized MacBooks and it makes me a bit envious). Instead of notes, though, I considered liveblogging both events.

Liveblogging basically means to type and publish during the event. From what I’ve read, the purpose has been to beat other journalists to the digital press. The blogger does not simply play the role of transcriber, but should feel free to comment on subtleties of the event (eg. the speaker walking up to the podium) and to include an immediate subjective analysis.

I want to highlight the key word in my description of “liveblogging”: immediate. Again, the purpose appears to be to publish an account of the event as soon as possible, to gain the most attention from the reading audience. However, many nuisances crop up in relation to liveblogging’s immediate nature.

I believe the first difficulty to approach is how to define the relationship of journalism, or the role that journalism plays, to the general public. The blogger’s primary concern is one of objectivism. The journalist acts as intermediary between the incident and the audience, and at most times provides an objective reaction in layman’s terms. Basically, the journalist recounts to the public, word for word (or, that is the ideal situation). However, the journalist should strive for objectivism, to allow for his or her audience to overlay reaction, opinion, and subjectivism on its own.

I don’t think that liveblogging satisfies the necessity of objectivism. Blogging, inherently, consists of some element of the subjective. Ultimately, opinion and reaction fuel what is known as the Web’s blogosphere, to create a continual dialogue amongst users. Also, the second by second time limited environments in which these writers work do not allow for any sort of instantaneous judgments. Liveblogging eliminates the need to step back from the event, consider the content, and proceed to analyze.

Where does that leave me? For one, I had no need to beat anyone to the chase; so, really, what was the point of liveblogging? Essentially I just took notes, plain and simple. An interesting experiment: noteblogging. No grammatical priorities, no authorial input. Only what the writer took away from the event.

Well, I definitely take exhaustive notes. I’ll post both events’ at the conclusion of this post. But in conclusion: liveblogging is fairly worthless. I’ve read a few over the past week and honestly the sacrifice of style to make a deadline isn’t worth it.

Print & Film Cartoons: Nearing the Vanguard of East Asian Popular Culture
John Lent

International Journal of Comic Art

Q: why should animation & comics be studied academically?

Comics: ‘national book’ Philippines (komiks)

Jap manga: selling in billions every year; why do we have audiences for these media?

Stereotype; academic snobbery to not study comic/animation media

Trends seen in Asian comics/animation in last 20 years

Japan: 1.5/2 billion comic books sold; 45% of printed material in country
dozens of magazine prints that circulate 1 million copies / week

comics/animation: as economic export

Japanese comics: moving into Taiwan/Korea 30/40 years ago, pirated versions

Reaction against Japanese comics abroad
Cartoonists: quit drawing because of double standard: National Compilation and Translation Institute; gov’t (ie. censorship): letting in Japanese comics, clamping down on Taiwanese comics
Origami Fighters: artists: claimed not influenced by manga: not violent enough, no nudity/sex

South Korea: censorship of Jap comics; Jap cultural products banned from S.K.
1992: interviewed head of ethics commission: how can you censor something that’s not supposed to be here in the first place?
Jap manga: republished by local publishers: anything that identified ~ as Japanese: removed/edited (ie. Japanese –> Korean background)
1994: group campaigning against Japanese comic books; upset: Jap comics have such influence in their country; influence = taking away from Korean market;

Korean comics: hard to see difference between Jap/Korean comic books
characters in Korean comics: softer, more emotional (Westerner wouldn’t pick up on ~)

Hong Kong comic book industry: thriving in ’90s

Japanese comics: impact on SE Asia:
too many people look at negative side of influence
Jap comics: revived comic book industry
US: comic book industry in trouble
influx of Jap comics: helped revive it
modern: everyone drawing everything in same style, same content

Indonesia: reasons why own comics didn’t do well: economics (cheaper to import Jap comics than create own, local comic had very narrow repetoire while Jap comics covered so many stories/characters, Indonesia: social issues that were taboo that couldn’t touch even in comics)

Malaysia/Singapore: not comic book tradition until manga imported, same for animation on television
Lot: made own popular comic in Malaysia: based on own childhood in Malaysian country: keeps traditions alive in own comic books

Sri Lankan comics

Impact of Jap comics throughout Asia

Next: growth, changing status of industries in Asia
new companies
globalization
commercialization (merchandise)

governments: getting involved: to expand markets (not just interested in domestic market)
South Korea: 1994: gov’t: realized most important/profitable cultural export: animation; produced much of America’s animation
gov’t: ’94/’95: pumped a lot of money into animation
Seoul International Comics & Animation Festival ’95
set up Cartoon Network on TV
feature length films
started to expand education in animation/comics
’93/’94: 1 or 2 year technical animation colleges; within 5-7 years: number grown to 150 universities, tech colleges, even 6 high school (full animation/comic art departments)
gov’t: changed status of industry: had many tax breaks

Gila Gila 1978: 1st of humor magazines in Malaysia, then boom followed for these magazines; Gila Gila: top circulated magazine in area (more even than women’s magazines)

Singapore: number of types of comic book publishers
independent companies
companies that obtain rights from outside
publishers with own publication programs/directions to produce original titles (eg. Asiapac Books)
internet publishers

Philippines: 1 of strongest traditions of comics in Asia ’60s/’70s: of 150/160 movie titles published / year, 50% of movies animated
many artists: wanted money, better market: worked in US for DC/Marvel comics

Taiwan: modern industry: in some trouble now; 8 major companies down to 6; staff numbers cut
businessmen: looking for short term gains: so won’t pump money into comic industry
comic artists: not making deadlines, slowing down production

India: moving up in industry: Branson (Virgin): helped Indians start up lines of comics (eg. uses Indian characters/content; global collaboration between international film makers to find stories; seek talent among all creative fields to help create comic book stories)

worldwide: comics/animation: suffer from lack of good stories (also relates to film arena)

why do companies go into animation?
survival strategies:
not just thinking about comic books
expect to make money from lines of merchandise
exist just to recreate japanese comics or import them directly
also could be: wishes to have characters/stories adapted to film, video games, etc.

comics of Asia: multitude: genres, sizes, &c.
normal size, pocket size: for people to transport (eg. during traffic)

comics: reinvented themselves through Internet
webcomics
use on mobile phones (eg. buy pornographic/racy comic in private)
graphic novel: taken off in last decade, esp. in US
other genres: Korea: educational comics (used to study for exams) [Japanese: become them, eg. economic simplified in comics version]
underground comics

4) more recognition/prestige given to animators/comic artists in Asia

5) role of women
years ago: only in Japan as cartoonists
now: even in Pakistan: popular female artist
images of women: changing as well (past: put into demeaning roles)

in China: 2 golden ages of animation; 2nd: ended in 1988
positive aspect: had time and money to produce whatever needed

ended w/ animation: tadpoles searching for mother frog, watercolor animation
Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_6zK6Y0uUGk
Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t3oAOvfrBf8

Our World Digitized: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Yochai Benkler (B), Cass Sunstein (S), Henry Jenkins (J), [audience (Q)]

S: grade for internet: C-; “brilliant insight & cruelty”
later says: harsh: against realistic ideal;
if you have freedom of choice; can select options liked best, can go home;

B: what is the degree of engagement?
production of common experience: in old mass media: through gov’t/ advertisements –> dependencies
what is an elite? democracy: better now: greater number of people (millions) that can affect agenda w/o dying out

J: digital enclave:
babble hypothesis: are we in danger of excessive fragmentation?

B: most productive tool to map discourse on net: link analysis (who links to whom, what shape does the network take); looking at data: not seeing ‘daily me’ but structured public sphere; shallow network; really what we have: reproduction of mass media: small number of sites being used/looked at;
what we have: google news, social networks, filtering systems, clusters of communities of interests; more fragmented than mass media: yes; better environment to discuss: yes; more communities to obsess: yes; not a utopia, but fragmentation: not imminent

S: group polarization: bring like-minded people together: more in line w/ each other than before meeting in group; Internet operating in this fashion: does not create valid ‘democracy’
linking practices: D/R: cross-linking between each other to high degree: purpose?: to criticize other side
sites cluster, individuals cluster

B: How should we feel about the net as a platform for the public sphere?
practical purposes for politics, for one
What is the arc of culture that is bringing us to the degree of polarization that splits parties (ie. ’94 election) –> NOT the net, alternative cultural models have to exist
how we are in our conversation when we talk politics: we hang out with friends, when w/ people whose views are on other side: might skirt issues; we talk w/ people with whom with agree; arguments: are definition of who we are
we largely cluster & talk w/ each other: say how right we are, how wrong they are, occasionally listen to the other side

S: Jane Jacobs: serendipity of cities: person/building/~ that stuns you: something foreign to your preexisting experience; in cities: surprise of city: will alter you: what you’re interested in, what you care about, your aesthetics, your political views
- if people find someone who agrees with them: find them smarter/more likeable
- judgment: depends on what our norms are

YouTube: exemplification of great American city
negative: how many people keep looking over and over of online media in aversion of ~ candidate
empirical hypothesis: will go online to find information that reinforces own judgments

J: Wikipedia: what is says about civil society & collaborative production of knowledge

S: participation: not as huge as portrayed, but: occurs among everyone
can’t understand Wiki: w/o understanding that everyone has bits of knowledge that others dont’: comes together in aggregation of information/knowledge
best positive: everyone gets a free encyclopedia
for Wiki to work: norms must be in play: to prevent cruelty/lies to destroy enterprise
hierarchical system on top of collaboration that provides a safeguard

B: no disagreement
first few years: info: largely relevant culturally, then permitted
take issue calling it hierarchy: then Wiki gov’t: democratic, through people who volunteer, of people w/ consensus/agreement
Wiki: so good but so imperfect at the same time
human cooperation/collaboration: Wiki says it’s feasible –> so much so: inconceivable
need new model of cooperation: builds over differences even when some people have more sense of trust

S: vandalism: very high
hierarchical administrators: higher in hierarchy, but mainly: have norms, ie. dignity esp for biographies of people

J: models of citizenship, motivation for participation; educational implications?

B: if you think you can affect the agenda, you walk through the world observing things as arguments rather than simply complaints as people who “can’t do anything” –> kibitzing; better than sitting in front of TV & just cursing
young peoples’ use of media: not political? kids: play: practice things they’ll do as adults; play: not just acquisition of skills; kids: growing up looking for things: attitude of seeking
education: if we begin to use affordances of technology to bring into classroom meaningful projects: teach you how to seek information, build networks

S: along certain access: consumers: choose what we want, hope: we’re not just passive recipients of information
citizen v. consumer: for democratic purposes: norms of consumer: differ greatly from those of citizen
Google: culprit for not defining between citizen/consumer

Q: tools that allow exchange of information affect us? how new tools in future will change exchange, in terms of polarization?

S: people hardwired: 1) cluster w/ like minded others, 2) we’re curious
virtue of internet: potential to work against clustering and toward curiosity

B: basic question between tools we adopt & how we change/adapt
also: humans: very plastic: we’re in constant conversation with what we want and what we’ll adopt

Q: cooperation

B: what makes collaboration successful?

Q: of unexpected results: shared communities: as the grow

S: society: need is greater for degree of common experiences

Q: success of Wiki; other Wikimedia: not as successful

S: LostPedia: ex. of where collaborative production will work: because of intense interest: community that has good norms, intense interest; but: what niche is it fulfilling?
q: why would people want to participate in niche information gathering; to trigger norms of collaboration: have to have sense of ‘giving to people’

B: need subcluster of people who are motivated/passionate of subjective news reporting that is not professional: may not tap well into Internet’s much more objectivity

Q: objectivity; potential for highly polarized space; larger environmental issue: in US: D vs R: binary opposition

S: biparty system: does it necessarily ensure polarization? no; w/ environment of multiple parties: mutual action to form gov’t, but majority: think they are better than other parties; in dual party system: some of other side are better than us, we are better than some of them; not winner take all system: total inferiority of the other, not us versus them

B: two-party system: has eliminated left & right and left the middle standing; in US: everyone close to center in terms of the range; squishes together the program instead of greater polarization

Q: in favor of polarization/clusterization

S: empirical work: supports: if likeminded people listen to same people, will be less active in politics; appreciating it: feel more engaged: but pacifying effect
societies: benefit from 1st order diversity & 2nd as well; 1st order: optimal diversity in 1 area: everyone exposed to multiple points of view; 2nd order: diversity across: ie. economics department across universities: society benefits from greater stock of arguments created by polarization

B: ambition that is more substantiative: whether or not you have commitment to the whole

Q: network space vs. real space: small number of people wield huge range of influence: crosses over into the real world: ie. Anonymous

B: new possibility to act maliciously: more scary: should cause us to think of new set of accordances as a bad thing? no.
fear of the freedom of the net –> freedom of the city: still a bit scary

S: some blogs/sites: permeability/networkedness: very destructive to real people

Q: virtual worlds: where we can see people: how it will affect citizentry?

B: “you really feel like you’re in it”; Second Life: trying to see degree how visual perceptions trigger certain responses

follow up Q: real interactions: face-to-face: changed?

S: doesn’t really matter much; no differences yet