MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM and INTERIORITY By
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INSIDE THE BOY INSIDE THE ROBOT: MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM AND INTERIORITY by JOHN D. MOORE A THESIS Presented to the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts September 2017 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: John D. Moore Title: Inside the Boy Inside the Robot: Mobile Suit Gundam and Interiority This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures by: Alisa Freedman Chair Glynne Walley Member and Sara D. Hodges Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2017. ii © 2017 John D. Moore iii THESIS ABSTRACT John D. Moore Master of Arts Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures September 2017 Title: Inside the Boy Inside the Robot: Mobile Suit Gundam and Interiority Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-1980) is an iconic series in the genre of television anime featuring giant fighting robots, embedded in a system of conventions developed across decades of media aimed at boys that emphasizes action and combat. In this thesis, I argue that Gundam foregrounds the interiority of its main character Amuro, challenging conventions governing the boy protagonist. Using Peter Verstraten's principles of film narratology and Thomas Lamarre’s theory of limited animation, I find in Gundam's narrative strategies sophisticated techniques developed to portray his inner life. These techniques of interiority generate ironic tensions with the traditionally exterior orientation of combat narratives. These tensions connect to a larger discourse of Japanese postwar media built into the very lines that draw characters and robots, leading Gundam to a spectacular confrontation with its own genre’s legacy of mechaphilia. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: John D. Moore GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan Salt Lake Community College, Salt Lake City, Utah Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, East Asian Languages and Literature, 2017, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Japanese Language & Literature and Asian Studies, 2014, University of Utah Associate of Science, General Studies, 2011, Salt Lake Community College AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Japanese Animation Japanese Popular Culture Modern Japanese Literature PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Teaching Assistant, Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2014-2017 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Center for Asian and Pacific Studies Small Professional Grant, Presentation of “Documentary Animation and Referentiality in Fukushima Gainax’s Letters to the Future” at the 2016 Association of Japanese Literary Studies Conference, University of Oregon, 2016 v Foreign Languages Area Studies Fellowship (summer), University of Oregon, 2015 Foreign Languages Area Studies Fellowship (academic year), University of Oregon, 2014-2015 Summa cum laude, University of Utah, 2014 Foreign Languages Area Studies Fellowship (academic year), University of Utah, 2012-2013 Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, University of Utah, 2012 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I must express my sincere gratitude to the scholars whose guidance and mentorship made this thesis possible. I especially thank Professor Alisa Freedman for her patience with me and encouragement of my project, her wisdom and aide in cultivating my ideas, and her excellent model of scholarship that drew me to the University of Oregon in the first place. I thank Glynne Walley for his support, his attentive and challenging feedback, and his infectious passion for the text and its analysis. The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures has quite literally made my study here possible through teaching fellowships and other material support, for which I am honored and grateful. Further, I thank all the professors, colleagues, and friends who have supported me in innumerable ways, helping me become a better thinker, scholar, teacher, and human being. Finally, I wish to thank my partner in life, Rachel Anderson, for her love, support, patience, and encouragement. With her own aspirations and achievements, she continues to inspire me every day. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 The Genre of Robot Anime .................................................................................... 2 Shōnen Media and the Shōnen .............................................................................. 4 Interiority .................................................................................................................. 6 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 7 A Sketch of Gundam’s Narrative .......................................................................... 8 Analyzing Gundam............................................................................................... 10 II. ROBOT ANIME AND MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM ............................................... 12 Reading Genre ....................................................................................................... 13 Robot Anime as Shōnen Anime .......................................................................... 15 Shōnen Protagonists .............................................................................................. 18 Robot Anime Becomes a Genre ........................................................................... 21 The Robot Anime Boom and Zambot 3.............................................................. 24 The Advent of Gundam........................................................................................ 27 Cultural and Generic Verisimilitudes ................................................................ 30 The Convention of the Father Figure ................................................................. 34 Generational Tension and Cultural Verisimilitude .......................................... 38 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 40 III. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES OF INTERIORITY ................................................ 42 Approaching Gundam Through Narratology .................................................. 43 Narrative Flow of the Series ................................................................................ 46 Narrative Rhythm and Emotional Cliffhangers ............................................... 50 Away from Amuro: Others’ Interiorities as Foils ............................................. 54 Compartmentalization and Ironic Tension in Voiceover Narration .............. 57 Seeing Inside the Shōnen: Visualizing Interiority ............................................ 64 Drawing Amuro’s Eyes: The Soulful Body and Character Design ................ 67 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 72 viii IV. ANIMATED BODIES AND INTERPENETRATING INTERIORITIES ........... 74 Encountering the Newtype .................................................................................. 75 Cartoon Characters and Machines: A Postwar Discourse of the Animated Line .......................................................................................................................... 79 The Newtype Effect ............................................................................................... 83 Interpenetrating Interiorities: The Consummation of Newtypes .................. 88 V. EPILOGUE ................................................................................................................. 95 REFERENCES CITED .................................................................................................. 102 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Nearly four decades since its inception, the Gundam franchise remains a visible and influential force in popular culture, particularly in its country of origin, Japan. At the foundation of this media behemoth is Mobile Suit Gundam (Kidō senshi gandamu), a television anime series produced by the animation studio Nippon Sunrise that originally aired forty-three episodes in Japan over the course of ten months between 1979 and 1980. Central to this series is its titular “mobile suit” (mobiru sūtsu), the Gundam, a, hulking humanoid machine piloted by a human for combat in a space-set civil war. Seated in the cockpit—the very heart of the machine, as it were—of this towering titan of metal limbs, expressionless yellow eyes, and deadly armaments, is a boy. This boy with a voice that quivers and large, black eyes that shimmer, is the protagonist of Mobile Suit Gundam. He is Amuro Ray, a fifteen-year-old, Earth-born resident of the near future space colony Side 7, and it is what lies in his heart that is the subject of this thesis. In this thesis, I argue that Gundam foregrounds the interiority of its main character Amuro, challenging conventions governing the boy protagonist. I find in Gundam's narrative strategies a sophisticated set of techniques employed to portray Amuro’s inner life. This foregrounding