Strangers in the Net, Exchanging Glances

Also, I’m cited in the Wall Street Journal.

Chatroulette, by the Numbers

Also also, the Huffington Post.

ChatRoulette In Park Slope: Private Goes Public (VIDEO)

And according to one friend, he heard us mentioned on CNN while watching television.

(In other news, I’m going to try to get some content up this week. Look out for it.)

Some of my current academic work revolves around analyzing the Evangelion works as a transmedia franchise, particularly in how fans approach consumption and understand of the entire, vast narrative. I question in particular the reception of the four new Evangelion movies. Since they are not remakes of the Evangelion television series and instead are new visualizations of the Evangelion story, these films appeal to two sorts of fans: the viewers that grew up watching the television series, and a new set of fans that are understanding the Evangelion narrative for the first time. The interrelationship between these two sets of fans — particularly because they are divided by generation on top of consumptive experience — poses loads of new questions and problems about how audiences consume transmedia*.

* For example, one set of related comments voiced by fans after having watched the first film focus on how the film is “a remake of the first six episodes of the television series.” This, however, is untrue, as the film disregards most of Shinji’s emotional trauma. But I’ll break down my thoughts on this topic soon in another article…

If you have yet to see the films, I suggest watching these trailers to start:

Evangelion 1.0: You Are [Not] Alone, trailer

Evangelion 2.0: You Can [Not] Advance, trailer

These four films, two of which of course have already been released in Japan, are also a good chance to analyze the idea of auteurism in particular application to Japanese animation. As I said in my last article, a number of visual elements and styles present in Anno’s Kare Kano resemble those of Evangelion. For example, take a look at the following clip from the 22nd episode of Evangelion, in which an angel “literally” rapes Asuka’s mind.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, episode 22
Watch from 6:09, or click here for a direct link to that time. Watch it until about 7:00.

The quick cuts and flashing words are typical in Evangelion, particularly in times of emotional stress. The style of this scene is even implied in the opening credits sequence to the television series:

Watch it in full, or skip to 1:06.

Similar to the clip of Asuka above, at these points of visual characterization of emotion, comparable visual elements appear in Kare Kano:

Kare Kano, episode 4
Watch from 1:35, or click here for a direct link to that time. Watch it until 2:50.

A similar thematic element is Anno’s placement of locative and geographical frames over dialogue. For example, check out this short clip:

Kare Kano, episode 4
Watch from 3:46, or click here for a direct link to that time. Watch it until 3:58.

From this clip, as well as the previous ones with words, the visual elements are meant to cue metaphoric connections in the viewer’s mind. It’s really that simple: the clip above shows an “under construction sign” when Yukino (the female character) questions her budding relationship with Souichirou, and then it follows with a stop sign (止まれ), signaling that she should slow down and not get ahead of herself).

We could even present a similar comparison to (auteurist director) Akiyuki Shinbou, who frequently utilizes seemingly arbitrary frames that features places and locations in his animations.

However, after watching the first two Evangelion movies, it appears that the production staff has stripped these emotional elements out of the new narrative entirely. But this should come as no surprise, as the Executive Producer, Toshimichi Outsuki has already commented on the changing face of the Evangelion project. In a NEWTYPE magazine interview (translated for Newtype USA and reproduced here), Outsuki states, “I want everyone — from hardcore fans of the original work to people who only know it because of the licensed stuff — to look at it as a standalone film series.” However, these new innovative changes come at the expense of Anno’s auteurism. The article reads, “Otsuki adds that they’re removing much of the deliberate obfuscation that made Eva infamous: “Filling works with difficult workds [sic] and concepts in order to create confusion among viewers was a good technique 12 years ago, but not anymore, and one of our primary goals for this project is to turn everyone’s expectations upside down.”

This comment is actually pretty interesting in and of itself, because I believe it says much about how Japanese viewers, and particularly otaku in the 1990s, consumed television. That techniques of “confusion” were successful might actually inform our understanding of the construction of anime narratives coming into the 2000s. For example, how does this play into the otaku fervor around The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which was the next mega-success in the anime industry after Evangelion, but which premiered in 2006.

Continuing from that point, the article also reflects on Evangelion’s identity as a sign of the anime industry proper:

The new movies also reflect the staff’s feelings about the state of the anime industry. It’s even suggested that this project is a rejection of current anime production philosophy. “It’s true that Eva was a huge hit,” Otsuki says. “But its success spawned a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in the in the industry, the end result being a bunch of mass-produced junk. That mindset has persisted for ten years, but now we’re in a position to prove it wrong. We’re determined to close the door on the post-Eva era for good.

I find it incessantly interesting that we can define an era of fan activity and industry production by the effects on one Japanese animation.

But then off again to Anime Expo!

Sorry for the aberrant hiatus, everyone. Been really busy in the past few weeks with:

- Open Video Conference, where I spoke about the anime fandom’s balancing act of video culture and copyright law
- Web Ecology Project: We released a white paper full of quantitative analysis about how ideas move in the discourse regarding the Iranian Election on Twitter
- Hanging out in NYC with the crew from my Kyoto study abroad group (KCJS)

I really want/need to write articles this week, so I’ll try to get a lot of content up soon. But I have a lot on my plate right now, specifically fandom research in California and drawing up grant proposals for fandom research in Boston and Tokyo.

Good news is that come Thursday I’ll be in Los Angeles, speaking at Anime Expo. I have four panels lined up, which are:

Anime and Manga in Academia
Saturday, July 04, 2009 6:00pm to 6:50pm – LP 2
Whether you have just begun studying anime and manga seriously or are already well into your studies, this panel will guide you on the path from fan to established Japanese popular culture scholar.

Introduction to Anime/Manga Studies
Friday, July 03, 2009 10:30am to 11:20am – LP 3
Ever wanted to write a school paper on religion in Naruto? Read a book on Neon Genesis Evangelion? Or even get a college degree in otaku studies? Come meet the members of the Anime/Manga Research Circle!

The Problem with Otaku
Sunday, July 05, 2009 12:00pm to 12:50pm LP 2
From 1980s science fiction geeks, the concept of otaku has wholly transformed in Japan and America. We’ll examine the history and controversies of the most crucial part of the anime fandom: the fans.

Without Watching the Anime: Opening & Ending Themes
Friday, July 03, 2009 6:00pm to 6:50pm LP 3
When we watch anime, we tend to ignore what begins and ends series. But these small clips matter too! We’ll discuss history and music, and show some of the most influential OPs & EDs out there.

The rest of my potential schedule looks like this:

Thursday
- Digital Manga Publishing Industry Panel & eManga Demonstration (will miss due to plane arrival)
- Kouga Guest Panel (may miss due to plane arrival)
- Morikawa Guest Panel (may miss due to plane arrival)
- Morning Musume Guest Panel
- Imaishi & Nishigori Guest Panel
- Right Stuf & Nozomi Entertainment Industry Panel
- eigoMANGA Industry Panel
- Japan’s Hottest Doujin Videogames
- Gainax Focus Panel
- The Making of Gurren Lagann Documentary

Friday
- Introduction to Anime/Manga Studies
- Mizushima & Kuroda Guest Panel
- Gundam: The 30 Year Anniversary
- Manga as High Art
- VIZ Media Anime & Manga Panel
- Evangelion 1.0.1 Panel (won’t have time to see the movie due to…)
- Without Watching the Anime: OPs & EDs

Saturday
- The Indecent Otaku Comedy Hour
- Nightow & Nishimura Guest Panel
- Digital Distribution of Anime & Manga
- FUNimation Industry Panel
- Anime & Manga in Academia

Sunday
- Directors Panel [or] Breaking Into Anime Journalism [or] Convention Feedback Session
- Crunchyroll Panel [or] SPJA Board of Directors Panel
- The Problem with Otaku
- Production I.G.
- Closing Ceremonies

Also, I’m still scheduled to speak on a number of panels at Otakon, so if you’re not available to fly out to California this week, I’ll see you in Baltimore!

TED.com officially announced today a project that will crowdsource translations of every TED video in more than forty of the world’s most-vocalized languages. The splash page is viewable here.

The video above is a Japanese translation of Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ demo of Photosynth, one of the more interesting yet much shorter videos available at the TED website. As you can see, the subtitles work pretty well and the timing is for the most part up to par. The only petulant remarks I can make about meticulous details would be: 1) there’s no furigana… but that only applies to Japanese anyway, and 2) the subtitles cover up the images when the projector is shown… but that’s unavoidable, and it’s not that important a matter.

The important issue to take away from TED’s audacious project is something that Ethan Zuckerman summed up quite nicely on Twitter: “TED’s approach to translating video is a first step towards translating the web.” He links to an article of his own that gives a brief background to TED’s translation project. Of course, my stance on the issue of social translation is that fansubs in the anime community have been doing it for years, so it’s not necessarily something “new.” At the same time, however, the social element has never really been an active component of fansubbing. But there was an attempt, one that might have had huge repercussions for the anime industry.

When I attended Otakon in the summer of 2008, I decided off the cuff to drop in on Crunchyroll‘s industry panel, held on Saturday from 1:00 to 2:00 pm in Workshop 1. There’s a lot of information that was passed around at Otakon 2008 in regards to fansubbing and translation — the Fansubs and Industry panel probably the most discussed (note: you can watch the panel via that link to Anime News Network) — but Vu Nguyen announced that Crunchyroll had plans to release tools for the creation of community-driven subtitles.

Keep in mind, the announcement took place before Crunchyroll went “legal.” At the time, the website still hosted anime and Asian dramas that may or may not have been licensed. Putting that aside, though, Crunchyroll provided fans a platform on which to watch subtitled anime and a community through which dialogue could take place about that anime.

However, those subtitles were usually in English. In fact, most subtitles of anime roaming the Net are translated in English, though a good number have been written in other languages, such as French and Spanish (I’m not quite sure the balance of statistics between languages or how many languages are frequently used as goals for translation). Clearly language is a barrier to the wide dissemination of anime to potential fans around the world. Another limitation to translation is the structure of the fansub community. Basically, it takes the form of a team of translators and producers, working together toward a final result, coordinated by a central figurehead.

Social translation solves these two impediments on some level. First, there’s a better chance that more languages will be translated. A problem, of course, is that the translator needs to be bilingual (Japanese and X for anime, or English and Y for the TED talks). Second, tools are provided to take down the infrastructure of translation teams, instead putting the power into the hands of an individual.

I spoke with Vu after the Crunchyroll panel to go over a few details of the project. He first explained that the tools were easy to use. A user relied on the time codes of the English fansub to translate from Japanese to his (probably native) language. One issue that arises here is that the translator could be using the English fansubs to translate, instead of the original Japanese voice overs, but ultimately this is probably unavoidable. Still, it provides a somewhat accurate translation in a language that would otherwise probably not ever be translated. Vu also noted that the translations would be checked by some staff (he didn’t have many details, as the project was still in development) to ensure a certain level of accuracy (mainly to avoid the Nico Nico Douga effect of random text in place of actual subtitles).

I had meant to follow up with Vu in an interview for Youtomb, but then I shipped off to Japan last fall. I sent him an email to inquire further about the project, about which I could find no information this spring. He replied back in April:

As for the community subtitling project, we did launch it at some point for user uploaded content. I agree that it is one of the more ambitious projects. But Crunchyroll made a transition to fully licensed, so all of the content online has a licensing agreement in place and our challenge has been in getting the content holders to agree to allow fans to contribute subtitles. There’s IP issues (to which I think we have a good solution), quality issues (which I think content holders need to overcome), and security concerns (for new, yet to be aired content, there’s almost no way we can provide fans any work to translate prior to the air date, so we can’t use fans for simulcasts). We’re still chipping away at this, but I’m not sure how close we are to accomplishing it, and I’m hesitant to discuss too many details… until we make more progression on our side.

So, it seems that Crunchyroll is still in the process of creating some sort of social translation community around their already thriving membership. I wonder if TED’s project will further propel the CR ambitions further.

And I really hope it develops into something similar. If you didn’t read through the TED blog’s announcement, it details that each video translation will have an accompanying text transcript, in which a viewer can click on a sentence and immediately be brought to that spot in the video. If the fansub community or a CR social translation project were to pursue a similar initiative, this would have epic benefits for the anime research community. The availability of transcripts would be akin to throwing it back old school to the early days of American anime clubs, where a member would stand up at the front of the room and read a translation of the script as the Japanese-language animation played in the background. However, such a project takes that extinct practice and revamps it, providing researchers not only with a transcript but also the accompanying video, with which they can easily do a text search on the page and be transported to X point in the video clip, to examine the art relative to the speech. Of course, such a project begs all sorts of questions, particularly video hosting: is it possible to keep a database of videos that could be accessed while bypassing numerous legal and financial barriers?

The question, though, is certainly not one of fansubbing as a practice. At the recent Media in Transition conference at MIT, a Thursday night panel was hosted by the Comparative Media Studies program’s colloquium series called Global Media (the podcast can be listened to here). Most of the panelists agreed that, all over the world, fansubbing is thriving in genres from Bollywood to American bootlegs to tella novellas (to such an extent that it probably can’t be stopped). It seemed that the panelists were more concerned protecting local works and saw more benefits in the circulation of their works than in the loss of monetary content. For Japanese animation, this might mean that Japan should be focusing on their home turf. But we can’t ignore that companies in the US have been set up to distribute anime, which is the main factor that complicates the Japanese market and its profits.

Ultimately, there are only benefits for TED, who own their own videos because it is their personal content. They do not have to deal with complications with copyright or monetization. As far as the anime industry, it’s a completely different set of matters. As Vu stated, simulcasts are out of the question for fan-curated translations, and getting around questions of intellectual property is going to require some deep thought.

We’ll have to wait and see where this ends up. But if you’re interested in continuing the conversation, I’ll be at the Open Video Conference in New York on June 19 and 20 to give a talk about the the history and culture of Japanese animation in the US and its past/future implications. Come check it out, especially for the other talks (which are obviously going to be way more interesting than mine).

The staff of the Department of Alchemy will be on break for the next week to proctor exams.

We will resume our research on May 10th.

via joi

Last week on Friday, I met with Professor Henry Jenkins in his office at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department about my future in graduate school.

Way back in the fall semester of 2007, I discovered the Comparative Media Studies website, and from there on my life would change as I switched gears from my English major to following everything happening with Internet studies at MIT, Harvard, and other schools attempting similar research. I would go on to attend ROFLcon, make my way over to Harvard for the Berkman @ 10 conference, and then eventually join teams with the likes of Students for Free Culture, MIT’s YouTomb project, the varied escapades of Tim Hwang and company, and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, among others. After my study abroad in Kyoto, Japan during the fall semester of 2008, I would return to Boston finally to focus my interests on Internet culture, Japanese animation, and fan studies, hopefully pulling the three topics together in a relevant doctoral program for graduate school.

So, last Friday I met Henry to speak about his decision to move from Comparative Media Studies at MIT to the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Since I had already pegged MIT’s CMS program as my ideal goal, I felt it valid to ask Henry about following him to SC. Unfortunately, he replied with an answer I expected: He will not know much about the management and organization of the program until he begins teaching there this autumn. Thankfully, he was able to advise me on a few potential research opportunities, recommend a number of other solid graduate programs in the States as well as abroad, and affirm that I have indeed been taking the correct steps (especially spending the next year gaining experience in the field to research my book). He did also provide an excellent piece of advice that I had (perhaps a bit foolishly) overlooked in my pursuits.

That advice was this: Immerse yourself in the popular culture.

I have one year before I’ll even be able to apply for graduate school, study abroad, and research abroad. However, on top of securing a job, researching current trends, and studying theory, Henry proposed spending as much time reading manga, watching anime, following Internet memes, and the like. I have a year, and he said one of the most beneficial things I can do is to engross in the popular culture and understand it inside out, in order to speak about it, establish arguments, and defend theses.

So, thank you, Henry. I’ll take your words to heart. I’ll be sure to keep in touch if I gain the chance to opportunity to study with you.

Otaku and the (Un)popular Fandom

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!

I picked up my badge on Thursday night — luckily. The nametag appeared in my hand after only about an hour’s wait, unlike those unfortunate souls that had to retrieve theirs on Friday. Walking along the con, I ran into a line stretching from one end of the center to the other. Thinking it was simply a popular autograph signing, I followed it down to the front, only to find that it led into the registration room. I heard a few rumors that people who hadn’t preregistered waited for up to nine hours (and a few were turned away from registering even after standing in line). Quite a bit of failure there, but I expect the AB staff will be on top of that issue next year.

Since I wasn’t on site for most of the convention, I didn’t attend many events, but I did get a chance to attend the newly-annual formal ball. This year exceeded my expectations compared to last year (AB 2007), and the ticketing system certainly helped speed up the line that kept a lot of people out of 2007′s dance. Not sure if many people realized that MC Frontalot was on stage DJing the event, but there he was (and seemed a bit lonely too). There weren’t as many people dancing this year, and I wonder how the dance staff will try to ameliorate that next year (I think 2007 excelled in terms of people on the dance floor, but maybe that’s because attendees were just psyched for it).

I got to walk around the Artists’ Alley for about an hour and, although I definitely didn’t spend as much on schwag compared to 2007, I picked up one $10 print. It’s such an arresting picture, though, so when I glanced it the drawing stopped me in my tracks, mesmerized for a good fifteen minutes before I decided to purchase it. The artist is Peter Chan (of Toronto, Canada), and you can see a glimpse of the print here. I love the anachronistic quality (which reminds me of the blend that Shinichiro Watanabe makes in Samurai Champloo.

Most of my other time was spent on panels. I was given permission to host three panels, but I only decided to go through with two of them (Learning Japanese Through Anime was cancelled). Kent, Alicia, and I hosted one panel called Trescaflowgun on Saturday night, at which we did a comparison-contrast of Trigun with Escaflowne, focusing on art designs, narrative styles, and plot devices. I guess you could call it a Comparative Literature take on anime. Overall, we had a surprisingly medium turnout, since we were slotted against the Masquerade, but there were a number of people that came in thinking we were going to present a fan parody. Ultimately, I view this first panel of ours as a practice round for the success that would be Sunday’s panel.

On Sunday afternoon, I presented a talk (again, with Kent and Alicia) entitled Globalization, Technology, and the American Otaku to an audience of about forty people. Borrowing and applying ideas from Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat and a number of the blogs, scholarly articles, and podcasts ingested from MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, I discussed the past, current, and future state of the Japanese animation culture in America and primarily how it has been influenced by the Internet and international convergence and collaboration. Thanks to Alicia and Kent who provided some good commentary on club fandom, the Cosplay.com community, and particularly the reception of texts while access is easy and the diversity large. The panel lasted only an hour, and we spent a good amount of time fielding solid questions from the audience, so I had to omit a few items due to the time constraints. We actually had a pretty good write-up of the panel over at Pop Culture Shock, so check it out. It’s a good thumbs-up for anyone interested in attending my panels next year, hint hint!

Definitely going to plan to 1) be at the convention for the entire weekend next year, 2) submit more panels and hopefully present them, and 3) try to go for a Press Pass, because I’d like to snag a few interviews and conduct a bit of formal research, which I might be able to get funded by my university. But I still have Otakon and Connecticon on the list for this summer, so let’s get to those first!