Otakuology: A Dialogue Patrick W. Galbraith Thomas Lamarre

Mechademia, Volume 5, 2010, pp. 360-374 (Article)

Published by University of Press

For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mec/summary/v005/5.galbraith01.html

Access Provided by McGill University Libraries at 11/18/10 8:19PM GMT our individuality in a world where the special designating the consumers or users of these character of individuals seems increasingly un- products. But I believe that we’ve come to an der threat. After all, one reason Superman and impasse in our discussions of , precisely Batman have been around so long is that they because the term has become so familiar and have successfully protected their secret identi- ubiquitous that we run the risk of naturalizing ties. In Death Note, “secret” identities are all ul- an otaku identity without exploring its signifi- timately revealed, and it is finally the shinigami cance for our understanding of the interactions who have the last laugh. of culture, technology, and economy. With this goal in mind, I would like to begin by asking N otes about your academic interests in general. 1. Mishima Yukio, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (New York: Vintage, 1994). THOMAS LAMARRE: My general interests lie 2. Battle Royale is a novel by Koushun Takami in the history of perception. So my basic ques- that was later made into two live action films and a tions are about how people perceive the world, . See http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ how they experience it, at different historical encyclopedia/.php?id=2971 and http:// junctures. These kinds of questions grow out of www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ intellectual history. But the history of percep- manga.php?id=68 (both accessed September 22, tion, sensation, or experience is different from 2008). the history of ideas. The history of ideas can 3. Natsuo Kirino, Real World (New York: Vin- rest content with an archive of texts or docu- tage, 2008). ments that are clearly established as philosoph- 4. Murakami Haruki, Kafka on the Shore (New ical, theoretical, or intellectual in nature. The York: Vintage, 2006). history of perception or experience, however, 5. Lisa Katayama, “Death Note Manga Spawns turns to a broad range of materials that were Movie, Crime Wave.” Wired, May 19, 2008, http:// traditionally ignored by historians—the stuff of www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/ everyday life. This makes for a vastly expanded news/2008/05/death_note (accessed August 27, empiricism. In fact, the archive threatens to be- 2008). come unmanageable. Histories of experience or 6. Murakami Haruki, Wind Up Bird Chronicle perception have tended to turn to “aesthetic” (New York: Vintage, 1997). materials that range across art history, liter- ary studies, and media studies—art, visual cul- ture, design, media, architecture, and all sorts トレンド of texts, fictional, philosophical, pedagogical, Torendo and discursive. The basic goal is to unearth the Otakuology: A Dialogue contours of a historically specific set of mate- P atrick W. Galbraith and rial orientations that guide or shape patterns Thomas Lamarre of experience, or the material orientations that set up a field of possibilities. My interest in the PATRICK W. GALBRAITH: Thank you for agree- history of specific sets of material orientations ing to this dialogue, which I hope will open has gradually led to a focus on media, especially some new perspectives on the study of otaku, or those associated with technologies of the mov- “otakuology.” With the transnational success of ing image. manga, anime, and Japanese videogames, the term “otaku” has become common across a va- PG: I also am interested in material conditions, riety of popular discourses, as a sort of identity but I chose to conduct extended participant

360 review & commentary observation in Akihabara, an area of Tokyo was to sensationalize, exoticize, or demonize associated with otaku, because I wished to what was happening between fans and their introduce the voices of otaku into our discus- “image worlds.” In the university, as you noted, sions. Even in Japan, the voices of otaku have the general trend was to read been largely missing from academic discourse. in the manner of literary texts. Yet, even when The term “otaku” began to appear in popular commentators were reading anime as texts, texts and “New Academism” in the late 1990s they tended to shy away from the tough ques- and early 2000s, but there was, and still are, tions that arise in literary analysis, which would very few examples of those identified as otaku have opened their analysis to questions about speaking for themselves. Akihabara presents materiality, material conditions, identity, sub- one narrow window onto one small segment ject formation, power formations, or powers of otaku culture, insofar as we imagine it to ex- of the body. Anime especially was treated as a ist, and that window is anything but clear. Still, textual object that does not or cannot pose any it offers a place to start to consider how otaku difficult textual or historical questions. Except speak about themselves. How did you become for a very few works, analysis tended to be rel- interested in otaku? egated to re-presenting anime narratives, al- most in the manner of book reports or movie TL: When I first went to Japan in the late reviews. At the very moment when new histori- 1980s, I developed a love for manga and anime. cism, radical historicism, post-Marxism, post- So when I started teaching at McGill in the early structuralism, and deconstruction introduced 1990s, I offered a course on Japanese popular very important and challenging questions into culture in which I tried to introduce students to the study of literature, many scholars seemed to manga and anime. There were not many anime jump onto the pop-culture bandwagon as if de- with and very few manga in transla- termined to avoid the sorts of questions posed tion at that time, so it was tough putting to- by these approaches, as well as the questions gether a decent syllabus. What surprised me that you’re asking through participant observa- was that a large number of the students loathed tion, or those that I wish to pose at the level of the materials, complaining that they were juve- history of experience and material orientations. nile, incomprehensible, misogynistic, or worse. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t suppose that looking Also, the late 1980s and 1990s were a time of at otaku presents in and of itself an intellectual major transition in discourses on otaku in Ja- advance. And there are a number of other fac- pan, particularly with the arrest of Miyazaki tors that have encouraged a shift away from Tsutomu in 1989, which encouraged a general textual analysis toward ethnographic questions pathologization of otaku in the media. As a re- about otaku activities. sult, even though my interests led me toward anime, manga, and so-called otaku culture, it PG: Absolutely. The trend toward studying Jap- took years of teaching and reading for me to anese popular culture demands closer consid- make the connection between my interest in eration. After the end of the Cold War and the the history of perception and my interest in the Bubble Economy, the imperative to study Japan otaku stuff. greatly diminished. Japan could no longer be A great deal conspired against making such discussed in terms of its threat, be it military connections, not least of which is the fact that or economic in nature. Scholars of Japanese lit- there was not, until the late 1990s, any sense erature turned to popular culture in the 1990s of a historical or theoretical perspective on in an attempt to invigorate the field, partly at- otaku. In the mass media, the general trend tracted to its mass appeal, which made both for

review & commentary 361 publishing opportunities and increased student such assumptions go unquestioned, because interest. There was also new funding from insti- Japanese uniqueness is the last remaining ratio- tutions eager to compensate for Japan’s shrink- nale for continued study of Japan itself. Japan ing political and economic significance. Basic appears as the quintessential “non-Western” questions—why we study Japan and why study example. Given such difficulties, how can we its popular culture—were swept aside, as Japan improve on the study of otaku? studies overcame its crisis by turning to new popular topics. As you mentioned, popular cul- TL: It is impossible to avoid the impulse to ture seemed to offer a way to avoid facing diffi- define otaku, and any account of otaku will by cult questions about the history of area studies default imply some kind of definition. Yet it and postwar politics. Keeping Japan popular— seems to me that we need to be more cautious that is, appealing yet unchallenging—allowed and critical about definitions of otaku. I don’t and still allows for the US–Japan relationship mean critical only in the sense of showing how to continue largely unaltered. Studies of Japa- someone gets the definition wrong. I think that nese popular culture have become an academic we also need to look at how the process of defin- commodity. Observed from a functionalist and ing to some extent creates its object. So it is not perhaps cynical standpoint, the fact of study- a matter of saying to someone, “Look, you’re ing Japan threatens to become more important not defining otaku properly,” but of considering than the content of the studies, and popularity how the definition sets the parameters for dis- more important than academic rigor. Indeed, cussion. This is especially important in the case many of those writing on Japanese popular cul- of otaku, because the mass media has played an ture today are young; they are outside the acad- important role, and maybe the most important emy and publishing in popular venues. Many role, in setting the parameters for discussion. of those writing on popular culture work part And the mass media tends to construct easily time in universities, where there is a demand recognizable types. We end up with a typology for them to teach specialty courses but no place of otaku, which encourages us to think about for them in the permanent faculty. Owing to otaku in very naïve psychological or behavioral the lack of long-term expectations and profes- terms, and to generate and embrace stereo- sional integration, few demands are placed on types. This tendency toward typology has also popular scholarship. Scholars working on Japa- encouraged a massive simplification of anthro- nese popular culture are only distinguished by pological and sociological approaches in talking the quantity of their publications and the nov- about otaku culture. Often the definition of elty of their topics, which conditions a prefer- otaku is presumed in advance and never ques- ence for niche subjects, which are analyzed by tioned openly, as if we all implicitly understood applying simplified superstructures. The result who and what otaku are. Often commentators is a tendency toward exoticizing and essen- present themselves as otaku in order to autho- tializing. This tendency often reflects or even rize their knowledge—they present themselves reproduces sensationalist about as native informants. The problem is not that Japan. This is very clear in the context of otaku. commentators wish to situate themselves as Definitions are set up on the basis of “otaku” in otaku writing about otaku. The problem is that Japan, but often with little or no contact with such a stance tends to make definitions of otaku these imagined others, and there is a critical appear self-evident, while reinforcing received lack of engagement with experts in Japan. Thus stereotypes. It is often calculated to prevent or discussions of otaku repeat assumptions about foreclose questions about how we define otaku, unique, even bizarre habits and practices. And rather than to invite them.

362 review & commentary PG: I’d like to highlight the issue of labeling. As the widely disseminated photos of Miyazaki’s popularized in the media, the word otaku was “otaku room,” filled with 5,763 videotapes, pejorative from the outset. In 1983, in “‘Otaku’ might not have been staged by police and no kenkyū,” an article for Tokyo Otona Club that journalists in order to connect the gruesome appeared as a special supplementary issue of crimes to the rising anxiety about “virtual re- Manga Burikko magazine, Nakamori Akio ex- ality” and media effects. We need to be aware pressed his shock over what he perceived to be that the word otaku is inextricably tied to me- the bizarre behavior of dōjinshi fans at a conven- dia discourse. This is also true for “positive” tion. They spoke to one another using “otaku,” images of “otaku.” It is no coincidence that a polite and slightly archaic second-person pro- Okada Toshio, one of the founding members noun, which made them look socially awkward of animation studio Gainax, started his infa- to his eyes. Nakamori then proceeds to belittle mous otakuology lectures at the University of these fans using common images of social re- Tokyo in 1992. At the height of “otaku bash- jects—the nerd, weirdo, fat kid, momma’s boy, ing,” Okada and other fans claimed they them- and so on. As Nakamori puts it, you know these selves had abandoned the word otaku a decade people from your school days, you’ve seen them earlier, and yet otaku bashing made the term around town. And he names them, all of them, so popular that Okada could use it to garner otaku, a convenient, arbitrary label for all those attention, titling himself “Otakingu” or the he perceived to be social rejects. Manga Burikko King of Otaku. Okada also claimed that otaku was a subcultural magazine, one including were the heirs of Japanese culture and the next parody manga, and fans of anime and manga stage of human evolution. This at times almost were beginning to imagine a shared identity in smacks of parody, as in his Otaku no Video, but this and other specialty magazines. There was a it also was a political move made with full ex- strong backlash against Nakamori’s comments, pectation of media response. Indeed, no defini- and a debate raged in the reader-response sec- tion of otaku is entirely unproblematic, and all tion of the magazine, spawning three additional should be considered in context. articles on otaku. Although the debate contin- In producing knowledge about otaku, we ued until 1984, editor Ōtsuka Eiji finally can- run the risk of imposing static categories to fa- celed the column. He later explained that he cilitate analysis. I find myself confronting this had done so because he came to see Nakamori’s in the context of ethnographic inquiry. Kam use of “otaku” as part of a personal image cam- Thiam Huat points out that when we go into paign, as way to define himself as part of the the field looking for otaku, we select those who “new breed” (shinjinrui) or cool youth culture. match internalized stereotypes. Someone is Ōtsuka concludes that the word otaku was be- only an otaku insofar as he or she is imagined to coming part of the ongoing “game of differen- be. The ones doing the imagining can be them, tiation” (saika no gēmu). others, or us, but in any case someone identifies The word otaku continued to circulate, as the person as an otaku. For Kam, fluctuations evidenced by its appearance in a Recruit sur- in the word otaku over the years are based not vey on youth personality in 1985, but it was in changes in people or activities but rather in not widely used among anime and manga changing perceptions of play and consumption. fans. Indeed, although the mass media widely “Otaku” was perceived in the 1980s and 1990s described serial killer Miyazaki Tsutomu as in terms of flight from roles and responsibili- an “otaku” in 1989, Ōsawa Masachi points ties associated with family, school, and work. out that Miyazaki himself did not know the Thus otaku seemed to threaten the integrity meaning of the word. Ōtsuka also wonders if of the social. The same behaviors are now seen

review & commentary 363 as inevitable or even desirable. The meaning of definition for otaku but to bring critical atten- otaku continues to change. tion to bear on the specificity of otaku activities or practices. If we think in terms of activities TL: In response to such difficulties in defining and practices, then it is clear that the otaku otaku, some critics in Japan have introduced mode of social being may become highly con- terms such as otaku-kei bunka (otaku-type cul- densed and very visible in certain locations and ture) and otaku-kankei shôhi (otaku-related con- social relations and within specific populations. sumption). I am thinking especially of Azuma But it touches everyone. Of course, we might Hiroki, author of Dōbutsu ka suru posutomo­ also conclude that, because values associated dan (Animalizing Postmodernity, released in with otaku are constantly changing, there is in 2009 as Otaku: Japan’s Database no consistency to otaku at all, in which case we Animals). I feel that we should follow through should drop the study of otaku altogether, be- the implications of such an approach, even if cause everything is happening elsewhere. But I Azuma himself does not necessarily do so. The do think that there is some consistency or co- idea would be to consider otaku as a new mode herence to what is called otaku, and that is why of social existence, as a kind of social being. I refer it to as mode of social existence. This means that studying otaku is not only a On this basis, I think that we can relate the matter of collecting information about people otaku phenomenon to transformations in capi- whose behavior appears to conform to stereo- talism, to changes in how we interact with and types generated in the mass media, or about through commodities, and to transformations interviewing people who declare themselves in technologies, especially communications and otaku, who adopt it as an identity. Even while information technologies. These transforma- we acknowledge the importance and necessity tions also pose a challenge to how we envision of such data gathering, we also need to look at the role of intellectual activities and scholar- the emergence of a new set of social relations ship. Given my interest in historically specific and to consider how our knowledge procedures sets of material orientations, or perception interact with those social relations. grounded in media and media technologies, I Even though I am using the terms “exis- tend to stress these parameters when looking tence” or “being,” it is not an ontology of otaku at otaku as a mode of social existence. For me, that is at stake. It is a matter of looking at then, “otaku” implies at least three problemat- where divisions are emerging, where something ics. First, there are new kinds of images and im- is contested. You implied that the label “otaku” age flows associated with the emergence of a se- is a discursive construction. At the same time, ries of new media technologies from the VCR to you suggested that those labeled otaku either the DVD player and personal computer. Second, did not accept the appellation (actual fans) or there is a new set of relations to those images used it in a strategic or tactical manner (Okada and image flows, which has gradually shaped a Toshio). This implies that there are effects of form of knowledge production around them. power associated with mass media discourses This knowledge production is as abstract, ency- on otaku, which appear where otaku discourse clopedic, totalizing, and rational as the heyday is being contested or redirected. A question of Enlightenment thought and practices, yet is then arises about the specific material condi- novel in the intensity of its engagement with tions and limits for this otaku discourse. How is the “open source.” Third, otaku entails a trans- it different from other discourses? When I sug- formation in our relations to commodities and gest that we see otaku as a mode of social exis- consumption. It is commonplace in discussions tence, my goal is not to generate an ontological of the postmodern to talk about consumption

364 review & commentary taking priority over production, or of a collapse draw on mainstream commercial characters in of the difference between production and con- their “parody” works, but what they create is sumption. Otaku consumption, for instance, distinctive. This is very much open-source re- is so active and productive that it is difficult to mix culture. I was discussing this with a friend bring it under the banner of consumption in from Rome, who pointed out that only a hand- the traditional sense of an acquisition and us- ful of people contributed to the European Re- ing up of discrete objects. Otaku does not entail naissance, while a thousand times that number acquiring and then abandoning, “wasting,” or contribute to Comiket and Wonder Festival (a “destroying” commodities. Rather, commodi- dōjin figure event). He thus proposed an “otaku ties function more like events and thus entail renaissance,” which entails cultural production worlds to be prolonged, which would at the on an unprecedented scale. For some reason same time imply the prolongation of a set of many people appear willing to invest great en- social relations. ergy in hobbies over long periods of time. They are not alienated from their labor, but their PG: The idea of consumption as an event is labor serves as a source of innovation and fi- in keeping with otaku descriptions of their nancial profit for companies. Given the scale of activities in terms of matsuri, or “festival.” these events in Japan, or rather Tokyo, we can Many otaku use matsuri to describe the group safely say that the otaku social mode is highly dynamic that forms around special events, visible. Why did otaku appear in Japan first, or the discussions and activities that develop and why are they most visible in Japan? around neta, which are faits-divers or “newsy” items of interest, of a sort that a comedian TL: Some critics stress the Japaneseness or might also draw into his or her performance. Japanese origins of otaku culture (Okada Connections emerge and spaces of interaction Toshio, Morikawa Kaichirō, Ōtsuka Eiji). Oth- arise as people share the moment—as in mat­ ers (Azuma Hiroki, Sawaragi Noi) argue that, suri. As you say, the festival-like emergence of on the contrary, the Japaneseness of otaku such “worlds” is very much tied to communi- culture is “fake” rather than authentic and that cation technology. The matsuri-like commu- it has developed in response to the insurgency nities of 2channel and Nico Nico Dōga would of American pop culture in postwar Japan. not be possible without computers and Inter- Nonetheless, across these debates, the nation net access. Connections are on the surface of typically appears as the frame of reference for the screen, and the technological mediation is discussing otaku. Naturally, because Japan– evident. But these dynamics do not end at the U.S. military and economic relations continue screen—they also occur in the so-called real to shape the everyday realities of Japan, it is world. With otaku activities, we probably do not surprising that discussions of Japanese better not to posit a strict boundary between fan cultures would turn in this direction. But a the screen and the real world. People perform problem arises. Where the model of subculture dances from anime series, stage recreations of versus hegemony allows for the possibility of popular online videos, and make “pilgrimages” conflict and resistance within the nation, dis- to places seen in anime. They also gather to buy cussions of otaku tend to discount otaku or fan and sell goods inspired by favorite characters. cultures as a source of difference internal to the Comiket, the biannual sales event for dōjinshi nation. Instead the emphasis falls on abnormal (material published outside official channels), or deviant tendencies of the nation, which as- draws 35,000 creative “circles” and over half sumes by default that there can be a normal a million people. Yes, these circles frequently and healthy nation, with the presumption that

review & commentary 365 Japan may have been more normal and health- especially in universities, where students are ier before the advent of otaku. rewarded for their years of labor in high school The problem then is not that the nation and with greater leisure time. Such university cir- national sovereignty tend to provide a horizon cles frequently contribute to the formation of for understanding otaku but that the national circles at Comiket and other fan events. It is no form is naturalized, rather than interrogated. accident that Gainax got its start through the As a result, in Japanese discourses, even when Osaka Science Fiction convention, which was the transnational dimension of otaku culture organized by a college sci-fi club. Similar orga- is acknowledged, differences between nations nizational skills contributed to the formation and national values (say, Japanese otaku values of Comiket, Wonder Festival, and other events. versus American otaku values) receive a great Third, while the fortunes of its culture in- deal more attention than do differences within dustries have waxed and waned, Japan not only nations and across nations (say, information ac- has well-established film, animation, manga, cess, purchasing power, gender, class, or other and television industries, but also imports en- forms of social difference). To counter such a rei- tertainment from a number of locales. Japa- fication of Japan, I would like to call attention to nese producers and consumers have long had some contributing factors that are institutional a high degree of literacy in American, Hong and structural, and historically contingent. Kong, Chinese, and European entertainment, First there is the emergence of what might alongside literacy in the hybrid conventions of be called mass intellectuality in the postwar film, manga, and animation expression estab- years. As Kotani Mari points out in her account lished in Japan from the 1930s. The result is of shōjo in Tekuno-goshikku (Techno-Gothic), a heightened awareness of genre conventions a chapter of which appeared in translation in across national boundaries, as well as of modes Mechademia 2: Networks of Desire, the intellec- of address that are decidedly international or tual pursuits and “cultivation” that were largely global, even when the target audience is Japa- the preserve of the middle and upper middle nese. This kind of global address was not recog- class in prewar Japan became widespread after nized as such in some parts of the world until the war, with the expansion of literacy, wealth, the 1990s, because the Hollywood industries and access to media such as and had effectively promoted themselves as the television. Something similar happened in only bearers of global address by controlling other parts of the world with increased wealth international distribution networks. There is and literacy. Autonomia school theorists fre- still great reluctance to acknowledge the global quently refer us to Marx’s discussion of the address of Japanese entertainment. As Ōtsuka “general intellect” to understand this historical Eiji astutely points out, Miyazaki Hayao’s ani- shift, and Maurizo Lazarrato describes this mo- mated films, for instance, are decidedly global ment in terms of the emergence of “mass intel- entertainment, and the desire to recode them lectuality.” as distinctively Japanese simply plays into the A second factor gave this expansion a par- formation of a Studio Ghibli brand. We need to ticular inflection in Japan—hobby culture. By consider how modes of address can be at once hobby culture I mean not only the importance local and global and to address actual processes given to having a hobby, but also the institu- of universalization. tional support for clubs or circles within high Fourth, discourses on information society schools and universities. While there isn’t nec- emerged early in Japan—in the 1960s. Even if essarily a great deal of financial support for information society may have been slow in its them, clubs are an integral part of daily life, realization in Japan, there was an important

366 review & commentary discursive engagement with, and critical enthu- this also perhaps be called subculture? After siasm for, information society in conjunction all, since Dick Hebdige’s classic work in 1979, with an insistence on Japan’s natural disposi- the expression of stylistic difference has often tion toward robots and the roboticization of been associated with alternatives to hegemonic society. The conceptualization of Japan as a ro- norms. bot kingdom had a profound impact on mecha otaku, that is, fans interested in armored vehi- TL: Otaku are frequently cited as a prime in- cles and suits, tactical armor, and piloted robots. stance of subculture, but the question for me Fifth, in keeping with the American decision is: What do we mean by “subculture”? In Anglo- to make Japan a “bulwark against communism” American cultural studies, subculture usually through high capitalist growth, the Japanese carries connotations of the marginal or the economic miracle made Tokyo into a global city, non-normative, and of resistance to mass or one of the most capital-saturated urban areas in mainstream culture. Subculture has different the world. Industrial planners set out to make connotations in Japan. Generally speaking, in Japan a distinctive export economy and, due to Japanese discussions the emphasis often falls space limitations, tended to direct patterns of on subculture as “small,” both in terms of the consumption toward appliances and electronics. number of producers and consumers and in At the same time, an unprecedented amount terms of its concerns (intimate and petty). of capital was allocated to , packag- Which is to say, because its numbers were ing, design, and image production. As a result, small, a subculture was not seen to address the although the world of Japanese promotion still larger concerns of Japanese society and the tends to operate on the basis of large categories nation. Subculture was construed as a retreat targeted toward specific masses (shōnen, shōjo, from questions about world history and sover- seinen, and so on) or national masses, consump- eignty. Consequently, subculture could be seen tion in Japan rapidly fragmented into what as a harbinger of the end of the history and of some commentators call “micromasses.” These the nation, rather than, say, as a set of practices micromasses attain a degree of social, discur- entailing resistance to dominant modes of un- sive, and even institutional solidity through derstanding the world and organizing social the formation of clubs and circles, through the relations. spread of intellectuality, and through the wealth Nonetheless, an understanding of subcul- of competing genre conventions. Add informa- ture drawing on Anglo-American debates has tion technologies and stir well and you’ll get a entered the Japanese debates. In her essay in mode of social being that encourages the pro- this volume, Anne McKnight maps the con- liferation of otaku-related micromass lifestyles. tours of some of these debates on subculture Otaku in this respect is not mass culture but in Japan, calling attention to a tension that rather a personalization or life stylization. But I emerges between these two ways of looking at am groping for words here. I don’t wish to imply subculture. On the one hand, there is the view that these micromasses are merely lifestyles or a of subculture evident in Ōtsuka Eiji’s studies matter of personalization in Jean Baudrillard’s of otaku, including his piece in this volume, in sense. They entail a degree of performative which the smallness of subculture is a sign of self-cultivation or what Michel Foucault called the disappearance of the public sphere, of de- “technologies of the self,” without implying the bates on sovereignty and modernity, and of a formation of fixed subject position or identity. concern for Japan’s position in the world and world history. On the other hand, there is the PG: Life stylization is one way to put it. Could view of subculture evident in Ueno Toshiya’s

review & commentary 367 writings, in which the emphasis falls on the dif- his cultures. But Hills nonetheless allows for fan ferential production of identities by creatively practices that defy commercial or mainstream and defiantly patching together a new set of logic. Lawrence Eng has suggested that otaku in tribal social relations. the are also somehow resistant, For my part, I like the challenge that Japa- as these “reluctant insiders” of the middle class nese debates on subculture pose to the now are engaged in unanticipated consumption and rather entrenched assumption of subculture as appropriation of media and technology. They resistance that reigns in Anglo-American stud- transgress boundaries in a way that is not en- ies. Generally speaking, Japanese stances on tirely incongruent with Japanese otaku. This is subculture show less romanticism about escap- a topic that deserves further attention. How do ing capitalism and fewer presumptions about you position otaku in the discussion of fans? getting outside it. Nonetheless, I think that there must be a middle way that acknowledges TL: For a long time, fans were seen as mere both tendencies within the Japanese subculture consumers of what was produced, including the debates, which would take seriously the ques- dominant meanings implicit in products. Cul- tion of whether there can be zones of autonomy tural studies transformed this paradigm, show- within capitalist societies, and what impact ing how fans were in fact active receivers, in the these might have. What sort of opportunities sense that fans contributed actively to the pro- does the internal differentiation of global capi- duction of meaning. Otaku might thus be seen talism visible in the formation of fan cultures as an intensification of these active modes of present for the emergence of different political reception, because the hallmark of otaku is not or social possibilities? only heightened consumption—connoisseur- ship, discrimination, collecting—but also a sort PG: In a conference held in Tokyo in 2009, Mi- of production. This otaku productivity entails yadai Shinji and Azuma Hiroki suggested that both knowledge production—collating, classi- subculture in the Japanese sense means any- fying, disseminating, commenting, annotating, thing that is not recognized as high culture. So, translating—and “unofficial” material produc- in effect, popular, mass, and commercial culture tion, for example the dōjin scene. What’s more, all might be subculture. They also resisted the so-called amateur productions frequently make urge to politicize subculture in any form. Their money and sometimes creators go professional. definition seems to be ignoring the concerns In sum, rather than a strict divide between that you raised, conflating micro and mass cul- ordinary fans and otaku, or between otaku tural phenomena, which renders otaku “subcul- consumers and corporate producers, there is a ture” quite ambiguous. If otaku subculture is spectrum of productivity. In Japanese discus- about interaction with mass/commercial/popu- sions of otaku, there is a tendency to insist on lar culture, then it might be better described consumption and to use the term “otaku” in or- as fan culture. I am specifically thinking about der to delineate “fans” or “cult fans” from ordi- Matt Hills’s discussion of cult fans. Like you, nary people or mainstream culture. “Otaku” is Hills has questioned whether these sorts of cul- a term commonly deployed to construct and to tures are about resistance. Taking up the con- patrol a boundary between normal or ordinary cept of a “dialectic of value,” he proposes fans consumption on the one hand, and excessive or tend toward “anti-commercial ideologies and abnormal consumption on the other hand. As commodity-completist practices.” I have the such, in various contexts, the term “otaku” can impression that otaku cultures display less am- be evoked either to demonize or to celebrate bivalence toward mass culture than Hills sees in a certain set of consumer activities that are

368 review & commentary loosely associated with certain kinds of people. exchanges and proliferating across mass media Such a way of using the term “otaku”—to sepa- with great commercial success. rate normal from abnormal—tends to gravitate But telling the story of otaku as exclusion toward an identity politics based on affirming followed by acceptance and redemption is not one’s ordinariness or extraordinariness. For my entirely satisfactory in that it presumes a suc- purposes, such distinctions are interesting in cession of stages, by reference almost exclu- terms of their social effects but not very help- sively to mass media and the nation. There are, ful in the context of thinking the productivity in fact, many different channels of communica- of fans, because their primary effect is to invite tion and ways of communicating. So, even as moralizing about consumption. Everything be- the government acknowledges the importance gins and ends with a moral question: Are we of male otaku and strives to pin it down in its consuming too much or too little? Such a mor- public policies, many otaku-related groups re- alizing stance serves to disavow the excesses of fuse to accept the new discourses and defini- capital by assuming that it is indeed possible to tions. The history of otaku, then, is not one successfully manage capital by practicing moral of an initial misunderstanding and rejection, restraint. followed by recognition and success. There is a continuing negotiation between different paths PG: Do you see any change in the meaning of of communication, some of which are mass- otaku? targeted, some of which are localized and inti- mate. In other words, the meaning of otaku has TL: There is a straightforward way of telling the changed significantly in government policies story of otaku as the explosion of ignored or and mass media, yet prior meanings persist, largely dismissed products and activities into and new articulations are emerging. the national and global mainstream. The arrest of the serial killer Miyazaki resulted in a wave PG: Otaku are today often imagined as men, of demonization and pathologization of otaku- especially Japanese otaku. This is strange, be- related activities in the mass media in the late cause Nakamori Akio’s definition, the starting 1980s and early 1990s. Subsequently, the as- point for much of the discourse on otaku, in- tounding financial success of otaku-related cluded men and women. Female fans were and goods associated with Gainax’s Neon Genesis are a major presence in dōjinshi culture, after Evangelion in the mid-1990s, in conjunction all. However, we now seem to suffer from col- with the increased international visibility of an- lective amnesia. The image of otaku as male ime, manga, and video games meant that such spread rapidly along with media reports on Mi- activities could not be ignored, for commercial yazaki Tsutomu. This is incidentally also where and diplomatic reasons, even if the mass me- the connotations of otaku being lost in virtual dia remained somewhat suspicious about what reality and sexually suspect, even predatory, otaku were really doing. The success of Densha come in. The rising profile of female otaku and Otoko (Train Man) as a film and TV series in fujoshi, the so-called “rotten girls” who produce 2005 signaled the possibility of a complete re- and consume stories about romance between demption and mass appropriation of the otaku beautiful boys, compels us to begin reconsider- phenomenon. On the one hand, it told the story ing gendered stereotypes of fandom in Japan. of an otaku who managed to overcome the anti- It is a little unnerving just how loose the social qualities associated with “otakudom” and use of “otaku” really is, while at the same time win the girl, while, on the other hand, it had how contested it is. When we say “otaku,” there the cachet of emerging from informal are myriad possible meanings. Otaku starts as

review & commentary 369 just a way to say “you” with the original kanji morality and comparison of national values, I character “taku” and honorific “o” お宅 ( ) and think that the otaku mode is not only ordinary then takes on the meaning of subculture when but also transnational at heart. The actual con- rendered in hiragana (おたく). This is most often ventions of expression, technologies, and flows used in a negative way, since it is tied to Naka- of capital are transnational, and this particular mori Akio and Miyazaki Tsutomu. Otaku can intersection of capital and technology tends to also refer to foreign fans of Japanese popular address and define people as populations. As a culture when written in roman letters (otaku). result, the otaku mode acts in terms of multi- At first, it was positive. Fred Schodt points plicities, building them into its operative logic. out that the word otaku appeared on the cover This means that the phenomenon cannot be of Wired magazine in 1993, and the United confined to one territory. Even if we can iden- States has a convention, Otacon, a documen- tify territorial variations, the otaku mode is not tary, Otaku Unite! and a magazine, Otaku USA, entirely localizable, and thus entails a constant that evoke the imagined community. Finally, deterritorialization. “otaku” loses its “cultural odor” when written Put another way, otaku forms are opened in katakana (オタク). This last iteration was in translation. We’re accustomed to thinking popularized by Okada’s Otakugaku no Nyûmon in terms of something being lost in transla- (Introduction to otakuology) in 1996 and was tion, some sort of ineffable essence. This is part of his attempt to jettison associations with because we’re still under the sway of national the heinous crimes of Miyazaki Tstuomu. At language paradigms in thinking translation, the same time, katakana tends to be used for which is thoroughly anachronistic in the con- foreign loanwords, new language, or slang. This text of otaku and global circulation. Certainly, is how the word otaku appears in media and of otaku forms of expression from government reports on “cool Japan,” thus mak- the Japanese involve changing the original, and ing otaku appear international. The word otaku there are also questions about the localization evokes multiple contradictory discourses and of Japanese products. Yet, as Japanese debates images. No one definition is sufficient, and all about otaku suggest in their concerns about the are based in stereotypes that essentialize some loss of a national and world historical frame- “otaku” and exclude others. Some Japanese work, otaku cultures are not primarily a matter scholars are very critical of the international- of nations communicating with nations but of ization of “otaku.” In your experience, what are locales communicating via the global. the differences and similarities between otaku Needless to say, nations and the interna- in Japan and abroad? tional mechanisms of sovereignty have not disappeared from the scene, and there is thus a TL: If we look at the otaku phenomenon in continual interplay between them and transna- terms of the emergence of a new mode of so- tional mechanisms. Crudely put, it boils down cial existence that is related to transforma- to interplay between national language trans- tions in capitalism and in technologies, then lation and transnational media circulation, in the enthusiastic reception of Japanese otaku which circulation implies other registers of ma- activities in other sites around the globe is not terial translation—file conversion, for instance. so surprising. Again, in contrast with discus- This interplay has to be taken into account sions of otaku that see in them nonordinary or when considering the differences between excessive consumption that at the same time otaku in Japan and outside Japan. We need to adheres to national boundaries, which tends think translation beyond the linguistic register, to push discussion in the direction of national even though language, in the narrow sense of

370 review & commentary national speech, has a tendency to “overcode” of “,” a euphoric response to fictional char- other material registers, for historical as well acters. Okada finds this group so reprehensible as psychological reasons. Your example of the that he wrote a book to them in 2008 titled katakana transformation of the term “otaku” Otaku wa sudeni shindeiru, which translates to into a foreign loanword within national policy “you are already dead.” Inside, he refers to the speaks to this overcoding of otaku activities by cultural death of otaku, or what he perceives reference to a distinction between native and as a break between otaku of his generation and foreign. The persistent tendency toward linguis- otaku today. Given that sci-fi fans of Okada’s tic overcoding of material activities makes the generation likely weren’t calling themselves dynamics of and scanlation groups very otaku, or might have used it as an insult, this interesting and important in gauging the inter- seems an almost predictable conclusion. Ironi- play of the international and transnational. In cally, Okada became a public “otaku” figure, and sum, the national form has not been surpassed, he was in many ways tied to the growing me- nor is it irrelevant. In fact, it often steps in to dia discourse on otaku and the growing sense police such transnational flows, building an al- of community among anime and manga fans in liance between security and population control the 1990s. What’s your opinion on his stance? and national sovereignty. TL: It seems to me that, at one level, discourses PG: Matt Hills suggests the word otaku has be- on otaku in Japan have placed so much empha- come a “shifter,” or “a mobile sign of self and sis on generational differences that the idea of other.” Stereotypical images such as “Japan,” radical ruptures is always central to how otaku “the West,” “otaku” and “non-otaku,” are acti- cultures are imagined. So it is not surprising vated and deactivated as part of the ongoing that, rather than imagine yet another genera- process of making meaning. Even as we talk tion of otaku, Okada would propose a radical about transnational flows, receivers can rein- break with otaku itself, the death of otaku. scribe boundaries even as they transgress them. The idea of radical generational breaks is built This sort of boundary play might be part of the into the discourse, and media commentators in appeal. As you mentioned, we want to read Stu- Japan are adept at proclaiming new breaks and dio Ghibli as Japanese, and they capitalize on generating new types. Recently, the effect of that desire, but we also read universal values generating new types has been largely to casti- into it. And there is no shortage of people in gate youth for a perceived decline in Japan’s sta- Japan who want to assert that this global popu- tus. Similarly, Okada detects a loss of engage- lar culture is Japanese in origin. Hills is talking ment, commitment and pride among would-be about how anime fans interact with “Japan” and otaku that for him signals cultural demise. use the otaku label outside Japan, but I think At another level, Okada is also reacting his points are also relevant for considering the against the mass media and government ap- situation inside Japan. propriation of otaku activities, which brings At the same time, some otaku today de- them into the public sphere and recodes them scribe themselves as “wotaku” (ヲタク) in a con- in terms of national values. Okada went to great scious effort to break free of associations with lengths to legitimate otaku activities, but he subculture and pop culture, to cast off the do- apparently does not want otaku to become too mestic and international baggage attached to big or too mainstream. One of the underlying “otaku.” They are media savvy and information assumptions of Okada’s discussion of otaku is hungry, with a flair for fan productions, and ap- that community depends on numerical small- pear almost random or chaotic in their pursuit ness, and community ceases to exist when it

review & commentary 371 is no longer quantitatively small. At the same at a time when otaku are increasingly entering time, smallness for Okada becomes too small the public debate effectively reduces them into when it does not appear cohesive or coherent an invisible presence, which can be obscured or and thus creative. If otaku are for him already revealed selectively. dead, it is because they have become at once too Also, to make one’s personal history into big and too small, without community and cre- the otaku history tends to limit what expe- ativity, and thus chaotic and incomprehensible riences are included. Okada tends to omit as a population. dōjinshi, for instance. As a result, he overlooks Okada’s remarks bring us to the limits of an important site of creativity and community. thinking otaku in terms of generations, to the Patterns of consumption may be broader and point where we might productively shift from less focused because of the vast amounts of the quantitative to the qualitative, and look at media and material available to otaku, but the the otaku mode of social existence in terms of younger generation does not differ dramatically the intimacy of its media connection and social in the intensity and duration of its activities. relations. Genuine intimacy and sociality would They are savvy at mixing media and making demand that something be at risk. In effect, cultural citations. Theirs may be a different pat- however indirectly, Okada is posing a question tern of consumption and production, but it is about what is at risk, or what is at stake, in cer- increasingly prevalent. How do you think otaku tain modes of media consumption today. This is will fare from now on? not a trivial question. But it cannot be answered simply by referring to the death of otaku, or by TL: The otaku mode today is poised between fu- insisting, as other commentators do, that the tures. On the one hand, as the site of articula- irresponsibility of youth is responsible for a tion of relations between capital and technolo- perceived decline of the Japanese nation. gies, the otaku mode points to an expansion and intensification of “human capital.” Human PG: A perceived loss of creativity and commu- capital refers to the knowledge and skills ac- nity is central to Okada’s argument. His ideas quired through education and experience. It come out of personal experiences with “otaku” was common in dominant postwar analyses culture. As Japanese academics have until re- of human capital, which culminate in Gary cently been reluctant to take up the topic of Becker’s Human Capital, to cite the example of otaku, these sorts of narrative accounts are all Japan. A nation without resources other than most people have to go on, and a shared cultural the skills and knowledge of its populace never- experience is extrapolated, or imagined, from theless succeeded due to its human capital. The them. The problem is not that this is presented emphasis on human capital is central to eco- as otaku history but that it is accepted to be the nomic liberalism and neoliberalism. At a time only otaku history—a history that positions when neoliberalism enjoys a certain degree of older generations as “aristocrats” (kizoku) and privilege, it isn’t surprising that the skills ac- “elites” (erīto) and dismisses younger genera- quired through the otaku mode of reception/ tions. The problem I have with Okada declaring production of technologized commodities are otaku officially dead is that he in effect silences often seen as assets for the workplace and even them. The younger generation does not have as the ground for a new business model. The the authority to write its own narrative. If the danger is that the otaku mode of social exis- older generation abandons them, they are at the tence will come to mesh smoothly with the for- mercy of the mass media. This contributes to mation of new regimes of flexible labor, and the misunderstanding. Claiming there are no otaku otaku’s “productive modes of consumption”

372 review & commentary will contribute to the formation of a labor pool this demonstration in the spirit of matsuri, to that lends itself to retraining for new tasks as have fun, to . What is more, the numbers businesses change, without any economic secu- swelled as the march continued and bystanders rity or social clout. joined. Some commentators, such as Morikawa On the other hand, awareness is emerging Kaichirō, took this to be just another example in certain regions of the otaku experience that of the street performances that were popular there is the connection between the otaku mode in Akihabara at the time. For critics, Akihabara and labor politics—crudely put, between otaku had become a media stage, and these people and freeter (those who make a living stringing were playing to the cameras. They were per- together part-time work) or NEET (those Not forming otaku-ness. But I think that there is in Education, Employment or Training). Your a politics to spontaneous pleasures. Whatever own essay in this volume explores the emer- the motivations of participants, they succeeded gence of the “Akihabara Liberation Demonstra- in making something visible. They achieved a tion,” wherein otaku contest policies that limit certain degree of solidarity, common purpose, otaku activities. More generally, the precariat and action. While the actual march, in the spirit movement described in Amamiya Karin’s essay of matsuri, did not last, it definitely had an ef- presents some important points of intersection fect. This is regardless of the causes. The radical, with otaku modes. In other words, there are political potential of otaku movement might be signs that, if otaku consumption is frequently an avenue for further research. What direction seized at the level of its productivity, as human will your research take? capital, then new social movements can arise within the otaku mode of social existence that TL: In keeping with your comments about take questions about flexible work and forms of otaku politics, I feel it is important to avoid an immaterial labor as their ground. exclusively cause-and-effect definition of po- litical action in the context of otaku, as well as PG: It is common to dismiss play activity among imperative conclusions of the sort “we otaku youth as escape rather than engagement, but must do this or that.” Often we don’t exactly I think that the possibilities for otaku politics know why we’re in the streets marching, and, deserve attention. For example, Honda Tōru even when we do, we find that our “cause” may called for otaku to quit “love capitalism” and change dramatically through the encounter, the find “pure love” with a two-dimensional char- event, and its effects. In my research on otaku, acter. He was a vocal critic of , I want to find a way to trace the field of pos- which he claimed was message to otaku to grow sibilities that arise around specific sets of mate- up and learn how to buy gifts for others, groom rial orientations in order to generate discussion themselves and go on expensive dates, to suc- about the ways in which power is exercised. In ceed within love capitalism. Honda submitted this respect, I tend to agree with Michel Fou- that the capitalist system was the problem, not cault’s emphasis on the politics of truth, on the guys who couldn’t find dates. Whether en- mechanisms of “verisdiction,” because, even tirely serious or not, Honda is drawing our at- though we are to some extent caught up in im- tention to a perceived problem and encouraging peratives and totalities as teachers, students, debate. and researchers, nonetheless an ongoing explo- In a different context, that of the Akihabara ration of what counts as truth has the virtue Liberation Demonstration, it is true that many of leading us into fields of analysis with some participants were not explicitly aware of the sense of what matters for us. motivations of the organizers. Many joined The question of otaku for me is about the

review & commentary 373 advent of a relation to commodities based on the march did not last, it may repeat and renew the prolongation of media events and thus the itself. What would invite us to take risks to pro- production of worlds. The concept ofmatsuri fits long such an event or world? such a politics well. Festival has long provided an alternative in Marxist theory to the empha- PG: We might also want to consider the poten- sis on revolution, offering a different sense of tial of the matsuri event to open up new spaces the role of the body and performance in imag- and new notions of self and sociality. But that is ining and enacting sociohistorical change. In a discussion that will have to wait until our next the instance of the Akihabara Liberation Dem- encounter. Thank you very much for a stimulat- onstration, we might say that, if such marches, ing discussion. like other otaku activities, are conceived on the model of the matsuri event, then, even though TL: Thank you.

374 review & commentary