POP-DIPLOMACY: ANIME AND MANGA AS VEHICLES OF CULTURAL CONTEXT,

IDENTITY FORMATION, AND HYBRIDITY

By

Morgan Elizabeth Burkett

Submitted to the

Faculty of the School oflntemational Service

of American University

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the Requirements for the Degree

of Master ofArts in

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Dean ofthe School oflntemational Service

Date

2009

American University

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2009

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED POP-DIPLOMACY: ANIME AND MANGA AS VEHICLES OF CULTURAL

CONTEXT, IDENTITY FORMATION, AND HYBRIDITY

BY

Morgan Elizabeth Burkett

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine how a community, or "fandom," of American consumers is interacting with certain aspects of Japanese popular culture and to explore these interactions as sites of cultural negotiation. Specifically, the purpose is to explore the rise in popularity of Japanese manga and anime, as well as the associated subcultures, in the US within a theoretical framework of hybridization and ask: How is the community framing discussions of cultural context and identity formation and and are its members engaging in the hybridization of culture? In the case studies, fieldwork conducted at anime conventions and through analysis of public discussion on community web forums highlight two site of cultural negotiation: conventions and cosplay and fansubs.

11 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

Chapter

1. RESEARCH QUESTION ...... I

2. THE SETTING AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...... 2

3. LITERATURE SUMMAR¥ ...... 6

Literature Critique

Conceptual Framework

Historical Framework

4. TECHNOLOGICALADVANCES ...... 24

5. CASE STUDIES ...... 27

Conventions and Cosplay

Fan subs

6. CONCLUSION ...... 60

APPENDIX...... 64

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 66

lll CHAPTER I

RESEARCH QUESTION

The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine how a community, or "fandom," of American consumers is interacting with certain aspects of Japanese popular culture and to explore these interactions as sites of cultural negotiation. I am interested in examining the relationship between the consumption of Japanese popular culture and the formation of cultural context and identity in this community. Here I use the definition of culture given by James Lull in his book Media, Communication, Culture.

Culture is a complex and dynamic ecology of people, things, world views, activities, and settings that fundamentally endures but is also changed in routine communication and social interaction. Culture is context. It's how we talk and dress, the food we eat and how we prepare and consume it, the gods we invent and the ways we worship them, how we divide up time and space, and all the other details that make up everyday life. 1

Specifically, I am exploring the rise in popularity of Japanese manga and anime, as well as the associated subcultures, in the US within a theoretical framework of hybridization and asking: How is the community framing discussions of cultural context and identity formation and and are its members engaging in the hybridization of culture?

1 James Lull, Media, Communication, Culture, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 66. CHAPTER2

THE SETTING AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The interactions indicate an avenue of understanding and cultural context transmission that is not produced or facilitated by an official governmental route and instead comes from the community. Official routes of cultural transmission already exist through programs such as education exchanges, art exchanges, and the like; these are not what I am examining. They are usually highly structured and have specific goals integrated into their design. What I am looking at differs in that there is no official program to promote the cultural flow and context transmission brought about by the exchange of anime and manga and their related community. While the commercial exchange may be aided by governmental processes in the form of quotas, tariffs, and the like, the guiding force for this form of cultural exchange lies in the consumers, or audience. How these cultural exchanges are carried out, and what form they take, is community driven. At times these exchanges happen despite official rules or channels.

Before I continue, let me first explain the basics of anime and manga. Both terms are closely intertwined in Japan and the United States. Anime is short for animation and can be considered a Japanese analog to the live-action television shows that make up the majority of American television programming and movies. That is to say, rather than being analogous with American cartoons (also animated) which have tended to focus

2 3

primarily on programming for children, anime is developed and marketed to a wide range

of age groups--from young children to adult-only programming. Anime covers many different genres; from school life and raging space-operas to fairy tales and the mundane.

If it can be conceived, there is likely an anime about it.

Manga can be considered Japanese comic books, but rather than being part of a male-dominated "geek-dom" as American comics are, manga developed over the years for all genders and age groups. Sharon Kinsella, in Adult Manga: Culture & Power in

Contemporary Japanese Society, describes manga, and by extension anime, as follows:

Though often thought of by foreign observers as a specialized cultural trope with strongly defined themes such as pornography and science fiction fantasy, manga is primarily a medium. Like television, literature or film, the manga medium carries an immense range of cultural material. The bread and butter of the manga industry has been a large number of long-running series which can be loosely compared to the soap operas, dramas, sitcoms, comedies, and docu-dramas aired on British television. However, manga generally has a greater thematic range than Japanese television broadcasting, a medium which has been dominated by low­ budget celebrity game shows, chat shows, audience and panel discussions, and food and game guides. The themes of series have been defined mainly by their location, for example, in and around a sports club, school, college campus, workplace, household, historical set, or criminal underworld. In addition to drama about everyday life, manga has also absorbed a range of material, too raw, bawdy, satirical, politically subversive, delinquent, artistic, fantastic, or simply obscure, to get distribution in any other mass media. One of the most common synonyms used to describe manga is 'air', something that has permeated every crevice of the contemporary environment. Manga can be purchased from train platform kiosks, in book shops near railway stations and on shopping malls and streets, as well as in art book shops and luxury department stores; it can be bought from any 24-hour convenience store, a snack bar in a car park at a tourist resort, at a grocery store serving the needs of a remote village, or from a vending machine chained to the comer of a street.2

2 Sharon Kinsella, Adult Manga: Culture & Power in Contemporary Japanese Society, (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2000), 3-4. 4

The manga and anime creation systems are highly intertwined; many anime stories were first developed as manga. If there was not a manga of the story before a popular anime aired, one was often developed afterwards as "manga are the source for over 90 percent of anime."3 The terms anime and manga themselves are treated at times as interchangeable, at least in the United States. In American usage, the term anime can mean the animated shows themselves or it can be used to refer to both anime and manga at the same time (though the reverse is not generally used).

While anime and manga are both forms of commercial mass media, my focus is not confined to the actual commercial products but broadened to an examination of the resulting community (or fandom) that forms around the products as the major factor of the study. This paper will focus on several sites of cultural negotiation within that fandom as the case studies. To be clear, these are not case studies in the sense of a traditional compare and contrast model, rather they are an examination of the actual places of cultural crossover and identity formation that are sites of hybridization. The exportation of Japanese pop-culture to the United States, and the large communities built around these mediums, brings up issues of identity and cultural context association that can be examined through hybridity and transculturalism. The theory that cultures can crossover or flow is not new and some of the experiences that member of the fandom have at these

3 Mark W. MacWilliams, ed. Japanese Visual Culture (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), 6. 5

sites, which include anime conventions4 and cosplay5 and fansubs 6, may seem self- evident, but until they are studied any conclusion reached is merely conjecture.

I drew on two main venues for the qualitative portion of my research over the past year: fieldwork I conducted at anime conventions over the course of a year and public discussion on community web forums. The two main conventions I attended were

Katsucon 15 and Otakon 16 (2009). Katsucon 15 was held in Washington, DC on

February 13-15, 2009 and had 6,000 people in attendanceJ Otakon 16 was held in

Baltimore, MD on July 17-19, 2009 and had 26,586 people in attendance. 8

4 Conventions are often referred to as "cons" in the anime fan community and both terms will be used throughout. A more thorough explanation can be found in the convention case study section.

5 Cosplay is short for "costume play," or dressing up as a character, and will be explained more in-depth further on. A more thorough explanation can be found in the convention case study section.

6 Fansubs are unofficial, fan-produced, subtitled episodes of anime shows that are usually available and downloaded from the internet. A more thorough explanation can be found in the convention case study section.

7 http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/1550 s http://www.otakon.com/history_ stats.asp CHAPTER3

LITERATURE SUMMARY

This thesis will draw on Marwan Kraidy's work on hybridity and transculturalism

to explore the linkages between American and Japanese popular culture. Kraidy sees hybridity as:

various themes [that] play off one another, with only a provisional privilege being given to any particular one; yet in the resulting polyphony there is concert and order, an organized interplay that derives from the themes, not from rigorous melodic or formal principle outside the work.9

Kraidy proposes critical transculturalism that uses hybridization as a strategic rhetoric as the new international communication framework. 10 His methodology focuses "on a variety of links between institutions, texts, and experiences, at the same time keeping the open trope ofhybridity as a unifying element" which "helps us to move beyond bipolar models of global against local, power versus resistance, imperialism contra hybridity, and focuses instead on complex processes at play." 11 As the form of cultural exchange and cultural context transmission that I am examining is not guided by official policy it is, by its nature, shaped by people who are not in position to create policies. Hybridity, then,

9 Marwan Kraidy, Hybridity: or the Cultural Logic of Globalization, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005), 13.

10 Kraidy, xii.

II Kraidy, 13. 6 7

offers a framework in which to examine the many facets ofuno:fficial cultural context

transmission.

While Kraidy's work focuses on media reception and response questions to

illustrate the individualized local hybridization that occurs among the wide range of communities he studies, he provides a framework within which other transcultural media can be examined. Hybridity, as laid out by Kraidy, is concerned with the linkages between international communication, cultural globalization, international relations, and critical theory (which is composed of political economy, media criticism, postcolonial studies, and critical discourse analysis ). 12 Encompassing these linkages includes power and structure in the analysis of hybridity--rather than dismissing it--by "assuming that notions of media and audience activities are mutually complementary rather than exclusive because politico-economic structure and sociocultural agency round each other off."'3

Kraidy's use oftransculturalism to describe his framework is deliberate; he uses it to demonstrate his vision of culture as a mixed, synthetic entity that develops at a social level rather than an individual level. Transculturalism sees all cultures as inherently mixed and seeks to "understand the depth, scope, and direction of various levels of hybridity."14 He places transculturalism and hybridity squarely within the global system as a whole rather than walling off culture as a separate entity unaffected by economic and

12 Kraidy, 12-13.

13 Kraidy, 13.

14 Kraidy, 14. 8

political issues and structures. This allows for a more nuanced understanding ofhow globalization affects cultural context transmission and identity. Kraidy looks to relocate the discussion ofhybridity away from those who would look at it from a purely economic perspective and turn the focus back to a social issue, which is well suited for a study of the contextual cultural linkages that are part of the American anime and manga community. First, some understanding of past cultural flow between the United States and Japan and oft-used theoretical frameworks is needed.

Literature Critique

Cultural flow has been characterized in many different ways, including as a one­ way, hegemonic exchange with information flowing from a dominant culture (the United

States) to a subordinate one (the rest of the world); and through the theory of transculturalism and hybridity where the flow of information and power structure is more complex and less linear. 15 I will first examine the theoretical frameworks in which global cultural flow has previously been placed which have gone though several iterations over the last century. This is done to show the limitations of non-hybridic theoretical frameworks in understanding how cultural flow can affect cultural context formation.

The hegemonic model refers to "the power or dominance that one social group holds over others"16 and can also refer to "the 'asymmetrical interdependence' of

15 Kraidy.

16 Lull, 31. 9

political-economic-cultural relations between and among nation-states."17 Cultural

hegemony, rather than focusing on the economic base of power and authority, is a form of

ideological power that is often perpetuated through mass-communication or media

avenues. The understanding of cultural hegemony was founded on the Gramscian model

of ideological hegemony where "ruling elites use [mass media] to 'perpetuate their

power, wealth, and status [by popularizing] their own philosophy, culture, and mortality,'

... and thereby guaranteeing that their points of view are constantly and attractively cast

into the public arena."18

The industrializing of American cultural goods is an example of this and has been covered extensively by Herb Schiller, author of several books on the topic including

Culture, Inc. Schiller is very critical of what he calls the "corporate-message cocoon"19 that first enveloped the United States and then the rest of the world. He feels that

"because the United States still authors most internationally consumed messages,

American cultural commodities have 'overwhelmed a good part of the world' by

'smothering the senses' with a 'consumerist virus'."20 Viewed in this way, the power structure is consolidated among a few elites, with very little production capital held by the viewers, with the media structures and institutions working only to serve the elites.

This creates a one-dimensional society where the dominant (elite) message is presented

17 Lull, 31.

18 Lull, 32-33.

19 Referencing Herb SchillerLull, 118.

20 Lull, 118. 10

as the natural one, silencing or marginalizing dissenting voices; the audience then

becomes passive receptors of meaning.

For example, Hollywood and the animation giant Disney are considered

particularly successful in industrializing and consumerizing culture with the development

of movies and highly effective marketing schemes. They developed an immense industry

whose success was owed to the development of new mass communication technologies

(such as television) and the resources to propagate their information and products around the world. The United States, before the debut of populous access to the internet, and

especially in the early 20th century, was one of the few global information providers. This had far reaching effects on the production of cultural products around the world and on the development of local cultural forms and contexts. In particular relevance for this paper is the development of Japanese local cultural forms and contexts.

It was during the turbulent time after World War II that Osamu Tezuka, known as manga no kamisama ("God of Comics")21 and highly regarded as the father of modem manga, published his first major success Shin-takarajima (New Treasure Island) which sold more than 400,000 copies22. He also began creating his most endearing series

Tetsuwan Atomu (The Mighty Atom) or, as it is known in the West, Astroboy, during that period. Tezuka was influenced by the animation of the day, namely Disney, which he had grown up watching. His work, however soon outstripped Disney's in terms of the issues

21 Patrick Drazen, Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! ofJapanese Animation, (Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2003), 5.

22 MacWilliams, ed., 35. 11

he was addressing and the scope of the work's target audience. There were differences especially in the content ofhis work. "Unlike Disney features, which didn't try to be topical except for a few pop culture references, [Tezuka's story] Tetsukan Atomu consciously and deliberately mirrored the American civil rights struggles of the day. ''23 In contrast, Disney's animation was targeted toward children and tended to be rewritten fairy tales with family friendly story-lines and "happily-ever-after" endings. A good example of this would be the rewriting of the Grimms Fairy Tales in works like Snow

White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty.

Extending from hegemonic ideology is the notion of cultural homogenization. By virtue of a hegemon's ability to infiltrate the methods of mass communication among the subordinate cultures, and by extension its ability to marginalize other messages, the hegemonic (or dominant) culture creates cultural homogenization by normalizing the dominant culture values to the demise of subordinate values. Cultural flow, in this view, is a one way transfer from the dominate power to the subordinate one; the values of the subordinate society would not necessarily flow into the dominant society in return.

An example of this would be how, before the early 1990s, anime was not widely known or available in the United States and when it was known, was perceived as sex- filled, violent cartoons. Much of the debate outside the anime community was, and is, based around the stereotype that anime consists of sex and violence.24 Discussions occur

23 Drazen, 6.

24 Susan Jolliffe Napier, From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 157. 12

at conventions around the country and web forums across the internet even today,

continually refuting this idea and pointing out that anime and manga are mediums not

genres. Even with this lack of availability, many people growing up in the United States between the 1960s and today, probably without being aware of what it was or where it came from, watched Japanese anime at one point.

There were shows that were shown on American television but they were small in number. An example of one show that did make it though would be Osamu Tezuka 's

Astra Boy, which aired in 1963; it was the first imported anime and ran for a few years.

His show opened the door slightly to more Japanese anime, but the availability of shows commercially, specifically shows that were known to be Japanese, was practically nonexistent. American broadcaster's interest in anime died down in the late 1960s and it was not until the late 1970s, with the introduction ofVHS, that anime really began to take off in the United States. Even at this point however, anime was still very much a sub­ culture that was known to a relatively small group of fans.

During these years when anime was shown in the United States, the shows were likely to have all Japanese references and context stripped out of them. A few examples would be Speed Racer (Mach Go Go Go), Robotech (which was actually three different

Japanese series cut up and made into one show with an entirely new plot), and Gigantor

(Tetsujin 28-go). One reason these shows were able to air during this period in the United

States was because broadcasters were desperate for shows to fill their airtime and snatched up any shows available. Even with this, heavy editing and alteration was done to 13

shows acquired from Japan. In one case US producer KidPix used postproduction of foreign footage to create an animated American TV and video release.

The process, described in Variety, began with raw animation from a series of segments from foreign (mostly Japanese) animated television series. The segments were then rescripted with a new chronology and storyline. U.S. voice actors were used and six original songs were scored to a stereo soundtrack to complete a 90-minute feature film for television and video release with a U.S.­ oriented title. 25

Additionally, as the conventions of anime style were to draw the characters sans ethnicity26 the characters in shows did not look Japanese; it was not readily apparent that the shows originated from non-American source material. This rewriting of anime for

American audiences does not change their original context within Japanese culture, nor were they promoted because they were Japanese.

The perception of low audience demand on behalf of American television programmers and the regulations in the United States governing the content of television shows were also factors in the limited success of anime in the United States until the

1990s. David Hubka explained this failure to gain airtime in his article "Globalization of

Cultural Production, " which looked at animated television for children. He says,

TV World [in 1986] reported on the continued failure of Japanese television animation to obtain distribution in the United States. Its success was limited by what North American Programmers saw as the inappropriate content of much television content in Japan. A spokesperson for Tohoku Shinsha noted ... Americans don't want their children to watch the kind of animation in which there are machines which are destructive or where there is cruelty to animals or

25 David Hubka, "Globalization of Cultural Production: The Transformation of Children's Animated Television, 1980 to 1995," in Global Culture: Media, Arts, Policy, and Globalization, ed. Diane Crane, Nobuko Kawashima, and Ken'ichi Kawasaki(New York: Routledge, 2002), 248.

26 Drazen, 7-8. 14

violence involving human beings. Somehow, these things are accepted in Japan, but they are certainly not seen in the same light overseas.27

It wasn't until the success of Pokemon, a show that promoted hard work and perseverance

as the means to success, that anime came to the attention of the prime-time mainstream.

Targeted towards children and designed to sell toys, Pokemon was a major part of the

craze for Japanese pop-culture that is still ongoing: "it was the crowbar that levered

Japanese animation back into the United States as a powerful commercial force."28

Pokemon, however, did not air until the 1990s nor did it create universal acceptance of

anime. Something else was happening outside of official channels and it was creating sites of cultural hybridization and cultural meaning.

Conceptual Framework

Despite the wishes of media producers, audiences are not passive receptors of meaning. Though the recipient might appropriate a portion of outside cultural goods, "the consumption of cultural goods and services is always embedded in local circumstances."29 Meaning is not directly transferred to audiences in an unadulterated form--it is viewed and interpreted based on the system of meaning and signals that exist in the context the recipient possesses. Hegemonies can not simply assume their meaning will transfer and have it be so; "communication involves a highly complex set of

27 Hubka, 23 7.

28 Roland Kelts, Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 90.

29 Mel van Elteren, "Conceptualizing the Impact of US Popular Culture Globally," Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 1 (1996): 72. 15

interactivities and so is not a process that can simply be controlled by those wishing to do

so." 30

The passive audience concept held sway until it was challenged by Stuart Hall's

work on the role that interpretation plays in constructing memory. 31 Hall, a leading

cultural theorist and sociologist, saw encoding a message as only the first step in the

meaning-making process. It is a process that is not complete until the message has been

decoded, a step taken by the recipient of the message, not the source. Hall's work deals with the theoretical possibility of hybridization which would occur in the in-between

space created by the interpretation and decoding of the recipient audience and would be an unfettered process. Hall does not deal with how the actual practice of cultural hybridization occurs, this task is taken up by later scholars such as Lawrence Lessig, whose work on intellectual property, the internet, and free culture will be discussed later in the fansub case study.

Hall saw three outcomes of decoding. In the first, the decoder accepts the preferred message in its entirety; in the second, the decoder rejects the message outright; and in the third, the decoder can negotiate the message by accepting parts of it, while rejecting others.32 This is not to say the encoder is no longer an essential part of meaning-

30 P. Eric Louw, The media and cultural production, (London; Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2001), 205.

31 Stuart Hall, "Encoding/Decoding," in Culture, Media and Language, ed. Stuart Hallet al. (London: Routledge, 1980).

32 Louw, 205. 16

making, rather they are not the sole active party and "the receiver of a message is as

much a part of the meaning-making process as the person encoding the message."33

Decoding is filtered through the recipient's system of signs and meaning and

personal context which can be quite different than those of the encoder. An illustration of the different ways in which meaning can be assigned and interpreted is found in

anthropologist Clifford Geertz's example of a boy opening and closing his eyelid.

Depending on the context and the viewer's understanding of the act, the boy could have been performing the act of winking, mocking, flirting, or any number of actions that are

signals for meaning. 34

The ability to create meaning-closure (i.e rewriting story lines in anime to appeal to American audiences) is one of the factors underlying the concept of homogenization of subordinate cultures. Eric Louw, in The Media and Cultural Production, sees the pressure to create closures as an "attempt to direct, narrow or close meaning in favor of one or other sectional interest."35 The use of mass media--even that of foreign origin--to promote

American values such as freedom, opportunity, and individualism is an example of an attempt at meaning-closure. Louw expresses the idea of meaning-closure as the main advantage dominant groups have within the mass communication system. As we have seen before, one of the main ideas behind the hegemonic model is also the ability of those

33 Louw, 206.

34 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation ofCultures: Selected Essays, (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 7.

35 Louw, 205. 17

in power to close meanings by normalizing their own values and marginalizing dissenting views--showing a linkage between hegemony and homogenization.

Opponents ofhomogenization, often with the presumption of meaning

"Westernized" or "Americanized", 36 argue that cultures have "historically been territorially confined because of the difficulty and costs involved in cultural flow"37 and that lowering these barriers leads to a blurring of separate cultures and the domination of the non-hegemonic culture; put succinctly, changes in communication patterns and methods alter cultures. Under hegemony, these cultural changes are theorized to align subordinate cultures with the dominant culture. Homogenization by way ofhegemony can also be used to explain away societal changes. With the United States cast at the center of the hegemony, cultural changes occurring during globalization are seen as forces ofWestern consumerist culture38 which allows blame to be placed squarely on an external group rather than taking into consideration internal factors.

The idea of globalization causing homogenization of cultures hinges on the belief that cultures should be preserved as static and separate. Those who disagree with the notion of global homogenization believe such thinking is "based on a tendency to think in

[an] exclusively spatial-synchronic way"39 which ignores internal changes that occur without external influence. They believe that the perception of societies as "closed

36 Michael Greig, "The End of Geography?: Globalization, Communications, and Culture in the International System," Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 2 (2002): 231.

37 Greig: 231.

38 Greig: 231.

39 van Elteren: 52. 18

places--ethnically pure, culturally traditional, 'authentic,' undisturbed until yesterday by

modernity--is a Western fantasy about "otherness which prefers its exotic places to be

'untouched. "'40 Hybridity theory, then is a response to the notion that cultures are static

and unchanging. Rather, it looks at how the local and non-local interact and contribute to

a society's development and culture. It also questions the idea of "national" cultures as

cultures bounded and constrained within the borders of a nation. "The contents of a

'national culture' continually change with the passage oftime. What the people of a given

nature consider to be their 'own culture' at any time is the result of a process of

'totalization' of cultural memory up to the past."41 The indigenization of foreign cultural

elements into Japanese culture and society is but one example of this process of

totalization. Cultures are continuously evolving and changing as people's

conceptualization of themselves and their identity changes due to internal and external

influences.

Rather than globalization causing all-encompassing homogenization and

domination by the hegemony (i.e. the West), the emergent theory ofhybridity contends

that globalization has instead created more diversity through hybridized localization.

Theorists such as Jan Nederveen Pieterse and John Tomlinson have put forth that "what

emerges through the process of globalization is not a uniform 'Global Culture,' but

increasingly differences and complexity of locally inflected meanings due to

40 van Elteren: 59. 41 van Elteren: 53. 19

hybridization and indigenization."42 As Matwan Kraidy put it, "hybridity is the cultural logic of globalization. "43

Kraidy's conception ofhybridity sees local hybridizations, or localizations, that differ depending on their location and context rather than a singular hybridized superculture; the notion of a hybridized superculture is a conceptual form of global homogenization. Hybridity involves the fusion of two identities that evolves though cross-cultural contact motivated by commerce and strategic location concerns. The contact is generally conducted through mass media, though it can also take the form of the exchange of people, ideas, and practices. 44 In the case of transmission of anime and manga to the United States, the exchange of ideas and practices is of great importance to the creation of a hybridized localization by the fan community.

Historical Framework

The characterization of Japan as culturally untouched or pure is one that has been used, especially during the century between the mid-1800s and World War II, both by

Japan and by other countries. The interest in Japan as a source of pristine culture in

Western societies dates back to the "opening of Japan" and the arrival of Commodore

Matthew Perry. Commodore Perry, an American Naval officer, arrived in Japan in 1853

42 Matthew Allen and Rmni Sakamoto, "Introduction: Inside-out Japan? Popular Culture and Globalization in the Context of Japan," in Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan, ed. Matthew Allen and Rmni Sakamoto(London: Routledge, 2006), 2.

43 Kraidy, xii.

44 Kraidy, 5. 20

with several American warships to back his mission of forcing Japan, who had been in self-imposed isolation for centuries under shogunate rule, to trade with the United States.

He succeeded and this resulted in the opening of Japan to foreign trade and caused cultural goods to flow in and out of the country.

After Japan was opened and goods flowed out, a fascination developed among the

Western societies with Japan, which the Japonisme movement in Europe exemplified.

Importation of Japanese goods and artistic aesthetic (particularly among the

Impressionists) proceeded at a rapid pace. "Ultimately," writes Napier, "the cult of Japan would spread from bohemian artists and intellectuals, who became fascinated by the new vision that Japanese culture seemed to present, to upper-class women wearing the latest in kimono-inspired fashions, to the newly emergent middle class, who decorated their parlors with Japanese curios and fans."45 Japonisme was a fascination with Japan; it foreshadowed the appeal of the anime craze to come.

This did not mean that the Japonisme followers believed their use of Japanese products meant they understood Japan and Japanese culture any better, but rather that they possessed some part of an exotic and mystical land. Nor was there a major move amongst Western society to understand the associated cultural context of the goods.

Those in the West gave the products meaning based on European or American values rather than using the contextual Japanese meanings.

45 Napier, 24. 21

Western societies at the time of the Japonisme movement were at the tail-end of the industrial revolution and saw the cultural art pieces from Japan as a new and fresh look at the world. Japan meanwhile, was on the fast track to modernize along Western lines in an attempt to avoid the fate of the rest of East Asia, namely colonization by a

Western power. Not only did Japan bring new artistic competition to the West, they were also becoming competitive in other areas as well, which was "forcing the West to take notice of the country in a different way than the typical dynamic that had pervaded East-

West relations. "46

Japan was not willing to accept the dominate group's message and was attempting instead to create a new message that would give them the same standing and power as the

West in the international system. Japan achieved their modernization not through homogenization but through indigenization (a form of localization) of outside concepts and structures. "Indigenization refers to the local appropriation of foreign cultures and cultural products by mixing them up with local tradition and culture,"47 a synthesis that

Japan had performed many times throughout its history. They borrowed institutions and structures from several Western countries; the code of law from France and the format of the Diet48 from the Germanic and British systems are just two examples. This indigenization of Western culture differs from the hybridization that I am discussing in

46 Napier, 49.

47 Koichi lwabuchi, "Uses of Japanese Popular Culture: Trans/nationalism and Postcolonial Desire for 'Asia'," £mergences: Journal for the Study ofMedia & Composite Cultures 11, no. 2 (200 1): 207.

48 The Japanese legislature is called the Diet. 22

that indigenization seeks to appropriate cultural elements and meanings and make them

part of the borrowing culture, whereas hybridization combines cultural elements and

meaning from the both cultures and creates a third culture that exists between them.

Japan's effort to modernize during the Meiji period (late 1860s to early 1910s)

and the restoration of power to the Emperor and away from the shogunate ultimately lead

to a bloody civil war and a long period of civil unrest; this culminated in a military state

that attempted to become a regional colonial power like the United States and much of

Europe. Susan Napier, a professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University, writes:

the anime fans who see in 'their' Japan a place of creativity and even liberation would probably be surprised to learn that in their great-grandparents' time many Westerners saw the Japanese ... as a source of terror, emblemized by the fantastic term 'Yellow Peril,' a racist expression evoking a horde of Asians poised to invade the White nations of the world.49

To summarize, from the opening of Japan until World War II there were dual

feelings about Japan in the United States. On the one hand, Japan "stood for an

increasingly fragile world ofbeauty and elegance''5° characterized by the traditional arts

and ceremonies; on the other there also existed "the country's growing military might that

overwhelmed Western perceptions.''51 The growing Japanese imperialism in the East

Asian region, combined with their rising economic power, shifted the Western view of

Japan towards that of a threat. The message projected from Japan was increasingly

decoded as hostile by Western societies and seen as something to oppose. Public opinion

49 Napier, 3.

50 Napier, 57.

51 Napier, 54. 23

shifted towards the dehumanized characterization of the Japanese as monstrous that prevailed during World War II. In the period directly after the war the decoding shifted to a more neutral attitude as technological advances created avenues and opportunities for non-hegemonic communication processes. CHAPTER4

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

Rather than being separated by great distances and an information time lag, as was the case until the twentieth century, communication became increasingly more immediate in the period after World War II and on into the twenty-first century. Broadcast television now delivers news of conflict, devastation, celebration, and prosperity, as it occurs, directly into peoples' homes. Now it is possible to instantaneously converse

"face-to-face" with a colleague or friend on the opposite side of the world via technology such as web conferencing and video chat. The development of the internet has allowed disparate groups to come together to promote and converse about ideas that are outside of the mainstream; to form communities based around shared values and meanings.

The growth of a community for anime and manga in the United States was also aided by two major technological developments that occurred in the late half of the 20th century. The first development was a combination ofVHS technology for consumer use that allowed people to record and watch television shows at their convenience and the introduction of personal computers. As very few shows were professionally translated and dubbed or sub-titled in the early years of the American fandom, trying to find anime or manga in English was extremely difficult. Personal computers and the development of

VHS technology and its availability to the consumer market, however, allowed fans to

24 25

translate and sub-title series themselves; "during this period, anime tapes would usually come with a subtitle added on: 'Recorded by Fans FOR Fans. "'52 Ramsey Isler explains the technology of fansubbing as was practiced during the VHS era:

In the late '80s the trend of fansubbing really started to grow with a technological boost from the release of Commodore Amiga and Macintosh computers. Though these primitive home computers had limited power, with a little extra hardware the enterprising geek could use them to overlay subtitles on top of a video stream. The main tool in every fansubber's arsenal was a generator locking device, or genlock. This device enabled a television to accept two signals simultaneously. A genlock synchronizes an incoming video signal with computer output, enabling the overlay of subtitles in real-time. Many fansubbers added time synchronized VHS and S-VHS decks into their fansubbing systems as well. 53

Fans were utilizing this technology to gain access to anime in a very pro-active manner as there was no formal system guiding them.

Groups of fans began meeting together to show and discuss anime and entire networks sprung up in order to distribute anime VHS. Napier writes,

A long time participant in the fan world described to me how one of the most important activities at early anime conventions was swapping videotapes. Fans would arrive from all parts ofthe country with their own tapes and VCRs and record other fans' anime on their own tapes. Usually no money was exchanged except perhaps, the price of a blank tape. 54

The model of these first distributors used carried over into when distributors started using

CDs rather than VHS tapes. Isler writes,

Once the fansub was recorded it was packaged up and shipped off through a network of fans and fansubbers. The bulky VHS tapes were sometimes passed off

52 Napier, 135.

53 Ramsey Isler, "The Fansubbing Dilemma", IGN http://anime.ign.com/articles/ 850/850521 p l.html.

54 Napier, 135. 26

to local friends, but many times the works were sent though the U.S. Postal Service. Many fansubbers and distributors used self-addressed, stamped envelopes. Fans would send the fansubbers a self-addressed, stamped envelope with blank tapes, and they would get the tapes back with their chosen episodes recorded on them. Later on, the process would be streamlined with the availability of the writable CD. CDs could hold digital data straight from the computers, no need to transfer to magnetic media, and the CDs took up much less space in the homes of the fansubbers. 55

The second major factor in the growth of anime and manga consumption in the

1990s was the advent of the internet as a means of delivering, discovering, and keeping current with new shows from Japan.

Early Western anime fans often tended to come from the scientific and technological fields and were thus early users of the Internet; and the earliest fan clubs used mimeographed newsletters and "zines," anime-related Internet chat groups developed with impressive rapidity. In 1994, Wired magazine ran an article on anime fans that suggested that they were the most "wired" fan subculture in existence. 56

In this environment, fan translator groups increased in numbers rapidly. With the use of electronic video files these new translation groups (colloquially called fansubbers) began subtitling shows and distributing them very shortly after they aired in Japan; this phenomenon will be discussed in greater detail later on. Fans used the internet to connect with each other and to develop the vibrant online community that exists today; the community that Henry Jenkins describes as a "cultural community.''57

55 Isler.

56 Napier, 136.

57 Napier, 136. CHAPTERS

CASE STUDIES

Focusing solely on the actual form of media is not sufficient to understand the complex relations between historical, economical, and cultural forces, especially when

"the boundaries between 'domestic' and 'foreign' cultural influences are not always clearly demarcated."58 Take, for example, the influence ofDisney's animation on Osamu

Tezuka's work. Today, many manga and anime artists, like Tezuka once did, continue to tackle current topics such as the environment in their works; while the content and scope of the shows differs greatly between the United States and Japan, the forms have evolved and fed off each other for inspiration for decades.

The physical format of manga, panels with word balloons for dialogue, came from

American newspaper comics from the early 20th century. The physical forms separated fairly quickly. American comics tend to be slim, single-story booklets that come out once a month and expensive to purchase and collect; Japanese manga (in Japan) are serialized weekly in massive books that have multiple stories, can have over 400 pages and the cost is much lower. "American comic books are usually between 30-50 pages long ... [while manga are serialized weekly and then] compiled into a series of paperbacks [that] may

58 Kraidy, 6-7. 27 28

take up fifty or more volumes of over 250 pages each."59 Most manga are mono-color rather than being richly colored like American comics. These are immediate and visible distinctions between the two forms--they do not, however, convey the full extent and implications of cultural context transference. In order to gain a fuller understanding, a closer look at the American fan community is needed to understand how anime and manga became a means of cultural context transference.

In the late 1980s, science fiction and fantasy conventions began to show anime with great success; they showed series that were not available in the United States to packed rooms and sold untranslated manga not available elsewhere in the United States in the merchandise room. In 1991, the first anime convention calledAnimeCon'91, was held in San Jose, California with nearly two thousand people attending. 60 Today, anime conventions in the United States can draw upwards of forty-thousand people over a weekend61 and conventions are held year-round in many different cities around the country. Anime and manga are being consumed not just as a commercial product, but for their cultural context as well--which will be discussed shortly.

Kraidy articulates that "consumption alone is not tantamount to being.''62 He also

59 Frederik L. Schodt, Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga, (Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1996), 22.

60 Schodt, 329.

61 Otakon, one of the largest anime conventions in the United States, drew 26,586 attendees in 2009 (source: http://www.otakon.com/news article.asp?id=496). In 1994, Otakon had 350 attendees (source: http://otakon.com/histo~ stats.asp). Anime Expo in California drew 43,000 attendees in 2008 (source: http://www.anime-expo.org/ 2008/07/07 /anime-expo%C2%AE-2008-announces-17th-convention-biggest-success-to-dateD

62 Kraidy, 151. 29

differentiates between intentional and organic hybridity. The former refers to the result of

"an artistic intention and stylistic organization" while the later is ''unintentional, unconscious hybridization that occurs and changes historically" through the meeting of languages and cultures.63 The transmission of cultural context via anime and manga represents the organic hybridization as articulated by Kraidy. Even though the intent of the creators of anime and manga did not include transmission of the Japanese cultural context to the United States--it was occurring. People in the United States identified with anime at a time when globalization was taking the world by storm: "while many scholars have discussed the possibility of the loss of cultural identity in a globalizing world, anime fans seem quite capable of embracing a variety of identifications without losing their own sense ofthemselves.''64

Even just a decade ago, the active, visible participants in the anime community were drastically different than they are today. In Japanamerica (published in 2006), Kelts convays an anime fandom expert's experience of over a decade of convention attendance.

Dr. Lawrence Eng relates:

back then, I saw a lot of people like myself--meaning, college-aged Asian males. But nowadays at anime cons, the demographic has clearly shifted. It could well be about 50 percent females who now attend, with all different ethnicities represented, something closer to the normal U.S. ethnic distribution.65

There is also now a large contingency of teenagers and younger children who attend

63 Kraidy, 152.

64 Napier, 190.

65 Kelts, 150. 30

conventions, often with their parents66. Members of the anime community, and especially those who attend conventions, come from all walks of life and all stages of life.

The major element that energized and gave the anime community cohesion to reach the level it is today was the internet. Napier relates: "All in all, it [the internet] was probably the single most important instrument in creating the anime fan 'community. "'67

It allows fans instant access to both anime and fellow fans. "Anime and manga fans no longer need to feel alone,"68 they can connect, without fear of teasing by their peers, to others who understand their interest; especially those whose interest goes beyond simple consumption.

Members of the anime fan community run along a continuum of engagement. On one hand, you have the mildly engaged fan who watches anime or reads manga and that is the extent of their involvement. On the other hand, you find the ardent fans who not only read and watch anime and manga but research Japanese history, language, and folklore so they can more fully understand their favorite series and the culture it comes from. Anime conventions and these fans are what most visibly represent how consumption of anime and manga has transmitted Japanese cultural context to the United

States. Conventions can "be seen as acting as cultural ambassadors, offering participants a taste (and sometimes much more) of Japanese culture.''69

66 Many conventions require people under 18 to have signed parental approval and/or a guardian present in order to attend.

67 Napier, 136.

68 Napier, 206.

69 Napier, 152. 31

While there is no arguing that the lens Japanese culture is seen through is highly tinted by anime and manga at conventions, "genuine elements of Japanese culture do

shine though ... offering a far more richly textured picture of Japan than those of the traditional world's fair exhibitions would have been able to do."7°Conventions offer a mixed menu of panels, forums, and exhibitions that touch on topics related to Japanese culture, both modem and historical, as well as favorite shows. There are panels on

Japanese language, food, and rituals as well as sessions that go into the nitty-gritty details of particular shows; there are even panels that explain what anime and manga are for bewildered parents who attend conventions with their children. This is a community which indicates that an unofficial path for transmission and hybridization of cultural context between Japan and the United States does exist.

Media scholar Henry Jenkins, quoted by Napier, describes the anime and manga community as "a cultural community, one which shares a common mode of reception, a common set of critical categories and practices, a tradition of aesthetic production and a set of social norms and expectations. " 71 While many fan communities (or fandoms) exist, there is a degree of self-awareness of the foreign origin that exists in the anime fandom which sets it apart from others; "even now, as anime becomes more and more mainstream, fans are still highly aware that they are participating in activities surrounding a culture very different from their own. "72

70 Napier, 152.

71 Napier, 136.

72 Napier, 136. 32

Fans who enter into it are not necessarily trying to "become" Japanese ... rather, they are participating in what may be a genuinely new and unique culture, one that may become increasingly salient as the century continues. Freed from material constraints, anime and manga offer an endless array of possibilities to a world that seems increasingly fettered by the intractable realities of ethnic, religious, and national identifications. Anime and manga are truly sites of play, in the best sense of the term, where participants can engage on the most creative of levels.73

Transmission of cultural context does not need to mean the receiving culture disappears or that one "triumphs" over another, rather that the transmission can facilitate understanding and appreciation across boundaries. It can allow for the creation of a hybrid culture that is neither the transmitting culture nor the receiving culture but a combination of both.

Conventions and Cosplay

Anime cons, like many other fan conventions, evolved from the science fiction conventions that debuted in the US in 1930's. From the original sci-fi convention, World

Science Fiction Convention in 1939, to the conventions dedicated to specific shows such as the Star Trek or Star Wars conventions which sprang up in the 1960s, these conventions usually started out with small numbers of people who got together to discuss a particular subject with like-minded people. A sentiment that holds true today.

The most exciting thing at a anime convention is the atmosphere of being with people with the same interest and the same hobbies. Even though I have been to two anime clubs in the DC area, the first time I have visited a convention, it

73 Napier, 210. 33

instantly clicked to me: that I belong here. I'm finally with people who are into anime, who are into video games. 74

In a sense, each generation of convention incubated another until it was able to stand on its own; following on the footsteps of the science fiction fandom was the comic book fandom and eventually the anime/manga fandom. The anime and manga fandom as a separate entity began to emerge in the late 1970s as fans started organizing separate showings outside of the science fiction conventions that had previously screened a few select shows.75 Fred Patten, an early enthusiast, promotor of anime, observer, archivist, and active participant in the anime fandom, has chronicled the path that anime, manga and the fan community in the United States has taken to reach the visibility and growth they now enjoyJ6

The Japanese animation club Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (C/FO), which Patten co-founded, was formed a month after the airing of Astra Boy and Kimba the White Lion at a science fiction convention in Los Angeles in 1977.77 This group consisted of anime enthusiasts who got together to watch tapes that other anime fans recorded to VHS once commercial VCRs were available in 1977.78 From these small groups grew the ani me

74 Jkid, "What is the most exciting thing at a Anime Con?", Cosplay.com Forums http:// www.cosplay.com/showpost.php?p=3124165&postcount= 12.

75 Fred Patten, Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years ofEssays and Reviews, (Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2004), 57.

76 Many of these articles are collected in his book Watching Anime, Reading Manga which was published in 2004.

77 Patten, 57.

78 Patten, 7 5. 34

conventions that eventually evolved into the current day form that can have attendance numbering in the tens of thousands.

The longest running American anime convention is A-Kon, which has been held in Dallas, Texas since 1990.79 Starting off as a one-day event, the firstA-Kon drew approximately 380 people,80 while the most recent one had 16,037 people in attendance over a three-day period. 81 While A-Kon is the longest running convention, the first major convention was AnimeCon '91 which had 2,000 attendees and many heavy-weight industry guests being flown in from Japan. AnimeCon '91 was the pre-cursor to the present day Anime Expo which started in 199282 with 1,750 attendees83 and has grown to over 44,000 attendees in 2009.84

The convention format has solidified in the intervening years since AnimeCon

'91, with most conventions following its multi-day format. New and local conventions are still held that are only one-day events--these are usually held on college campuses by the local anime club or society--but the common understanding of a "con" is a three-day event that takes place over a weekend that follows a basic format and content expectation of fan and industry panels, anime showings, a dealers room with both industry and

79 http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtmV380 and http://www.a-kon.com/brn!Hotel TraveV index.shtml

80 http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/380

81 From the official A-Kon twitter feed on 6-24-09. http://twitter.com/AKon Convention

82 http://www. usagichan2.com/AX92Memories/

83 http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtmVl3 7

84 http://www.axbackstage.org/2009/07/05/anime-expo-2009-continues-to-hold-the-title-of­ nations-largest-anime-and-manga-event-with-a-record-number-of-over-44000-in-attendance/ 35

independent vendors, an artist's alley for both amateur and professional artwork and crafts, and cosplay (or "costume play").

The majority of anime conventions are fan-run, perhaps with an umbrella non­ profit organization that hosts the convention. For most conventions, you are not buying tickets to an event; you are buying a membership for the organization that entitles you to vote for the board and attend the annual meeting (which is the convention).85 In several ways, the format of an anime convention is the same as many professional associations and the conventions they run. According to Napier, "anyone who has been to an AMA,

MLA or any large organized gathering around which working people frame their lives will recognize certain common aspects with con culture."86 As with professional conventions and conferences, people plan months, even a year, in advance to attend the cons and make plans to meet up with friends they only see rarely.

While anime conventions can and do have a similar format to professional conventions, how attendees participate in and consume the content of these events can be drastically different. While a professional conference is generally very structured, with attendees moving from panel to panel en-mass, an anime convention is much more chaotic. There is a full schedule of programming including screenings, lectures (called panels), and autograph sessions but there is no obligation to attend any of these events.

Barring select events such as the autograph sessions and the masquerade, there are few, if any, restrictions on entering and exiting a session. Panel topics can range from how to

85 http://www.otakon.com/otakorp/index.asp

86 Napier, 152. 36

apply makeup properly to identifying characters in obscure shows to discussing the shinto beliefs that are prevalent in many anime and manga series. A well-attended panel on the last topic was held at Otakon 16 in 2009. The panelist, who was dressed as a miko (shrine maiden), gave a detailed and organized presentation on the shinto themes in anime and manga and their historical and cultural relevance. During her question and answer session the audiences wanted to know about everything from how a miko's clothes were dyed red to where they could learn more about shintoism. This is just one example of how attendees can use anime and manga to learn about Japanese culture, whether they research it for themselves or they attend a convention panel. The experience of a convention is very individualized to the attendee, both in terms of what they do at a convention and what they expect from a convention.

In the early years, a convention served as a central location for fans to meet each other in areas that were usually devoid of any anime and manga. Enthusiasts could have access to dealers who sold both authentic imports and unauthorized translations of shows that were airing in Japan. They also served as a location for attendees to interact with other fans who would not dismiss their interest as childish or weird. This feeling of community and acceptance eehoes in a thread on Cosplay.com that discusses why conventions are great. In the words of Fallow, a forum member:

I love the atmosphere, that is being in a group, no a virtual world filled with others just like me, attuned to the same wavelength. Normally I quote lines from 37

Anime or sci-fi/fantasy movies and books and people look at me like I have 3 heads but at the con ifi say a line everyone gets it! 87

Early conventions, especially those before wide-spread access and use of the internet, were heavily focused on the screening and acquisition of anime and manga.

There are two main venues at a convention where goods can be purchased. The first is the dealer's room and second is the area commonly known as the "artist's alley." Nominally, a dealer's room is where the industry and businesses sell their wares while the artist's alley is where fan-produced goods are sold. In actuality, in the early years of anime/ manga conventions, these lines were not clearly defined and enforced. This has changed over the years as conventions have become larger, and more well-known within the animation industry.

Now convention organizers fear liability and breach of trust issues if they were to allow illegal, bootlegged goods to knowingly be sold at the convention. One convention,

A-Kon, has a specific explanation of their policy to forbid bootleg good in the dealer's room

We've worked very hard to be a show with integrity, and we don't feel like we should make ourselves liable for lawsuits and criminal prosecution for the sake of letting some dealers sell cheap bootleg items. The safest thing for everybody is to disallow them altogether, without prejudice. So, these are some of the reasons for the across-the-board declaration ofNO BOOTLEG ITEMS atA-Kon®.88

It would not be uncommon in the early years of anime conventions to find anime titles, with english subtitles, that had not yet been released in the US at a convention. Now,

87 Fallow, "re: What is the most exciting thing at aAnime Convention?", Cosplay.com Forums http://www.cosplay.com/showpost. php?p=316443 8&postcount=61.

88 A-Kon, "A-Kon Bootleg Policy" http://www.a-kon.com/bm/Poopie/a-kon-bootleg-policy.shtml. 38

however, with the advent of the internet the location fans go to find unlicensed copies of shows is no longer the convention. The importance of the anime convention as a source of licensed anime and manga has also decreased as anime and manga are now highly available in easily accessible locations throughout the United States. The artists alley has not changed focus to the extent of dealer's room as it is a section setup for amateurs.

Artist's alley also closely resembles the iconic Japanese manga event called comiket, or comic market, where amateur mangaka89 sell doujinshi90 which can be based either on their own original characters or on their favorite series or characters. Doujinshi and the amateur market are discussed later in the section dealing with fansubs.

Conventions evolved and changed over the years as anime and manga became easier to access and it became more acceptable to watch or read them. The dealer's rooms have changed focus to include more affiliated or rare merchandise that is still not imported from Japan such as figurines or specialized art books, rather than anime and manga, as anime and manga they have become more readily available in commonplace venues. Manga can be found at national book retailers such as Borders and Barnes &

Noble and the New York Times Best Seller list has a manga sub-section. Manga can also be found in many libraries and local bookstores throughout the country, even in small towns. Much the same can be said for anime as larger, mainstream retailers such as Best

Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart now carry anime titles. The growth of online stores such as

89 A mangaka is the author( s) of a manga (comic).

90 Doujinshi are non-professional, self-published works of manga which are usually produced in small runs of 20-2000. They are usually sold at comic markets or comikets, which will be discussed later in the section dealing with fansubbing. 39

Amazon. com has also contributed to the increasing availability and saturation of the

American anime and manga market. Whereas before, the convention could easily be the only source of anime, now people are able to shop around and compare prices before making their purchase without even attending a convention.

As anime conventions have evolved to include more than just Japanese anime and manga, an ongoing debate has sprung up concerning the content and purpose of the anime convention. As anime conventions have matured and evolved, their attendee base has diversified and grown to encompass many fandoms. As one Otakon attendee articulates:

Personally, I think of Otakon as being a Geek Convention, first and foremost. Sure, it's primary focus is on Japanese culture, but that doesn't mean there isn't a home for other geek subcultures to join in. After all, otaku is just Japanese for geek. Share the con love, man! 91

The dealer's room is one area where this debate continues to surface. Over the years, the vendors have constantly changed their wares due to evolving demand and market forces; however, this change has not always gone over well with some of the more vocal attendees. While following up on my field research which I conducted at

Otakon 2009, I came across a posting from an attendee on the Otakon Web Boards that asked about the content of the dealer's room at the just concluded convention. Dealer's rooms are one of the big draws at anime conventions; Otakon 2009 had 159 dealers. 92

91 righteouscookies, "re: Dealer Room Disappointment, GotAnime?", Otakon Web Boards http:// board.otakon.corn/index. php?s=&showtopic= 18036&view=findpost&p=206122.

92 http://otakon.com/histozy stats.asp 40

Ok, I thought that Otakon was about Anime, Manga, and Japanese culture? This year's Dealers Room had more junk sword vendors, magic and witchcraft, Renaissance costume accessories, joke T-shirts, etc. I wholly expect that the inkjet printer refill, diamond knife sharpener, Shamwow, and leather cell phone pouch people to be their next year.93

There is a tension between nostalgia for the early years as representative of a pure fandom and the new reality where anime and manga are readily available in numerous outside venues and thus the demands on a vendor about what content to provide have changed.

Years ago, it made sense to go to the dealer's room, because it was stuff you couldn't really get anywhere else. But, now that anime is just as mainstream as anything else, paying more at a convention than you would pay online or at a store nearby doesn't make as much sense. Unless, you're buying simply to buy something at an anime convention, I suppose.94

Further along in the same thread on the Otakon Web Boards, which turned to discussing the AnimeExpo '09 dealer's room set up, GameraBaenre, another attendee, said:

Personally, I think it's a great idea for people to be expanding on their options for what they can sell at an anime convention. Years ago, folks swarmed the vendor halls for search of items they could not find locally; there was no such thing as a competitive online resource for all things anime. 95

Many of the older fans (even those in their mid-twenties) remember when it was highly uncommon to find anything to do with anime and manga outside of a convention. Indeed,

93 Clutch, "Is anyone vender denied to the Dealers Room?", Otakon Web Boards http:// board.otakon.com/index.php?s=&showtopic= 18043&view=findpost&p=204351.

94 YangWenli, "re: Dealer's Room Swag", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.com/ index.php?s=&showtopic=l7861&view=findpost&p=201613.

95 GameraBaenre, "re: Is anyone vendor denied to the Dealers Room?", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.cornlindex. php?s=&showtopic= 18043&view=findpost&p=204907. 41

there are many conversations on forums and at conventions about when people started watching anime and where they obtained it. These fans have been there throughout the growth of the anime and manga fandom in America.

Another example of the cycle of cultural sharing between the American and

Japanese fan community is the use of the term otaku. This term is used to indicate people who are obsessed with something and, more specifically, to indicate people who are obsessed with anime and manga. In the United States, it is a self-claimed name for

American anime fans. The term has more varied history in Japan. Originally, the term was used by Japanese fans as a way to address others who were interested in anime and manga that you did not know. The term may have originated in Japan, but "America is where otaku started.''96 In an interview with Roland Kelts, Hideki Ono97 explained that:

"when I was in junior high, Star Trek fans were the original otaku. They had activities and the costumes. Back then, America was already doing it. I never thought it would spread in Japan too."98 Kelts elaborated:

devoted American fans of the Star Trek television series emerged in the 1960s wearing the costumes of their favorite characters and attending conventionS. Ono's contention that they played a major role in inspiring otaku behavior is reminiscent ofTezuka, the father of anime, illustrating and publishing his own Bambi books in the 1950s.99

96 Kelts, 155.

97 A pseudonom

98 Kelts, 155.

99 Kelts, 156. 42

The term otaku came to national attention in Japan and gained a negative connotation with the Miyazaki murders in 1989; Tsutomi Miyazaki was arrested for the murder of four young girls and termed "the otaku murderer" by the press because of the anime that was found at his apartment. The term has since lost some of the stigma that being associated with this incident caused and much ofthe positive light comes from the acceptance of the term and its use intemationally. 100 One American otaku wrote:

Never in my entire life have I read about such strange people. I didn't know that Otakus existed until I watched Densha Otoko. Otakus are strange people, again I'll say, but it was only when I watched Densha Otoko that I realized how much they enjoy themselves, and how many friends you can actually by being so freakin' weird! I felt inspired, hell, I WAS inspired! My life was already centered around anime, and so were my future plans. I only found out I was an Otaku when my Japanese finally said it. [sic] In a way I was embarrassed, but in a way I was proud, because finally I knew just what in the heck I was! I started looking for a good convention, and nothing seemed better than OTAKON. I read the posts and I realized that there were people with almost the same view of life that I had. I watched Gurren Lagann, and I realized that I don't care how many people look down on me, I realized that if somebody ever looked down on Otaku, I could put down my manga (careful not to damage it in any way, I mean, c'mon, this was the 1st out of 100 times I'd read it) and say "Who the hell do you think we are!" Anyways, I love the fact that I am an otaku, and I can't wait to meet other otaku at

Otakon '09! Thanks for reading! A_AIOI

10°Kelts, 157-158.

101 bboypui, "Livin' the Otaku Life, OTA", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.com/ index. php?s=&showtopic= 163 82&view=findpost&p= 1864 35. 43

This sentiment echoes across throughout discussion of why people attending conventions and participate in other areas of the fandom on various forums.

One outlet of expression and means of identifying yourself as a fan is cosplay.

One ofthe main staples ofanime conventions cosplay, or 'costume play,' is where attendees create or buy outfits to dress-up as their favorite characters. The act of cosplaying itself can endow meaning and vibrancy. Lithium Flower, on Cosplay.com explains:

The first thing that got me to go to a convention in the first place WAS the cosplay, I don't think I'd go and just walk around in jeans and a tee shirt to buy something and leave. It's the carnival atmosphere of costumes and sights and sounds. As if it has it's own life to it, and everyone attending is contributing to bringing it to life.102

The cosplays range from simple to highly elaborate, with some cosplayers spending several months or more per costume. The term cosplay originated around 1983 when

Nobuyuki "Nov" Takahashi used the term in the Japanese magazine My Anime after attending WorldCon in the United States.103 This was by no means the first time cosplay happened; there are many venues where people dressed up either as their favorite character or in original costumes. The masquerade programming of science-fiction conventions, including the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon), which has been held since 1939, and Costume-con, a convention dedicated to the art and craft of

102 Lithium Flower, "re: What is the most exciting thing at a Anime Convention?", Cosplay.com F arums http://www.cosplay.com/showpost. php?p=3127764&postcount=42.

103 Michael Bruno, "Cosplay: The Illegitimate Child of SF Masquerades", Millennium Costumers Guild http://millenniumcg.tripod.com/glitzglitter/1 002articles.html. 44

costumes and costuming, which held it's first convention in January 1983,104 are all examples of activities behind cosplay before the term was in use.

The term cosplay, as it has come to be used, also has different connotations in the

United States than it does in Japan. The Japanese usage of the term can refer to all forms of costuming including historical reenactment, anime characters, band members, video games, and many more. In the United States, the term is most commonly used when referring to costuming as characters from anime, manga, and other Asian popular culture sources. Historical re-enactors, Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) members,

Renaissance Fair-goers, and other role-players are usually considered to be engaging in costuming and not in cosplay. By using the term cosplay thus, cosplaying is not merely the act of wearing a costume; it is infused with cultural meaning and acts as a site of cultural negotiation for those who engage in it. By cosplaying, cosplayers are tying their identity to something that is seen as different. It is an activity engaged in celebration of that cultural element of the they have identified with in anime and manga. Yet cosplay in the United States is not practiced in a purely Japanese format; it has changed and adapted to fit the needs of American cosplayers.

In Japan, cosplay is shaped by structures that create a more formalized ritual than in the United States. Japanese cosplay tends to focus more on being the character portrayed and behaving as the character would while in costume; the more technical features of costumes are what Japanese cosplayers, in general, put their emphasis on. It is

I04 http://www.costume-con.org/gallery2/main.php?g2 itemld= 10 45

also something that is usually confined to the convention center and does not occur in the

surrounding area except for specific places; ''you are more likely to see a few

individuals--usually young and usually female--strolling the streets ofHarajuku, Japan's

center of street fashion, or lolling about in Yoyogi Park, dressed up as a gothic character

from that vein of anime and manga titles, or in a coy manga-inspired maid's outfit."105

Japanese cosplayers, for example, are unlikely to get food at various restaurants around the convention site. In contrast, their American counterparts regularly plan restaurant outings around cons and specific costumes that take place outside the convention centers.

At the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which is one of the largest anime conventions with 129,819 visitors in 2009,106 cosplaying is prohibited107 on either the business or public days; the only people you will see in costume are employees of the industry booths who are promoting their products.

In contrast, cosplay is highly encouraged at American conventions with publicity campaigns and information about how to start cosplaying provided by or on convention websites as well as cultural centers; there is an annual Cosplay Parade held in conjunction with the Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival) that is held every spring in the San

Francisco Japantown. "Costumed Americans are gathering together in the thousands almost weekly at anime conventions that...take place 'all across America,' to display their

105 Kelts, 149.

106 http://www.tokyoanime.jp/en/press-release/090321z/

'07 http://www. tokyoanime.jp/en/faq/event/#0 1 46

anime affection publicly."108 There are a multitude ofwebsites that are devoted to connecting and showcasing cosplayers, one of the largest and more well-known of these is cosplay.com. This website serves as a place for cosplayers to showcase their cosplays in the online photo gallery, as well as a place to converse with other cosplayers on the online forums about costume construction, photography, and cultural meanings to various aspects of character costumes and mannerisms. As cosplay happens, there is active participation by the community in transferring cultural meaning.

While clear differences can be seen in how cosplay is done in Japan and the

United States, there is also mutual transmission of ideas between the two fan bases. After coining the term cosplay, Takahashi expressed the wish that Japanese cosplayers would learn something from the freedom and vibrancy of the American cosplayers. Some of that vibrancy is seen in Japan, not at the expos and conventions, but at the cosplay cafes that can be found in Tokyo's Akihibara district. Roland Kelts, in Japanamerica, details his visit to one of these Kos-Kyaba (cosplay club) called Magical Night. Kelts discovers upon conversing with the women that they make their own costumes, much like

American cosplayers do. While the majority of these cafes cater to a male client and have female waitstaff, there is a significant number of the cafes who cater to a female clientele and employ men. Slimmed down versions of these cafes are starting to be held at conventions. Katsucon hosted a maid cafe for the first time in 2009 and are planning to hold one again in 2010.

108 Kelts, 149. 47

Both conventions and cosplay are visible sites of cultural negotiation. American convention attendees and cosplayers are taking and using cultural transmissions from

Japan to form a third space that is neither purely Japanese nor purely American. The creation of this transcendent space is not about pure translation of Japanese or American culture. Presuming that what is happening is pure transmission is to ignore the read/write nature of an increasingly interconnected society and to see audiences as passive viewers.

Conventions and cosplay are both vectors of hybridization that Japanese production companies companies cannot control. The convention attendees and cosplayers are the ones who make the choices of how they interpret and utilize manga and anime. It is their cultural and identity frameworks that are used to filter and influence the evolution of the

American fandom. In essence, fans are dictating how localization occurs and they are doing so by creating a hybridization of Japanese and American culture.

Fansubs

This section examines the history and debate on the ethics and legality of fansubbing and scanlations of Japanese anime and manga among the American fan community. My purpose here is not to discuss the actual legality of the issue, but rather the understanding and arguments employed by those fans, many of whom are self­ professed teenagers or college-aged, who are navigating the crossing of two cultures and making value judgements on legal and business actions and practices. 48

The debut of the consumer-grade VHS enabled fans to start up networks of people who taped, subtitled, and distributed series. 109 Eventually, with the advent of the internet, these fansub groups migrated online and changed to a digital distribution model. There is a heavy reliance on the bit-torrent platform for distribution today, rather than the IRC110 channels of the early internet years. On the Otakon forums, user Jhawk started a poll and discussion on how forum members obtain the anime that they watch, stating:

I personally do download some anime, but that is the anime that hasn't been licensed. I am of the old time of fansubs and I can't really get it out of my head. Back when I first started watching anime it was just at the beginning of the US rise and there were many things you could not get in stores so I would get online and find people that make fansubs to get from them. I still believe in this, but the fansubs now you don't pay for the cost of shipping and VHS tapes, but rather download. 111

Fansubbing is where fansub groups take the raw112 footage of an anime episode

(which are usually taken from Japanese TV broadcasts, though occasionally they come from DVDs), translate and subtitle it before releasing the newly subtitled episode for fans to download. Anime titles are not the only media to which this is done: fans also translate

109 Napier, 134-135.

110 IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a form of internet text messaging that allows for synchronous group discussions.

111 Jhawk, "How Do You Get Your Anime?", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.com/ index.php? s=70a2a889c39lc9931587d467a29ldd7l&showtopic=l8055&view=findpost&p=204503.

112 "RAW means that there is no English, it is in its original Japanese form. In the form of Anime it means No subtitles, in the form of manga it means Un-cleaned, Un-edited with Japanese text in the bubbles, not English." Bleach Portal, "Bleach Portal - Frequently Asked Questions: What does RAW mean?" http://www.bleachportal.net/bleachlmain/faq#8. 49

manga chapters and post them online. These are generally called "scanlations"113 as they are scanned and then translated. That process involves someone in Japan scanning their weekly manga magazines (such as Shonen Jump, one of the largest and most well-known magazines) and then posting them online as raws. These raws are then processed by a scanalation group. They are cleaned, which involves color-corrections, as the magazines can be printed on colored paper, and the Japanese dialogue is removed from the speech bubbles. Depending on the group, they may also remove the sound effects from the backgrounds, although many groups leave them in as that is considered more authentic and true to the creators intentions and the spirit of the series. Meanwhile, there is someone in the group working on translating the chapter, or they use a script of the dialogue that someone else has already translated.

Once these items have been completed, someone does the typesetting, work that adds the translations to the chapter in the correct places. Once the chapter is completed, it is posted online in a variety of places, including the scanalation group's website. Some series are popular enough to have multiple websites devoted to them where many forms of media related to the series are collected."4 Other series which do not have as large a following, or as strong an industry support behind them, are simply posted to fan aggregation sites such as onemanga.com or mangafox.com, both of which have web

113 An alternate spelling is scanalation. For the purpose of this paper I will refer to them throughout as scanlations.

114 Some current examples are the series Bleach and Naruto, which both have manga, anime, movies, CDs, toys, apparel, and other collector's items. 50

viewers that allow visitors to read the series from their browsers. 115

Fansubs, which were the heart's blood of the American anime and manga fandom in the 1970s, were made possible by the advent of the commercial release of the VCR. 116

Screenings of anime that had been recorded on VHS would happen at science-fiction conventions; "the usual scenario being that someone would put a sign up on the notice board announcing showings of 'Japanese cartoons' in their hotel rooms. "117 These early screens were not guaranteed to be in anything other than Japanese so, unless someone there had learned some Japanese, the viewers were unlikely to understand the details of the plot. Even so, Napier writes, ''undoubtedly, however, part of the fun was the incomplete understanding and enjoyment ofthe pure visual pleasure ofanime."118 There was also the draw of "being part of a small and very specialized community of cognoscenti. "119 These showings proved to be popular and, as discussed, anime was shown at various science fiction conventions, and eventually separate, stand-alone conventions were formed to showcase anime, manga, and other aspects of Japanese and

Asian pop-culture.

There is an ongoing debate in the fan community with differing views of the legality and ethics of fansubbing and scanlation. In the early years of the American

115 There is no option to download the manga series on these two sites

116 Patten, 57.

117 Napier, 134.

118 Napier, 134.

119 Napier, 134. 51

fandom, the distribution networks that formed were often the only way for fans to obtain, legally or illegally, anime they could understand. While there were very specific shows aired and available in the United States, they were often changed to only have a passing resemblance to the show as aired in Japan. Japanese companies produced anime for the

Japanese market with no consideration given to outside markets; American companies that licensed anime did so either with the intent to Americanize the shows to fill programming gaps or had to change a show to make it acceptable to American standards of decency. A pervading sentiment that has carried forward from this period is that fansubs and scanlations are, in fact, beneficial to the industry and provide a necessary service in a neglected market; they are seen as serving as a gateway that introduces newcomers to shows they would otherwise never have seen or purchased.

The fansub network is often compared and referred to as the Japanese broadcast station for Americans. After all, if you have not seen a show, you won't know whether you like it and you won't buy it. Throughout the online community, be it on convention forums or fansub forums, conversations are taking place about fansubbing. On the

Otakon web boards, lkyopis783, explains:

I don't like to just go out and buy an anime because I'm so incredibly picky, and very very cheap. I'll usually download the first couple episodes to test it out and if I like it, I'll go buy it. If not, that's the end of that. I think of downloading and watching those couple episodes the same as I do catching a couple episodes on TV or something. Just a quick taste. I almost never download entire series unless I can't find it ANYWHERE.12o

120 lykopis783, "re: How Do You Get Your Anime?", Otakon Web Boards http:// board.otakon.corn/index.php? s=70a2a889c391c9931587d467a291dd71&showtopic=l8055&view=findpost&p=204738. 52

The feeling is that the industry is not really responsive to the demands of the American market and that people are frustrated that it has taken years for shows to be released m the States. On the Anime Expo forums the question of whether or not fansubbing is ruining the anime industry was raised. There was much back and forth on the topic with some forum goers believing it is ruining the industry, while others arguing that it did not.

BlueShow, a forum member, declares that fansubbing is, in fact, helping the industry by fulfilling a neglected duty.

I have read so much debate on this topic in the newsgroups that I had to talk a little about it in here. Many people believe that fan subbing and distribution undermines the ability of American anime companies to bring good anime into the American market in official versions. Well, I don't think so. Fan Sub organizations do us a great service by providing us the ability to see the anime that we would not normally be able to get through regular distribution channels, or that we would have to wait for months to be 'officially' released in the US. 121

Fansubs are seen, by many fans, as providing a testing ground to show companies what shows are likely to make it big and are given credit among the fan community for having certain shows picked up and licensed for American release; this includes shows that become hits and shows that might not otherwise have been licensed if they did not have a demonstrated fan-base. The idea is that the more popular, or larger amount of downloads a series has, the more likely it is to be licensed.

The opposing view is that fansubs and scanlations are illegal and a violation of intellectual property right laws, in either the US or Japan. Fansubbers, and those who

121 BlueShadow, "re: Fansubbing Ruining the Anime Industry?", Official Anime Expo Forums http://www.anime-expo.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=l0677&view=findpost&p=494508. 53

watch or download fansubs are accused of stealing from the Japanese companies and artists who created the series and credited with causing the decline of the anime industry in Japan. One fan who supports buying anime, does so to support the industry, saying,

I like to buy my anime for several reasons, First off, when you buy anime, it supports the industry (thus allowing more anime to be made, and dubbed), plus there's the advantage ofDVD Extras (maybe not always) DVD quality video, professionally translated subtitles, and of course the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you do the right (moral) thing. Of course, if the anime isn't dubbed or licensed I'll usually go to one of those sites that let you watch the anime there. If it's good, I usually go out and buy it after it gets dubbed (if it gets dubbed}.122

Tenchi23, who agrees with mikejones, makes a strong statement that "the only thing I like to add is for those that only download, if the industry does die (I hope never, but downloaders are growing everyday) I put solo blame on all ofyou."l23

Complicating matters is a poor understanding from many fans on both sides of the debate as to what exactly the laws allow and how the licensing and production rights have been handled by both the American companies and the Japanese companies in the past and present. On the discussion thread from the Anime Expo forums, Ren-tan explains that while s/he is aware that fansubs break copyright laws, s/he still plans to download more in the future even though it is a crime.

License and Breaking copyright laws hold no correlation. Not to mention the creators have very little influence on whether their series get licensed or not. If no

122 mikejones, "re: How do you get your anime?", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.com/ index.php? s=70a2a889c391c9931587d467a291dd71&showtopic=l8055&view=fmdpost&p=207048.

123 Tenchi23, "re: How do you get your anime?", Otakon Web Boards http://board.otakon.com/ index.php? s=70a2a889c391c9931587d467a291dd71&showtopic=l8055&view=fmdpost&p=207115. 54

licensing companies are placing realistic bids for given anime then the anime can never get licensed. Of course they could refuse all bids if they wanted to but I doubt there ever happens out of spite. Japanese copyright is just as valid as United States copy right. Of course, such a topic shouldn't be personalized. I indulge in the fansub community as much as the next anime fan. I am just giving a realistic view on what is right and not right. I know that breaking copyright at all is a crime. I don't try to justify my own behavior but at same time I have no intention in altering it either. Most would call that being a hypocrite but for me its just knowing the behavior is crippling but till engage in it from my own selfishness.124

While Lawrence Lessig focuses on the United States, he has much to say on the concept and implementation of copyright and intellectual property right laws, especially in relation to the formation of culture.

According to Lessig, there are two forms of culture, commercial culture and noncommercial or "free" culture. Commercial culture is that "part of our culture that is produced and sold or produced to be sold."125 Noncommercial culture is all the rest.

Historically, copyright laws were developed to deal with commercial culture while noncommercial culture was unregulated. The internet changed this, for it

unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn threatens established content industries. 126

With the development of the internet and the subsequent push by media producers and/or companies to expand copyright protection, the application of the law has been extended

124 Ren-tan, "re: Fansubbing Ruining the Anime Industry?", Official Anime Expo Forums http:// www.anime-expo.org/forums/index.php?showtopic= 10677 &view=findpost&p=488517.

125 Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: the Nature and Future ofCreativity, (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 7.

126 Lessig, 9. 55

into the ordinary ways in which individuals create and share culture and thus created a

permission culture. 127

While Japan, like the United States, has copyright laws that govern the use of

original material and derivatives from it, the implementation of these laws in relation to the fan community has followed a different path. In 2007, Wired Magazine carried an article that explored the manga industry and the doujinshi market in Japan and the intersection of intellectual property right laws and enforcement. At Super Comic City, one comic market or comiket, that caters to doujinshi in Tokyo, "33,000 amateur artists stuffed themselves into six huge calls, each the size of a professional basketball area, stationed themselves behind card tables, and sold their own home-brewed comics."128

Around 90 percent of the goods sold at Super Comic City were based on professional, licensed releases and "the copyright violations were flagrant, shameless, and widespread"129 "by the end the day's end, some 300,000 books sold in cash transactions totaling more than $1 million"130 and publishers are certainly aware the comikets exist.

Like fansubbers, there is a sentiment that if you are creating doujinshi, you are doing so for the love of a work. There are several official mangaka who arose out of doujinshi circles, including CLAMP, a group of women who have risen to become some of the best selling mangaka in Japan. Ageha Ohkawa, who heads this group, believes that

127 Lessig, 8.

128 Daniel H. Pink, "Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex," Wired Magazine, 10/22 2007.

129 Pink.

130 Pink. 56

"any popular manga is going to have this treatment done. It is by people who are truly in love with the work, and you have to respect that."131 It certainly does not seem to have hurt CLAMP; there is an entire industry built around their many manga series, including anime of most of their series, movies, and licensed goods. However,

there is no formula for what makes the doujinshi sufficiently 'different.' But they must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject any copycat comics that is merely a copy.132

There were attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to move against doujinshi circles but those efforts largely fizzled in the face of fan backlash. Publishers and doujinshi artists now operate under an unspoken, implicit agreement, or anmoku no ryokai, that bares a great deal of similarity to that under which fansubbers operate. There are differences between fansubs and doujinshi, as fansubbers are not creating new content beyond the translation, and doujinshi artists primarily use established characters in new, original settings. Being an implicit, unspoken agreement, this anmoku no ryokai is a fragile thing that hangs in the balance; "it's always pushing the edge of whether it should be forbidden.

Should someone actually make a pirate copy version instead of a remix, this whole thing is going to collapse."133 This edge is watched carefully by all involved, as should it be crossed the entire apparatus falls. The lesson, according to Lessig, is "that regulation by

131 Pink.

132 Lessig, 26.

133 Pink. 57

law is a function ofboth the words on the books and the costs of making those words have effect."134

Fansubbing is also a site of cultural meaning negotiation. Beyond the legality debate and the rhetoric offansubbing providing those outside Japan a way to watch unlicensed and unreleased shows, is that of the localization debate. Implicitly, as well as explicitly, the discussion about the value of fansubbing is the idea that many of the companies who release licensed products are there purely to make money--to the detriment of the cultural values and messages, indeed, the very things that make anime am me.

The big problem I have with American releases is that I prefer it in original Japanese and when it IS released with English subtitles they are poorly done. My favorite fan subbers aren't just good at translating they do it with STYLE. Not just big yellow print everywhere they change up placements, color schemes and styles depending on whats going on especially in the opening and ending sequences. I just like full quality. Quality story, quality art design, quality subbing. Is it so much to ask for American companies to take this more seriously?135

Fansubbers do what they do for the love of the shows and the culture they come from; companies are interested in their bottom line and cannot be trusted to accurately portray this.

Funi 136 subs or any other professional company subs are usually more one sided. In Japanese dialogue (or any asian dialogue), there are many times where a straight literal translation is needed for the best understanding, and some times a more implied translation is needed for better understanding. I feel fansubbers

134 Lessig, 27.

135 Lan, "re: Fansubbing Ruining the Anime Industry?", Official Anime Expo Forums http:// www.anime-expo.org/forums/index. php?showtopic= 10677&view=findpost&p=490205.

136 Funimation Entertainment is a major North American anime licensor and distributor. 58

catch on to this much better than industry subs. I would go with fansubs in most cases. It also really depends if the group is any good, and if the translator/editors are competent. 137

Through translations and special features, such as cultural notes, fansubbing is seen as faithful to the vision of the creators and the message they were trying to portray.

There is an implicit assumption that ifyou are watching fansubs, you are already interested in more than pretty pictures. You are expected to know or learn what honorifics such as -san, 138 -sama, 139 -chan,140 -kun, 141 and -hime142 mean and how their usage portrays levels of social intricacy and implied meanings that are not explicit. There is also an implied social contract to learn how to use them appropriately or face group censure or ridicule; refering to one's self as -sama in a non-ironic manner is usually frowned on, as is loudly proclaiming everything KA WAIIIII! I /143.

Of course, one must be careful to not proclaim all fansub groups as paragons who are preserving the Japanese nature of anime. Fansub groups come and go over time but

137 BenC, "re: Fansubbing Ruining the Anime Industry?", Official Anime Expo Forums http:// www.anime-expo.org/forums/index. php?showtopic= 10677 &view=findpost&p=495315.

138 -san - ~ lv is an honorific used much the same way as Mr., Miss, or Mrs/Ms .. It is a polite way to refer to address someone.

139 -sama -~ ;J: is an honorific that is a close equivalent of Lord/Sir/Lady. It is used to refer to someone of a higher social status, a customer, or to show extra respect.

140 -chan-t;? lv is a an honorific used to refer a younger girl or a close friend.

141 -kun-

142 -hime -0 ~ is an honorific used to refer to a princess or daughter of an important family.

143 Kawaii iJ•hv•v• means cute. There is a subset of fans who tend to be young, teenaged girls who tend to run around a convention proclaiming things kawaii in very loud voices and usually mangling the pronunciation so that it sounds more like kowai :::. ;b" ~ which means scary. 59

there are certain groups that become more well-known. There are speed-subbers whose main goal is to get an episode out as soon as possible after it airs in Japan. While these groups can be decent, there is also more of stripped down feel to the fansubs: they spend less time on embellishing their releases with extras like cultural notes, karaoake openings and often contain translation errors or subtitling errors. Even with these errors, there is an expectation of a certain level of competancy if groups want to last more than a season; fansub groups that put out poor quality episodes quickly become known and avoided.

Another subset of fansubbers are those well established, "legendary" groups that release fansubbed series of such high quality that people will wait months for them to release new episodes. The shows that groups such as these release are considered to be the cream of the crop; being picked for fansubbing by these groups are seen as an indicator of the quality of these shows as how well they will be received. CHAPTER6

CONCLUSION

Japanese cultural context is not only reaching anime fans and convention-goers; it has started to permeate through Hollywood and out into the American cultural context.

There is "a deeper impact of Japanese cultural exports"144 according to Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the U.S. and Lecturer at the University of Tokyo. He writes:

Anime is beginning to dictate the look and style, and even forming the bases, of major Hollywood movies. Anime and its ambiguous, sometimes apocalyptic plotlines dominate the leisure hours of millions of children and young people. Anime is teaching kids that not every story has a happy ending--a lesson whose timing parent's might prefer to control themselves. 145

The influences from anime and manga have come full circle with the creation of the

Miyazaki collection by Disney; avoidance is almost impossible. But what of those who acknowledge and welcome Japanese culture--the anime and manga fandom? One fan put it thus:

I've liked anime for as long as I can remember and it took me the longest time to figure out why I liked it so much. Since japan has a high context culture, they place a tremendous amount of meaning and communication in their words and behavior; unlike American culture where many things have to be explicitly stated or governed. I think many American anime fans notice this, even if they aren't aware of it, and it draws you in. The roles that their honorifics play when

144 Kelts, 114.

145 Kelts, 114. 60 61

suddenly a character drops the -san; the many forms of character depiction that display feelings of sickness, shock, embarrassed, delighted, relaxed, horrified, perplexed ... and the list goes on. In a lot of ways the Japanese language and culture can be a great deal more elegant and efficient than American. I would even argue that it may even be more attuned to human nature. 146

The American anime and manga community embraces and celebrates Japanese culture.

They engage in cultural hybridization through fansubs, conventions and cosplay. This is not without complications, especially exemplified in fansubbing.

At its heart, cultural hybridization stands opposed to the current interpretation of copyright laws. These laws are used as an attempt to control and limit the creation of free culture; only a select few are given official permission to contribute to the growth of culture and to create legal cultural goods--everyone else is guilty of piracy. This interpretation thrives in seeing society as passive, or read-only: "this is the world of media from the twentieth century."147 The world of the twenty-first century, however, is one where the ability "to understand, analyze, and deconstruct media images"148 is paramount. To gain this media literacy opens the way for society to both "read and write.

Or at least reading and better understanding the craft of writing [culture]."149

Understanding the craft of writing allows for tinkering with culture, much as in earlier eras learning mechanical skills allowed for tinkering with cars. This "tinkering

146 beck, "re: why do u like anime so much? what makes you like anime so much", AnimeExpo F arums http://www.anime-expo.org/forums/index. php? showtopic= 12076&view=findpost&p=528147 &s=a0dbed064e573fc0f65c007cdca581 b5.

147 Lessig, 37.

148 Lessig, 36.

149 Lessig, 37. 62

with culture teaches as well as creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind ofrecognition."15°Fansubbers are using the tools that technological advances and the creation of the internet have given then to tinker with culture and media but they do so at a risk. Lessig laments that

We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving images and sounds, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down that technology. 151

For Hall, this tinkering and writing of culture at all levels is natural. In practice, the ability to do so legally becomes a commodity that is increasingly restricted.

The reality of hybridization has not stopped the ani me and manga community from engaging with Japanese culture as they construct their cultural context and build their identities. Sites of cultural negotiation have flourished and grown, both through fansubs and through the community gatherings that are conventions and cosplay.

Conventions, especially, are sites of message transmission and reception as well as sites where hybridization occurs. They serve as central gathering points for members of the anime and manga fandom to meet with each other in a face-to-face setting and are locations where meaning is created and interpreted.

In examining the American anime and manga fandom as a place where hybridization occurs, I have laid out these sites of cultural negotiation and identity formation and found that the cultural hybridization occurring within them is not driven by

150 Lessig, 46-47.

151 Lessig, 47. Burkett 62 63

political authority or carried out as a program arranged by two states. Members of the

fandom, rather, are actively involved in shaping the flow of culture between Japan and

the United States, and thus, in shaping their identity. They utilize aspects of the cultural

context from both Japan and the United States and in doing so help create a new, hybrid

culture that is neither wholly American nor wholly Japanese but something else. The

fandom has engaged in a dialogue with Japanese culture that has been carried out over many decades and which has created a cross-flow of culture between the two countries which is exemplified in the medium.

This is the difference between the active audience theory espoused in Stuart Hall's work and the dynamic hybridization theory that Kraidy has put forth; Hall's work, while still valid and applicable, is still too linear in form. In it, the message is passed from the encoder to the decoder with no room in-between for the message to then pass back to the encoder. Kraidy's hybridization theory contains room for flexibility and the ability to encompass many factors which allows us to examine and discuss the cultural dialogue and cross-pollination that occurs. APPENDIX

Glossary -chan. An honorific used to refer a younger girl or a close friend. Honorifics are terms that can be used to indicate comparative status between addesser and addressee and/or familiarity with addressee. The hiragana is i; {> lv.

-hime. An honorific used to refer to a princess or daughter of an important family. Honorifics are terms that can be used to indicate comparative status between addesser and addressee and/or familiarity with addressee. The hiragana is V. 61).

-kun. An honorific used to refer to younger boys or a close friend. Honorifics are terms that can be used to indicate comparative status between addesser and addressee and/or familiarity with addressee. The hiragana is\ lv.

-sama. An honorific that is a close equivalent of Lord/Sir/Lady. It is used to refer to someone of a higher social status, a customer, or to show extra respect. Honorifics are terms that can be used to indicate comparative status between addesser and addressee and/or familiarity with addressee. The hiragana is ~ i .

-san. An honorific used much the same way as Mr., Miss, or Mrs/Ms .. It is a polite way to refer to address someone. Honorifics are terms that can be used to indicate comparative status between addesser and addressee and/or familiarity with addressee. The hiragana is t5 lv.

Anime. Japanese animation (cartoons).

Comiket The word is a contraction of"comic market". Comiket is a gathering of doujinshi fans and creators.

Con/convention. A gathering of the anime and manga fandom. The dealer's room and artist's alley are two sections in the convention.

Cosplay/cosplayer. Dressing as a character from an anime or manga series. The word is a contraction of the words "costume play." A cosplayer is someone who cosplays.

64 65

Doujinshi. Amateur created manga. Created either as an original concept or based on published manga or anime series.

Fansub/fansubber/fansubbing. Fansubs are unofficially subtitled episodes of anime that are released by fansubbers for download on the internet.

Kawaii. Cute. The hiragana is iPb v~ vl.

Kowai. Scary. The hiragana is .:. b v~.

Manga. Japanese graphic novels (comics).

Mangaka. Someone who either writes or draws manga.

Scanlation. A fan translation of manga much like fansubs. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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