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“More Japanese Than Japanese”: Subjectivation in the Age of Brand Nationalism and the Internet

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“More Japanese Than Japanese”: Subjectivation in the Age of Brand Nationalism and the Internet “MORE JAPANESE THAN JAPANESE”: SUBJECTIVATION IN THE AGE OF BRAND NATIONALISM AND THE INTERNET by REBECCA LYNN CARLSON B.A., SAN FRANCISION STATE UNIVERSITY, 1996 MFA, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 2003 MA, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2018 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by REBECCA LYNN CARLSON It was defended on APRIL 2, 2018 and approved by Laura C. Brown, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Tomas Matza, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Annette Vee, Assistant Professor, English Clark Chilson, Associate Professor, Religious Studies Dissertation Advisor: Andrew J. Strathern, Andrew Mellon Professor, Anthropology ii Copyright © by Rebecca Lynn Carlson 2018 iii “MORE JAPANESE THAN JAPANESE”: SUBJECTIVATION IN THE AGE OF BRAND NATIONALISM AND THE INTERNET Rebecca Lynn Carlson, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2018 Today, modern technologies and the rapid circulation of information across geographic boundaries are said to be making the nation-state less relevant to daily life. In contrast, this dissertation argues that national boundary maintenance is increasingly made more relevant not in spite of such technologies, but precisely because of them. Indeed, processes of circulation are themselves making and re-making such boundaries rather than erasing them, while states simultaneously react to contain the perceived threats of globalization and to capitalize on the sale of their “cultural” commodities through nation branding. For American otaku, or Japan fans, internet technologies and the consumption of Japanese media like videogames and anime are quintessential global flows from within which they first articulate a desire for Japan. Increasingly, some make the very real decision to leave home and settle in Japan, although scholars have suggested otaku are unable to understand the “real” Japan. Once there, however, the Japanese state’s ongoing nation branding policies, along with immigration control and patterns of everyday interactions with Japanese citizens, marginalize even long-term residents as perpetual visitors. Building on the work of Foucault, I seek to understand how notions of national “of courseness,” which fix Japaneseness as naturally homogeneous and impenetrable, subjectivize American fans. Drawing on 12 months of full time participant observation with otaku living in Tokyo, along with 18 months of part time follow-up research, diachronic interviews with Americans in the US and Japan, and extensive textual analysis of all things “Japanese,” this work contrasts the iv purported deterritorializing promise of online communications and the withering of the relevance of the modern nation-state, with the national boundary making work that these otaku migrants participate in, both online and off. Once in Japan, otaku themselves actively support Japan's nation branding efforts by teaching English and producing the very cultural commodities that motivated their migration in the first place, as they increasingly codify what Japaneseness is for other “foreigners.” At the same time, otaku migrants further reproduce Japanese national identity through accepting and affirming their status as non-Japanese, and through the reinscription of these very boundaries onto other otaku. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................ X 1.0 OTAKU AND THE MEANING OF THE NATIONAL ................................................... 1 1.1 "MORE JAPANESE": A THEORETICAL AND CHAPTER OVERVIEW ..... 10 1.1.1 American otaku as Japanese subjects ........................................................... 12 1.1.2 Media, transnationalism and the nation ....................................................... 17 1.1.3 Lifestyle/labor migration and Japan ............................................................. 20 1.1.4 Subjectivation, power and the state .............................................................. 26 1.1.5 The state making the subject ......................................................................... 27 1.1.6 The subject making the subject ..................................................................... 31 1.2 LOCATING THE FIELD ......................................................................................... 37 2.0 THE DISCOURSE NETWORKS OF ENCHANTED ENCOUNTERS ....................... 45 2.1 DISCOVERING "JAPAN" ....................................................................................... 48 2.1.1 Framing Nintendo as odorous ....................................................................... 51 2.2 TOONAMI AND CULTURE BY "OSMOSIS" ..................................................... 60 2.3 BECOMING NOT-JAPANESE ONLINE ............................................................... 70 2.3.1 Imagining in electronic networks .................................................................. 82 2.3.2 "A culture that is not their own" .................................................................. 91 3.0 "SOME MAGICAL PLACE”: COMMODIFYING A COOL JAPAN ........................ 94 vi 3.1 “JAPAN’S NEAT WAY OF FOLDING CLOTHES”: JAPAN AS BRAND ..... 100 3.2 “TATAMU IS OUR CULTURE”: DISCIPLINING THE NATION ................... 109 3.3 “TATAMU IS OUR CULTURE”: DISCIPLINING THE OTHER .................... 122 3.3.1 Building a bridge? ......................................................................................... 126 3.3.2 "Christine Doesn't Fold Her Clothes!?" .................................................... 132 4.0 TO "LIVE IN THE LAND OF ANIME" ....................................................................... 138 4.1 “LIFE WOULD JUST… BE ORDINARY" .......................................................... 143 4.1.1 Getting to Japan ............................................................................................ 145 4.1.2 Finding work in Tokyo ................................................................................. 153 4.1.3 Working for the "brand" ............................................................................. 158 5.0 "THE NEIGHBOR WHO SHUTS HIS DOOR WHEN I GO BY" ............................ 165 5.1 THE BUREAUCRACY OF SETTLEMENT AND EXCLUSION ..................... 166 5.1.1 Managed by documents and spaces ............................................................ 167 5.1.2 Foreigners not allowed ................................................................................. 175 5.2 THE POLITICS OF RACE AND LANAGUAGE ................................................ 187 5.2.1 "Why did YOU come to Japan?" ................................................................ 187 5.2.2 The longest intestines .................................................................................... 189 5.2.3 Visibly different ............................................................................................ 192 5.3 “BUT WE’RE SPEAKING JAPANESE” ............................................................. 201 5.3.1 The most difficult language .......................................................................... 204 5.3.2 "You don't understand anyway" ................................................................ 209 6.0 "MORE JAPANESE THAN A JAPANESE PERSON": RECURSIVE SUBJECTIVATION .................................................................................................................. 216 vii 6.1 “YOU’RE NOT DOING IT THE JAPANESE WAY” ......................................... 221 6.2 “THANKS FOR MAKING LIFE HARDER FOR THE REST OF US” ........... 228 6.3 “IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, LEAVE!” ................................................................... 237 6.4 THE SUPERFICIAL REFRAIN OF BEING NOT-JAPANESE ........................ 244 7.0 DISCOURSE NETWORKS AND THE REAL JAPAN ................................................ 247 7.1 THE PREMATURE DEMISE OF THE NATION-STATE ................................ 248 7.1.1 Otaku as labor migrants .............................................................................. 252 7.2 POSSIBILITIES FOR RESISTANCE ................................................................... 260 7.2.1 On leaving, to finally belong? ...................................................................... 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 266 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. A poster about male pattern baldness at the doctor's office (photo by author) .............. 25 Figure 2. A page from the 1990 November/December issue (#19) of Nintendo Power ............... 58 Figure 3. A message board post from an anime-focused website, Crunchyroll.com .................... 79 Figure 4. Keywords of Japaneseness and everyday goods from Wonder Nippon ....................... 102 Figure 5. Tokyo Metro Manner poster; the white onlooker declares that stepping out of the way of exiting passengers is "Amazing!" (photo by author) .............................................................. 134 Figure 6. A page from METI's Cool Japan Initiative which envisions foreigner as tourists coming "Inbound" to purchase local products (2014) ................................................................. 163 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In coming to the end of any project of time intensive labor, of course, I have a great deal to
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