The Anime Machine This Page Intentionally Left Blank the Anime Machine

The Anime Machine This page intentionally left blank The Anime Machine A Media Theory of Animation THOMAS LAMARRE University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Part I reworks material previously published in “From Animation to Anime: Drawing Movements and Moving Drawings,” in Between Cinema and Anime, special issue of Japan Forum 14, no. 2 (2002): 329–67, and “The Multiplanar Image,” Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 120–44. Part II includes sections based on “Otaku Movement,” in Japan after Japan: Rethinking the Nation in an Age of Recession, ed. Tomiko Yoda and H. D. Harootunian (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006), 358–94. Part III reworks an argument initially presented in “Platonic Sex,” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1, no. 1 (2006): 45–60 and 2, no. 1 (2007): 9–25. Copyright 2009 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lamarre, Thomas The anime machine : a media theory of animation / Thomas Lamarre. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-5154-2 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8166-5155-9 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Animated films—Japan—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Title: Media theory of animation. NC1766.J3L36 2009 791.43'340952—dc22 2009026475 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 1615141312111009 10987654321 The damming of the stream of real life, the moment when its flow comes to a standstill, makes itself felt as reflux: this reflux is astonishment. —Walter Benjamin, What Is Epic Theater? This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction: The Anime Machine xiii Part I. Multiplanar Image 1. Cinematism and Animetism 3 2. Animation Stand 12 3. Compositing 26 4. Merely Technological Behavior 45 5. Flying Machines 55 6. Full Animation 64 7. Only a Girl Can Save Us Now 77 8. Giving Up the Gun 86 Part II. Exploded View 9. Relative Movement 103 10. Structures of Depth 110 11. The Distributive Field 124 12. Otaku Imaging 144 13. Multiple Frames of Reference 155 14. Inner Natures 166 15. Full Limited Animation 184 Part III. Girl Computerized 16. A Face on the Train 209 17. The Absence of Sex 221 18. Platonic Sex 234 19. Perversion 242 20. The Spiral Dance of Symptom and Specter 252 21. Emergent Positions 265 22. Anime Eyes Manga 277 Conclusion: Patterns of Serialization 300 Notes 323 Bibliography 351 Index 367 PREFACE HIS BOOK PRESENTS A THEORY OF ANIMATION, unabashedly cen- tered on Japanese animations, which are commonly particularized and T grouped under the loose heading “anime” or even “Japanimation.” At the same time, this book is about “how to read anime.” In fact, it was the dif- ficulties that I confronted trying to read anime that led me in the direction of animation theory. When I began teaching courses on Japanese mass culture in the early 1990s, not only were there few Japanese animation titles available on video with sub- titles but also research on animation and anime was relatively rare. In the course of the 1990s, the situation changed dramatically. Animation surged on a number of fronts with the rise of digital animation; the increasing use of computer imag- ery in films; tie-ins and overlaps between video games, film, and animation; and, needless to say, the global boom in popularity of Japanese animations, launched in part through the exchange of VHS copies among fans internationally and then spurred with the rise of the Internet and file sharing. Research on anime has appeared in the wake of this surge in the popularity of Japanese animations, coeval with a new awareness of the ubiquity and centrality of animation. It is not surprising, of course, that research and scholarship follow cultural booms. It is the nature of criticism to follow, and the question of criticism is how to follow and where to intervene in the flow. What has surprised me about research on Japanese animations and anime is the general lack of interest in animation as such, in animation as moving images. The bulk of anime commentary ignores that its “object” consists of moving images, as if animations were just another text. Such a treatment of anime as a ix textual object has tended in two directions. On the one hand, even when anime is treated largely as text, some commentators will call on the novelty and popularity of anime to bypass the tough questions that usually arise around the analysis of texts. Anime is, in effect, treated as a textual object that does not or cannot pose any difficult textual questions. Analysis is relegated to re-presenting anime narratives, almost in the manner of book reports or movie reviews. On the other hand, some commentators treat anime as text in order to pose “high textual” speculative questions (such as the nature of reality, or the relation of mind and body), again ignoring the moving image altogether but for different reasons. In this kind of textual treatment, the anime stories serve as the point of departure for philosophical speculation, without any consideration of the materiality of animation. A third common approach bypasses textual questions and the materiality of animation in favor of sociological and anthropological readings: anime is a source of information about Japan, especially about Japanese youth. Even though I think all these approaches have their place and their merits, it is nevertheless in response to the tendency to bypass questions about animation and the moving image in favor of textual description, metatextual speculation, or sociological analysis that I wish to focus greater attention on “how to read anime.” Yet I do not want to present a list of elements for formal analysis in the manner of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art, with sections and chapters devoted to lighting, sound, narrative, color, shots, takes, and edit- ing. While such a presentation is useful, it tends to eliminate a sense of what is at stake in approaching the moving image at the level of form to begin with. Rather than rely on formal analysis as a point of departure, I thus begin with the materiality of the moving image itself. Building on the philosophy of technology, film theory, and art history, I gravitate toward questions that initially arose in film studies in the context of apparatus theory and the specificity thesis. While film studies has largely abandoned apparatus theory and the specificity thesis due to their implications of technological determinism and historical teleology, I feel that underlying questions about materiality and material or technical determination remain urgent. Ultimately, in my efforts to look at the material and technical specificity of animation while avoiding the determinism implicit in apparatus theory and specificity thesis of film theory, I have adopted the stance of experimental science and technology studies, which encouraged me to look at technologies of the moving image from the angle of their force. In sum, the question of “how to read anime” led me to questions about the material and technical specificity of animation that lie prior to any elaboration of animation form. I found it necessary to ground my reading of animations in a theory of animation based on its materiality, that is, on the material essence or x PREFACE force within its technical determinations. As a consequence, rather than provide a list or catalog of formal features of animation or anime, I look at animations from the angle of how they work and how they work on the world. I give priority to function and value over form. Because my emphasis is on animation as such, I look at anime primarily with an eye to technical determination and technical value, rather than begin- ning with socioeconomic determinations and values. I focus on what animation is, how it works, and how it brings value into the world. Of course, it is impossible and not at all desirable to dispense with economic or social considerations, and indeed, throughout the book, I consider some of the implications of the “anime machine” for reception or interaction, distribution, and production, which are summarized in the Conclusion in the spirit of offering thought for further research. Yet I insistently place the emphasis on the materiality and specificity of animation in this book because it seems to me that if there is nothing there, nothing to animation, then there would be no way for power to work there and no way for us to consider what happens between, for instance, the “anime machine” and the “production machine” or any other determinants. The result is a book with an emphasis on “how anime thinks technology” rather than on how anime thinks Japan, or how studios make anime, or how fans interact with anime. Such an emphasis is intended as much as a critical intervention into animation studies and Japan studies as a contribution to knowledge about Japanese animation. As with any book, this one has benefited greatly from discussions with friends, colleagues, and students. Conversations with colleagues in Montreal especially have had a profound impact, and I thank Brian Bergstrom, Peter Button, Ken Dean, Hajime Nakatani, Tom Looser, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, Anne McKnight, Xin Wei Sha, and especially Livia Monnet, as well as those students whose interests and ideas frequently sparked mine: Lawrence Bird, Inhye Kang, Gyewon Kim, Heather Mills, Harumi Osaki, and Marc Steinberg.

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