Otakuology: a Dialogue Patrick W

Otakuology: A Dialogue Patrick W. Galbraith Thomas Lamarre Mechademia, Volume 5, 2010, pp. 360-374 (Article) Published by University of Minnesota 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 otaku, 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, manga. See http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ how they experience it, at different historical encyclopedia/anime.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, literary studies, and media studies—art, visual culture, 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 anime and manga 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 subtitles 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.

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