An Examination of Japanese Anime in Post-Dictatorial Argentina THESIS Presented in Partial Fulf

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Television and Transculturation: An Examination of Japanese Anime in Post-Dictatorial Argentina

THESIS

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Jonathan Gillett, B.A.

Graduate Program in Film Studies

The Ohio State University

2019

Master’s Examination Committee:

Laura Podalsky, Advisor

Margaret Flinn

James Genova

Copyrighted by

Jonathan Gillett

2019

Abstract

In this paper I examine an Argentine special-interest magazine dedicated to imported, localized Japanese anime that appeared on broadcast television in Latin America at the turn of the century. In doing so, I focus primarily on the authorial role of its editor,

Leandro Oberto, and his role as gatekeeper of an emergent subculture in post-dictatorial

Argentina. The entrepreneurial, political, and personal agendas of Oberto at this time are demonstrated by samples of his own articles and letters from the editor, as well as accompanying interviews from Argentine news outlets. Selected letters to the editor are also featured in order to reveal Oberto’s engagement with his readership. In order to explore and explain these complex, mediated interactions and the subculture in which they take place, I utilize established concepts of transculturation as coined by Fernando

Ortiz. Emphasizing the transactional component of transculturation in a global marketplace, I draw upon newer methodologies put forth by Elizabeth Kath so as to better account for the profit-driven exchange of culture and ideas that occur through media such as television and the internet rather than face-to-face interactions. In doing so,

I demonstrate a previously unused application of transculturation which may also be modeled in comparable circumstances involving other media within different localities. I also provide a complement to the overall history of Argentine cinema as adeptly described by Tamara Falicov, whose work denoting the cultural divide between the middle class and working class as evidenced by viewing habits proved insightful. ii

Vita

2009...... North Platte High School

2013...... B.A. Film Studies, University of Nebraska–

Lincoln

2018 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Film Studies, The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Film Studies

iii

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Vita ...... iii

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2: Anime and Private Enterprise in Argentina ...... 7

Chapter 3: Patriot or Pariah? Leandro Oberto’s Flirtation with Controversy...... 21

Chapter 4: Conclusion...... 36

References ...... 44

Chapter 1: Introduction

To quote Elizabeth Kath, the coinage of the concept of transculturation

(transculturación) by Fernando Ortiz circa 1940 “was a significant intervention in that it acknowledged the mutually influential relationships between cultures, and the diverse, nonlinear and multidirectional processes of cultural identity formation” (25). Kath rightly points out that Ortiz’s epiphany—that culture is ephemeral, unstable, and incomplete, constantly in flux and transmuting across both time and space—was “essentially a theory of globalization, long before the intensified and self-consciously global era in which we now live” (26). Understood in this sense, a study consisting of or employing transculturation is inevitably an examination of continuously renegotiated relationships in which any subject of scrutiny is destined to be a proverbial moving target. Such studies, therefore, are problematic: as Catherine Poupeney-Hart puts it, “Ortiz presents us with the destabilizing measure of a process that is to be perceived as an effervescence, as a boiling process, but not as the achievement of synthesis” (43). Transculturation itself, therefore, ought to be seen as an eternally unfinished process rather than an achievable end goal. Bearing this in mind, transculturation becomes useful as a lens through which various cultural collisions—for instance, those intrinsic to transnational, globalized television—can be observed and articulated.

Latin America has long been viewed as fertile ground for discourse rooted in concepts of mestizaje, or mixture, as it relates to miscegenation and cultural fusion in colonialist contexts. In the latter part of the twentieth century, however, interrelated theories of cross-cultural exchanges expressed in a multitude of ways—with words like creolization, heterogeneity, hybridity, and syncretism, as well as transculturation—have been further abstracted, emerging in or being reintroduced to various academic lexicons to describe, defend, or even repudiate certain aspects of globalism. Without exhuming or rehashing all of these ongoing debates, it can be said that the technology-driven exchange of cultures around the world at the turn of the century has occurred largely through the medium of television; additionally, in the case of Latin American countries, preexisting conceptual frameworks for reconciling clashing, competing, or even contradictory identities have offered a firm foundation upon which to build contemporary paradigms relating to selfhood at local, national, and international levels.

Latin America is thus an ideal locus for studying transculturación not simply because tribute is owed to the region that gave birth to the concept, but in part due to its historical significance as the progenitor of Third Cinema (Tercer Cine) which aesthetically and politically contrasted with Hollywood commercialism. While neither the historical specificity nor the noncommercial impetus of this movement constitutes the present focus, Latin America itself provides continued opportunity to subvert or problematize the Hollywood hegemony in order to foster new or neglected theoretical frameworks in a similar style as has been attempted (and achieved) in the past. Yet even in such cases, whenever topics of cultural influence have been explored in terms of more

2 recent visual media it has often been according to a familiar paradigm of Anglo-

American dominance bearing down on decidedly weaker indigenous cultures or acquiescent Hispanic countries. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam call for more comparative investigations that exclude the United States altogether in order to counteract its ubiquity within film and media studies:

In a globalized world, it is perhaps time to think in terms of comparative and

transnational multiculturalism, of relational studies that do not always pass

through the putative center. . . . Such studies would go a long way toward

deprovincializing a discussion that has too often focused only on United Statesian

issues and Hollywood representations. (4)

Such is the spirit in which I initially approached my research. But while a Latin American location seemed desirable as a setting for an application of transculturation, I would potentially be retreading the very conceptual ground Shohat and Stram wished to avoid since most of these countries are importers of American-produced film and television.

Though it is arguably the world’s most influential economic and cultural force in terms of entertainment, the United States is not the only nation aggressively exporting its pop culture: in the latter half of the twentieth century, Japan has pushed its own televised animations across the globe, including the Hispanophone world. As business-minded entities quickly discovered, the limited-animation techniques often utilized in Japanese animated productions have proven to be both cost-effective and conducive to localized dubbing into other regional languages. Known to importing countries as anime

(sometimes transcribed as ánime or animé in Spanish-speaking communities), which

3 stems from the Japanese loanword for animation in general, Japanese animation has come to be broadly recognized both aesthetically and generically as often as it has been appreciated culturally or nationalistically. This is not to say that anime is a uniform medium, style, or genre; as Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano outlines, the term anime as a container is itself problematic when examined more closely. The television shows, feature-length films, and direct-to-video OVA (original video animation) formats which constitute anime are often drastically different from one another, and analyses of any given production should include factors like temporality and locality:

Most problematically, equating anime with Japanese animation reifies it as a

uniquely Japanese cultural product tied to an imagined pictorial tradition rather

than the industrial and economic contexts of late 1970s TV. Indeed, many of the

discourses surrounding anime tend to conflate historical contexts, collapsing

broad cultural movements to reveal the Japanese national traits underpinning

anime texts. (244)

Indeed, the perceived homogeneity of anime has also historically resulted in the

(re)adoption of similar methodological approaches to its study within academia.

Unmoored from socioeconomic contexts, the content and form of anime have thus been scrutinized through artistic or auteur-based analyses while associated paratexts and alternative methods of examination have gone overlooked:

The majority of anime discourses have dealt with characters, themes, genres, and

authors for purposes of categorization and discussion. This preference for textual

analysis continues to be the dominant approach in anime studies. In the process of

constructing a body of knowledge in anime studies, anime has been dislocated

from specific patterns of reception whether culturally, temporally, or

technologically configured. The facts of how anime is tied to local specificity and

needs, for instance, in the form of TV series, have often been neglected or erased.

(Wada-Marciano 245)

Meaningful research involving anime, therefore, demands reduction—multiple, measured approaches rather than expansive, all-encompassing theories. Investigating the reception thereof requires a more regionalist outlook, factoring in a technological medium (e.g. broadcast television) within specific local and temporal coordinates (like a Latin

American country in the late twentieth century). Finally, the consumption of anime must be explored (as opposed to production), i.e. the ways in which consumers engaged its materiality and conceptuality, in order to emphasize the transplantation of Japanese products to a non-Japanese environment and evoke transculturation.

A singular research effort incorporating these strategies into a measured approach toward the reception of anime within a certain cultural context stipulates an analysis of a unified body of work, i.e. corpus-based. Such a corpus would ideally be one representative of a definitive locality which also features subject material that is identifiably foreign in relation to said locality. Furthermore, the corpus ought to reliably cover a measurable span of time as evidenced by corroborative dates of publication, such as those found in an editorial; and, for the purposes of this research, said corpus ought to be commercial in nature rather than academic in order to gain truer insights into the viewing, socializing, and consumptive habits of an unlearned populace. A corpus that

5 satisfies these criteria is Lazer (1997–2009), an Argentine special interest magazine that catered to Spanish-speaking fans of anime who primarily encountered their favored franchises via cable television as localized, regionally dubbed iterations of respective original Japanese versions.

An analysis of this periodical (with emphasis on its foundation and earlier years of its publication history) will provide insights into post-dictatorial Argentina by way of its patronage: a specific fandom community whose associated subculture revolves around shared, professed appreciations of Japanese animation centered in (but not confined to)

Argentina. The tracing of trajectories—including business imperatives behind the publishing of Lazer and various patterns of consumption—will demonstrate a real-world example of globalized transculturation as it unfolds. Crucially, a close look at the publication’s editor-in-chief will exemplify the core of my assertions: drawing from

Kath, one of transculturation’s many applications stems from a global capitalist context and how notions of cultural authenticity are either embraced, modified, or altogether ignored by mediators based on profit-driven objectives. The complexity of interactions among the leadership and readership of Lazer, mostly predicated upon imported programming aired on Argentine television, will demonstrate both the transactional side of transculturation and the role of so-called gatekeepers in these transactions. In this specific national context, I will also briefly relate the history of Lazer to the country’s broader political backdrop of the time in order to shed further light on modern Argentine culture.

Chapter 2: Anime and Private Enterprise in Argentina

In order to better cultivate an understanding of the insights obtained from an analysis of the corpus, economic and political contexts surrounding its publication must be taken into consideration. Though circulation of Lazer did not occur before 1997, the memory of Argentina’s Dirty War (la guerra sucia)—the military coup during which

General Jorge Rafael Videla and his supporters, backed by the United States, seized power and instituted an authoritarian government in 1976—was still fresh for many

Argentine denizens by the time its first issue was printed.

As is so often the case with right-wing regimes, in virtually all cultural affairs the ideology of dictatorial Argentina stressed the national over the international in order to induce loyalty to the state. This, of course, stemmed primarily from a desire to control the populace, since Videla’s dictatorship viewed all media as potentially subversive or transgressive. Between 1976 and 1982, in what has been described by scholars like

Tamara Falicov as “one of the most brutally repressive dictatorships Argentina had faced in the twentieth century” (41), strict censorship laws restricting the press and freedom of speech were but one factor among many that contributed to an atmosphere of fear within every sector of Argentine society. Predictably, attitudes derived from such policies stifled artistic expression in the realms of film and television. During the country’s militaristic restructuring known as the National Process of Reorganization (Proceso de 7

Reorganización Nacional), “political statements or critical thought in the cultural realm were silenced by the military,” and filmmakers applied self-censorship to their work “to avoid problems or repression” (Falicov 42).

In the years following the 1983 election of President Raúl Alfonsín, Argentina’s transition to democracy was marked with both idealistic euphoria and economic difficulties. Alfonsín’s administration sought to reinvigorate the Argentine film industry by reorganizing its national film board (Instituto Nacional de Cine) to promote education and support the arts. Though these sorts of initiatives were meant to allow filmmakers and other artists to revel in the new wave of liberalization, Falicov points out that a trend toward the production of decidedly more intellectualized artistic works (often made with international film festivals in mind) emerged. This, in turn, made many believe that the new administration was biased in its policies, and “privileged the middle class over the working class” (53). Indeed, however unintentionally, the leadership of post-dictatorial

Argentina gradually fell back into familiar habits; along with a collective sense of national renewal came also the resurfacing of old specters—most notably, a longing for recognition from Europe. As Falicov puts it, the Argentine quest for European approval is a phenomenon that can be traced back to the founding of the nation itself:

Culturally, Argentina has always been a Latin American nation in search of a

European identity, due in part to its Creole forefathers’ aspiration for a large

European immigrant population as well as its grandiose and Eurocentric desire to

be a European country within Latin America. The cosmopolitan capital of Buenos

Aires in particular has been considered by some to exist only to the extent that

Europe looks at it. (57)

As costly state-sponsored imperatives sought to promote the nation’s cultural status abroad through film, television stations gradually reverted back to the private sphere.

While the former required great monetary resources to be gambled on the hopeful formula that exportation would yield prestige and therefore capital (following a

Hollywood-inspired, trade-follows-film model), the latter had already begun tapping into the comparatively inexpensive markets of imported programming. Known as enlatados

(hinting at their “canned” or prepackaged quality as a commodity), these prerecorded films and television shows from other countries, particularly the United States, had proven to be cost-effective for Argentine companies since the 1970s (Falicov 63).

While numerous movie theaters gradually closed throughout rural Argentina (a combination of the working class’s frequent disinterest in the subject matter of many homegrown films and financial inability to afford costly admission tickets), the services of cable television and the technologies of home video like VCR stepped in to fill the entertainment void. Speaking about Argentina and, more broadly, Latin America in the

1980s and 1990s, John Sinclair asserts that the zeitgeist of this period was one that lent itself to an embrace of deregulated privatization in television due to a severe lack of enthusiasm for state-run media:

The triumph of the commercial model is of course also the triumph of the private

interests which benefit from its institutionalization, and while in the past there has

been strong public criticism of private control in those countries where television

is most monopolized, there is also little faith in the state’s capacity to act in the

public’s interest, rather than its own, and disillusion with the concept of national

culture. Because of the general fragility of democratic traditions in the region, and

because state regulation is associated historically with authoritarian control in the

service of the state, the private media have been able to secure much greater

legitimacy as an alternative base for providing political and cultural leadership. . .

. (19)

Such was the environment into which Lazer was born: an Argentina of contrasts. A strong aversion to censorship lingered from the Dirty War, as did any semblance of explicit right-wing nationalism; yet so too did a wish to transcend the pedagogical policies of Alfonsín’s center-left administration, its elitist exaltation of high art and exportation of Argentine culture constructed for a European palate. Many Argentines instinctively recognized the problematic of Buenos Aires’ historically Eurocentric cosmopolitanism, yet they longed for ways to assert themselves in a more international capacity, to be seen simultaneously as globally diverse and culturally distinct. This unconscious impulse would indirectly contribute to numerous Argentine consumers enthusiastically seeking commodities and vicarious experiences beyond their own national borders, as well as Argentine businesses endeavoring to capitalize on niche demographics fueled by an economic climate favorable to global free enterprise.

In a general sense, this mood was the impetus behind the publishing of Lazer by

Editorial Ivrea. Founded in 1997 by young entrepreneurs Leandro Oberto and Pablo Ruiz, by 2000 the company was already being celebrated in Argentine news outlets like La

Nación as having presciently anticipated the sleeper hit of Japanese entertainment in the forms of anime and manga (serialized narratives tethered to various franchises, akin to comic books) that became locally prominent in the 1990s:

Desde que personajes como Los Caballeros del Zodíaco o Dragon Ball hicieron

su arribo a la pantalla de televisión local, hace cinco años, la pasión de los

adolescentes argentinos por los superhéroes orientales ha ido creciendo en

silencio, hasta convertirse en un fenómeno de consumo masivo. Oberto supo

adelantarse a la tendencia y en 1996 convocó a Pablo Ruiz, un compañero de la

secundaria, para emprender en sociedad un negocio editorial. (“Las historietas”)

Oberto and Ruiz had initially sought to cover more general news related to comic books, and even tepidly attempted a North American line of comics, only to quickly realize a focus on Japanese media specifically would be far more profitable in a Spanish-speaking market due to an auspicious lack of competition:

Los primeros productos fueron la revista Lazer, dedicada a noticias referidas al

mundo del comic, y una línea de historietas norteamericanas. Estas últimas

pasaron sin pena ni gloria, pero Lazer poco a poco comenzó a convertirse en una

publicación de culto y hoy vende 30.000 ejemplares por bimestre. (“Las

historietas”)

Realizing the untapped potential of this sizeable consumer base (no doubt due to the duo’s own affinity for the subject matter), Oberto and Ruiz immediately jumped into the licensing and publication of translated, localized manga titles. Not only was this business stratagem profitable on its own, but the demographics of frequent manga readers and

11 those watching anime on television were bound to overlap; as Japanese businesses had long already been exploiting in practice, many franchises possess iterations of familiar characters and stories on both the printed page and on the screen so as to naturally encourage the patronage of one medium within another.

Thus the core readership of Lazer was keenly calculated to be a combination of

Argentine television viewers and Ivrea’s own consumer base of avid manga readers

(which eventually came to include European patrons, as the company expanded to Spain soon after its foundation), both of which would be attracted to a publication offering industry news related to certain Japanese imports:

La gran pegada llegó cuando en 1997 decidieron dedicarse exclusivamente a los

comics japoneses. Tras la compra de los derechos para traducir y editar títulos

como Ranma 1/2, y Evangelion, comenzó el despegue. En 1998 lograron ventas

por $ 200.000 y pasaron de trabajar en sus casas a hacerlo en una oficina con

depósito, que hoy alberga a 15 personas. (“Las historietas”)

Ever the salesman and passionate fan of anime himself, Oberto positioned himself early on as a type of arbiter, the de facto gatekeeper of a new youthful subculture. Perhaps the single most effective way he accomplished this was by assuming the editor-in-chief role of Lazer, whereby he not only touted his industry credentials and foreign professional contacts, but also cultivated a sense of familiarity with readers by starting each issue with an anecdotal letter from the editor about the magazine, anime in general, or even his own personal musings on an unrelated topic (these letters have a casual tone, in content and style, e.g. Argentine and English colloquialisms or conventions are sometimes used).

This approach contributed to Oberto’s overall “cultural capital,” as Pierre

Bourdieu defines it, insofar as his perceived dual roles of longtime anime connoisseur and president of a major company translating manga continuously worked to legitimize one another (the former made him relatable to readers while the latter gave anything he penned an air of authority), contributing to a unified aura of expertise and accomplishment that could “combine the prestige of innate property with the merits of acquisition” (245). The fields in which Oberto obtained and exercised his status were not established institutions in a traditional sense, e.g. academia; rather, the unstated roles or unofficial titles held by Oberto (guru, gatekeeper, etc.) were recognized by his readership

“as legitimate competence, as authority exerting an effect of (mis)recognition” (Bourdieu

245). The readers of Lazer, fans of anime broadly speaking and, oftentimes, members of an associated subculture that elevated Oberto as a figurehead thereof, constitute a sort of

“market” as Bourdieu calls it: one in which “economic capital is not fully recognized, whether in matters of culture . . . or in social welfare, with the economy of generosity and the gift” (245). To devotees, Oberto sharing his knowledge and opinions (oftentimes indistinguishably intertwined to unlearned readers) was more valuable than his net worth.

In addition to clout or any monetary gains such capital may yield, the potential profits reaped from such an arrangement would be mostly symbolic—something quite desirable in the advertiser-supported, brand-conscious world of magazine publishing:

Furthermore, the specifically symbolic logic of distinction additionally secures

material and symbolic profits for the possessors of a large cultural capital: any

given cultural competence (e.g., being able to read in a world of illiterates)

derives from a scarcity value from its position in the distribution of cultural

capital and yields profits of distinction for its owner. (Bourdieu 245)

Regarding Bourdieu’s notions of economic-inspired scarcity and cultural competence, in the present context the scarcities of information related to imported Japanese programming and camaraderie associated with the fandom thereof are satiated by the access (or cultural competence) afforded via Lazer as it effectively mediates a shared experience through translation and circulation achievable from a privileged position unoccupied by most fans. In this sense, there is also an instance of Bourdieu’s “social capital” attached to Lazer:

Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked

to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships

of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or, in other words, to membership in a

group—which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-

owned capital, a “credential” which entitles them to credit, in various senses of

the word. These relationships may exist only in the practical state, in material

and/or symbolic exchanges which help to maintain them. (248–49)

Being an avid reader of Lazer and a fan of anime or manga in Argentina can be viewed as a social club, complete with all the perks of membership (however informally defined) like access to esoteric knowledge and a certain sense of exclusivity. On the flip side of exclusion, there is also a degree of inclusivity via the fascinating transcendence of other cultural barriers or markers in these kinds of overlaps: for example, the cultural division between residents of Buenos Aires (referred to as los porteños, since the city is a

14 large port) and the rest of Argentina (El Interior) is mitigated when the shared sense of community can be described as extranational (the source of fascination being steeped in, and perceived as, a part of Japanese culture).

As the primary authorial force behind the stylistic template of the magazine,

Oberto successfully advertised Lazer as a catch-all publication for those on the fringe of mainstream Argentine culture—regardless of where they lived. Modeled after Oberto himself, in a sense, Lazer was designed to be proudly lowbrow, a combination of buttoned-down professionalism and crass, rebellious fandom. Insider scoops from the production side of the Japanese animation industry and Latin American broadcasting companies (e.g. interviews with actors and television executives, news about forthcoming shows, program listings) were printed alongside opinion pieces, unofficial fan art (even semi-pornographic images, on more than one occasion), and off-the-cuff letters to the editor. Oberto announces as much, in his own words, within the very first issue of Lazer when he writes, “Gracias por haber comprado Lazer, este extraño engendro mutante que los hará recorrer mes a mes las partes más apasionantes de los comics, la animación japonesa, las series de culto y la vida misma” (1997, p. 2). He goes on in a candid tone to immediately imply how absurd it is for such a publication to purport being about life itself or anything so profound, hinting at the magazine’s (and his own) intrinsic tongue- in-cheek nature:

En este número todavía está escaso o inexistente eso de “la vida misma” pero

francamente pensamos que primero había un gran hueco por llenar en lo que

respecta a información de animación y comics. . . ¡y nadie mejor que nosotros

para hacerlo! (1997, p. 2)

The remainder of this first letter from the editor acts as a rallying cry to like-minded individuals of a largely intangible community. By way of anecdote and evocation of esoteric, ritualistic behavior, Oberto demonstrates his informal membership in a society and Lazer’s self-proclaimed right as an authoritative source of information within it:

¿Quiénes somos nosotros? Bueno; somos de esos que graban Sailor Moon a la

1:30 de la mañana, que se ponen a visitar negocios de comics en Venecia, París o

Bariloche; pero que, pese a todo, no se obsesionan con todo esto y disfrutan

también de salir a boludear en mountain bike, ir a bailar, viajar, salir etc. Lo

normal, ¿no? Sí, pero muy raro entre la gente que escribe revistas de esto. O sea,

Lazer va a ser la vida y los comics vistos desde afuera pero con la más precisa y

completa información. (1997, p. 2)

Oberto clearly sought to describe his publication early on as one concerned first and foremost with accurate information, and therefore reputable. However, by also including anecdotes that would (hopefully) resonate with other self-described outsiders, he also humbly posits himself, the artistic and editorial voice of Lazer, as just a fellow fan at heart living his dream job.

In the second letter from the editor, within the second issue, Oberto comments directly on reader feedback from his previous one, specifically the positive response to his remarks about recording Sailor Moon on television at an ungodly hour: “Fue abrumadora la cantidad de cartas de lectores/as que decían identificarse con mi

16 comentario de ‘los que grabamos Sailor Moon a la 1:30 am’ a tal punto que ahora cuando debemos explicar el target de nuestra revista en una reunión comercial decimos ‘La revista para los que ven dibujos animados después de la medianoche’!” (1997, p. 2). He also takes the opportunity to enthusiastically promote the launch of the magazine as a success (albeit without citing specific figures), and to briefly speculate about the future:

Teniendo en frente mío las cifras de venta y la cantidad de cartas por el número

uno es fácil llegar a una conclusión: Lazer es un éxito. Ahora. . . Debería estar

saltando en una pata, no? Sí, lo estoy. . . pero también estoy aterrado. Recuerdan

esa frase de “Cualquier boludo puede volver de un fracaso, pero sólo un genio de

un éxito”? Nunca lo entendí tan bien como a la hora de hacer el número dos. “Qué

fue lo que hicimos tan bien?”, “Cómo lo repetimos?” nos preguntábamos

constantemente. Como no encontramos respuesta, terminé decidiendo seguir un

solo concepto, el mismo utilizado al hacer el número uno: hacer una revista “que

yo compraría”. Ósea, traté de no usar fórmulas pre-establecidas; pero solo Uds

dirán si lo logramos. (1997, p. 2)

Oberto showcasing uncertainty about the financial future of his enterprise, even if genuine, is a bold editorial strategy. By telling his readers that his future decision-making will be predicated on his gut more than cold statistics, on producing content that he, as an anime fan (and reader stand-in), would want to read, Oberto cultivates a latent thread of anti-intellectualism; a preference for intuition over formulas is encouraged. Perhaps this strategy can be more accurately described as anti-corporation, exuding the mom-and-pop

17 appeal of a small business rather than the faceless, emotionless facade of large conglomerates often associated with international commerce by the layperson.

In an effort to be even more personable (and perhaps simply for his own gratification, confident in retaining his built-in audience), Oberto did not always speak directly to the state of the magazine itself or even its content. This was already the case by the third issue, as Oberto expresses a concern therein over the ubiquity of information—whether true or false, reliable or dubious—and the intellectual noise generated by an overabundance of unqualified opinions:

Saben por qué hay tanta libertad de expresión hoy en el mundo? Porque ya no le

importa a nadie que la verdad sea oída. Total, no importa cuan fuerte alguien grite

algo, va a pasar desapercibido. La humanidad está pasando por una época de

sobresaturación de información, hay tal ruido generado por las opiniones de todo

el mundo que todo termina nulificandose [sic] entre sí. Por cada dato correcto hay

500 falsos, quien va a sospechar entonces que quien dijo la verdad no es un

mentiroso más del montón? En un día somos expuestos a más información y datos

contradictorios de los que podemos llegar a analizar, quizás, en toda nuestra vida.

Y. . . la verdad está siempre allí, mezclada y expresada entre una maraña de

mentiras. Como reconecerla [sic]? Hay muchos truquitos. . . yo creo conocer uno.

Todos dominamos algún tema a la perfección, a tal punto de que nadie, pero nadie

puede engañarnos en el (Yo por ejemplo se que nadie me puede mentir sobre los

comics). (1997, p. 2)

Not only was this another opportunity for him to flex his own expertise in comics, but also to come across as more authentic (in multiple senses of the term, e.g. more human and less corporate, more fan than exploitative capitalist) by managing to appear genuinely gregarious despite communication effectively being a one-sided conversation with hundreds or thousands of people.

Oberto would return to this theme in later editions. In the seventh issue, for example, after a headline “Too much information” written in English, he succinctly makes his frustration about oversaturation in media apparent: “Saturación. Completa y absoluta saturación de información. Eso es lo que estamos experimentando los seres humanos hoy día” (1998, p. 2). As both an innovator and a product of his generation

(meaning adept at using computers and the internet), Oberto portends the forthcoming ills of the Information Age as rapid technological changes in personal and financial sectors were starting to take place. Yet as evidenced by the remainder of his letter, these sentiments may not have originated from a place of guru-like posturing or a desire to forecast any potential epistemological crises in larger Argentine (or global) society, but rather as a palpable expression of the pressures associated with running a large company in his early twenties:

La información se ha convertido supuestamente en el recurso más valioso, el

mayor poder. Probablemente es cierto, pero existe un problema: hay demasiada.

Cientos, miles de veces más de la que somos capaces de llegar a conocer y mucho

menos entender. El resultado? Ansiedad y frustración continúa. Ansiedad por

tratar de tener y asimilar toda la información posible para tomar correctamente las

decisiones y mantenerse competitivo. Frustración por la falta absoluta de tiempo

para hacerlo. (1998, p. 2)

Youthful exuberance wrought from inexperience is surely as much a factor in Oberto’s decision-making at this point in his career as any carefully orchestrated strategy. In the eighth issue, after one year of publishing Lazer, he marks the occasion to puff out his chest a bit, offering advice while bragging about the hard work that had thus far borne him fruitful sales and underground notoriety:

El secreto del éxito? El mismo de siempre: Romperse el culo trabajando. Salir a

investigar/entrevistar en vez de copiar, no dormir las noches que sean necesarias,

tirar a la mierda una nota y reescribirla cuando te parece obvia o pelotuda,

descartar la publicación de todo dato del que no se pueda confirmar su veracidad.

. . Así de fácil, así de difícil. (1998, p. 2)

By offering his readers a secret to success, Oberto is rewarding his base for their investment of time and money—the readers of Lazer therefore feel a sense of benefit to membership in this exclusive yet inclusive, elitist yet anti-elitist club. And, by revealing the secret to be hard work while advising readers to be knowledgeable about a specific niche that interests them (encouraging research, in a roundabout way), Oberto is participating in the turn-of-the-century zeitgeist: having emerged from an oppressive dictatorship scarcely a decade ago, Argentines were a people who embraced free enterprise and freedom of expression while remaining skeptical of (and, at times, defiant toward) authority.

Chapter 3: Patriot or Pariah? Leandro Oberto’s Flirtation with Controversy

Along with his own brand of principled idealism, Oberto’s pride from the success of Lazer fueled more than garrulous small talk. When questionable sexual material in the seventeenth issue—lewd fan art of cartoon characters referenced in the magazine as erotic parodies (parodias eróticas)—was discovered by government officials in Buenos

Aires, under a policy of public decency and protecting children the issue was allowed only limited circulation before being pulled from kiosks in and around the city. Though this was, in actuality, due to Lazer not being adequately advertised as unsuitable for children more so than the inherent indecency of any particular image, this nonetheless led to Oberto lambasting the government, and even specific individuals therein, in a triple- page spread in the eighteenth issue:

En democracia los gobiernos tienen un serio problema para prohibir una

expresión artística: se arriesgan a perder una buena cantidad de votos en la

siguiente elección. Afortunadamente algún político ingenioso inventó en algún

lado y hace ya muchos años un bello eufemismo a prohibición: Calificación. Y

logró que las grandes masas de votantes hasta creyeran que era algo lógico. Los

gobiernos, no prohibían, simplemente calificaban para proteger a los niños

indefensos. Luego en silencio bastaba con crear unas cuantas leyes que limitaran

de tal forma la distribución de material con X calificación para que la realización 21

de esos productos inevitablemente le dieran pérdidas al productor y así se viera

forzado a dejar de hacerlos. Técnicamente no prohíben nada, en la práctica no

sólo prohíben un X producto sino que mantienen alejados a un montón de

personas de hacer cosas similares por temor a que ante una X calificación pierdan

dinero y quiebren. Aclarado esto, es obvio que: La calificación ES censura.

Lamentablemente sólo la gente que trabaja en los medios de comunicación tiene

real conciencia de esto. (2000, p. 30)

After referring to the ratings system as oppressive censorship and suggesting that the government was playing a sinister game of semantics, Oberto goes on to further criticize the decision by framing it primarily not as one that negatively affected his sales (though he alludes to this as well), but one that attacks freedom of artistic expression. He does so quite vividly by stating, however accurately or not, that the same people behind this decision were holdovers from the recent dictatorship—implying they ought to know better and, more drastically, crafting for his readership an association of his editorial plight with those faced by artists and journalists during the infamous Dirty War:

Lo que nos lleva al tema de este artículo, la calificación/prohibición de Lazer #17

en los kioscos de Capital Federal y Gran Buenos Aires, gentileza de una comisión

censora del gobierno de la ciudad de Buenos Aires (Qué lindo saber que gastan en

cosas tan útiles la plata de los impuestos que uno paga!). Esta comisión está

compuesta por gente que está en ella desde la época de la dictadura y se dedica a

mirar las revistas que salen por kioscos y “calificarlas”. Según la ley tiene dos

opciones de calificación: “sin objeciones” o “de exhibición limitada”. La primera

indica que pueda salir sin problemas y la segunda que la revista sólo puede

circular en kioscos con una bolsa negra que tape todo menos el logo de la revista

y el precio (en ningún momento se menciona si esto implicaría que no se puede

vender una revista así a un chico). Qué vuelve a una revista de “exhibición

limitada”? El humor y las creencias de las 2 personas que componen esa

comisión. Sí, así de boludo. Nuestros abogados movieron cielo y tierra buscando

ordenanzas o leyes nacionales y/o municipales que dijeran algo al respecto y no

encontraron nada. Absolutamente nada dice que exactamente vuelve a una revista

“de exhibición limitada”. (2000, p. 30)

Dissatisfied with merely contesting the legitimacy of such ordinances by painting them as capricious at best and possibly illegal at worst, Oberto concludes his diatribe by hyperbolically equating these editorial and economic restrictions with the kind of primitive, ignorant barbarism behind the Spanish Inquisition and Nazism:

Lo triste e irónico es que de acá a unos cuantos años seguramente los libros de

historia hablarán de este tipo de censuras como algo anecdótico propio de una

época de barbarie y el religioso o gobernante de turno pedirá disculpas por los

pecados de sus antepasados como hacen hoy por el nazismo o la inquisición.

(2000, p. 33)

Having cultivated a loyal base of patrons for three years leading up to these editorial attacks, Oberto clearly felt confident enough in his position by this stage in his career to point fingers at the commission responsible for limiting his sales.

As a counterpoint, Oberto’s personal commitment to anti-censorship in all forms does not flow only from a financial standpoint; nor is it reducible to grandstanding from a safe vantage when he has nothing to lose: at times, it has also been to his own detriment.

In an interview with prominent Argentine newspaper Clarín in 2000, Oberto recalls how he was fired from hosting a televised programming block “El club del animé” on

Argentine station Magic Kids for criticizing its practices of selectively editing footage from some series in order to appeal to younger audiences (taking cues from Fox Kids and

Cartoon Network): “Me sacaron porque critiqué al canal por la censura (lo que se llaman

‘adaptaciones’) que ejercía en los animé y por las versiones que, a veces, eran bastante malas” (“Entrevista”). But while Oberto once again displays his acumen for current events in relation to comic books by referencing the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

(formed in the United States for the sole and express purpose of combating obscenity laws for situations akin to his own predicament) in his aforementioned public rant within the eighteenth issue (2000, p. 31), his desire to include such objectionable material within

Lazer in the first place is intriguing in its own right. As has so often been the case across cultures throughout history, there is often an unconscious tendency to eroticize an Other due to contradictory impulses of desire and distancing fueled by various biological imperatives or social norms. From a certain stance, Lazer (chiefly via its editor) arguably runs the risk of fetishizing its source material in some manner, or possibly succumbing to a strain of Orientalism; this problematic, however, is further complicated in the present case by the (non)mimetic qualities of the potential objects of fixation (in this case, fictitious characters drawn by Japanese artists that may or may not depict a real-world

24 analogue rather than, say, live-action footage of Japanese people), and the fact that such terms have typically been deployed in more overtly colonialist circumstances

(imperialism versus the free-market importation of commodities).

Author and television producer Valerio Fuenzalida touches upon these pitfalls in his own writings around this time on a hybrid culture of television consisting of imported programming (97). When any given entertainment program of one cultural context is uprooted and transplanted to another, viewers other than those of its native audience may have takeaways that inaccurately reflect the broader society in which it was originally fostered. Foreign viewers, consequently, are not properly calibrated to gauge the relative humor or hyperbole of a television show as it relates to its original intended demographic.

This precariously leads to the stereotyping of various cultures, ethnicities, or nations, and is often subsequently propped up either by chauvinists to exude superiority or by enthusiasts (like Oberto) to highlight perceived shortcomings of one’s own local customs.

As pointed out by Fuenzalida, in a globalized context—where a single television series can be produced by Japan, based on Eastern or Western mythoi, dubbed in Spanish dialects, and broadcast throughout Latin America—this process of interactions results in a continuous ebb and flow of contradictory strains that may reflect more on a consumer’s own culture than the exotic subject matter to which the consumer is attracted:

Esta nueva cultura híbrida es el hábitat en que se socializan ahora mismo los

niños. Ella hace comparecer la vida cotidiana de otros países, con sus conductas y

actitudes. En la narrativa ficcional estadounidense aparece, por ejemplo, el

divorcio y una mayor permisividad sexual, no tanto como modelos que serían

deliberadamente propuestos por malvados productores imperialistas, sino como

reflejo de conductas cotidianas en esas culturas diferentes. Una de las

manifestaciones más nítidas de esta hibridación se encuentra en algunos dibujos

animados japoneses donde se entremezclan personajes fantásticos espaciales

revestidos de poderes mágicos con personajes mitológicos del pasado y con

enfrentamientos épicos tomados de narraciones occidentales.

Pero la complejidad de esta influencia televisiva hacia a la hibridación aparece en

el hecho de que ella coexiste con una tendencia contraria, es decir, hacia el

localismo, impulsada en ocasiones desde la propia televisión, localismo que se

manifiesta en los movimientos nacionalistas, en la valoración de las culturas

regionales, en la búsqueda y elaboración de productos distintivos por su identidad

local (comidas regionales, productos con denominación de origen, artesanías,

música popular, colores, diseño industrial deliberadamente distintivo, “imagen de

país”, etc.). (97–98)

The incongruous nature of these interactions, the seemingly incompatible possible outcomes—products of globalism fueling various drives toward localism or nationalism—is precisely what makes studies involving real-world transculturation fraught with difficulties. On some level, the receptors of any given culture are bound to view the products of another culture through their own cultural lenses (intentionally or otherwise).

In her own writings on Latin American dance, Elizabeth Kath offers anecdotal accounts from her home nation of Australia concerning how Carnaval (and, by extension,

Brazilian people) is framed and viewed by non-Brazilian patrons when it is transplanted outside of its native context:

Many performers of [Brazilian samba] have never visited Brazil; therefore, they

have relied entirely on abstract sources of information to construct the forms and

meanings of the dance. Regardless, the dancers’ conversations and the language

used to promote their performances often reflect a veneration of cultural

authenticity as tied to Brazilian national identity. Historically, the coverage of

Brazil in the Australian media has been limited. However, Carnaval is the one

period of the year when Brazil is guaranteed a news slot on televisions here and

across the globe. The effect is that images of this annual tradition have come to

represent Brazil and have constructed stereotypes of Brazilians in the global

imagination as flamboyant, free-spirited, unwaveringly joyful and scantily clad.

(27)

Kath also mentions another important factor to be considered in these global interactions of cultural transmutation born of unlearned reverence—the free market. Ignorance of a faraway culture, combined with the desire to learn about it, often prompts consumption in some form or another (books, language lessons, media, etc.). Compounding the spread of any genuine misinformation that might muddle notions of authenticity (as problematic as any such container may be) is the fact that enterprising businesses will often use descriptors that align with popular perceptions of the country whose culture they are trying to sell, regardless of how decidedly authentic it may or may not be:

While the vast majority of paraders in Rio’s Carnaval wear large heavy costumes

covering the entire body, the costumes typically worn in Australian ‘Brazilian

samba’ performances almost always emulate those of the scantily clad drum

queens whose images circulate endlessly through the global media at Carnaval

time each year. The descriptions of Australian Brazilian performances that appear

in promotional materials regularly reflect and reproduce these stereotypes, using

words like ‘sexy’, ‘sensual’, ‘spicy’ and ‘hot’. (I have also seen these same

adjectives used on many occasions by Latin American dance instructors and

performers to promote their classes and events, presumably exaggerating and

emphasizing those stereotypes that they anticipate as appealing to Australian

audiences.) (27–28)

The comparatively recent highlighting of the transactional nature of transculturation is a needed cornerstone for studying the global exchange of goods and ideas (in which case, often times there is no face-to-face interaction as there would be with the migration of people). As there are senders and receivers in cultural exchanges, so too are there often middlemen: entities or individuals negotiating these dealings in service of their own agendas.

While Oberto’s enthusiasm for Lazer was surely genuine, and his expertise about anime emerged from a reverence so strong he’d squander a job opportunity in television rather than acquiesce to network oversight, it can also rightly be said that sales were never far from his mind when acting in his capacity as a company president and editor-in- chief. As much self-defined integrity as he may have had in defending art for art’s sake,

28 or even wielding the controversies thereof for trying to precipitate change on a local level, Oberto knew that sex also sells; this time-proven adage can be said to account for at least some of Lazer’s content and branding. And, as a semi-learned shaman for his homegrown community, Oberto was also well-equipped and strategically positioned not only to direct discourse, but also promulgate a certain visage of anime (and, in the same vein, Japan and Japanese culture) and expectations thereof to which he himself could then cater and on which he could capitalize.

Another tactic utilized by Oberto to these ends can be found in the numerous letters to the editor to which he responded and published. Part fan outreach and part flaunting, the selective publishing of numerous fan letters gave Lazer an appearance of broad appeal and topical relevance; the ability for fans to interact with (and see other fans respond to) a connoisseur and industry insider like Oberto cemented the periodical’s image as the central hub of a community, a totem to which others looked for affirmation, guidance, and general knowledge. In the second issue (the first issue to include such letters), in addition to inquiring about general broadcasting information for upcoming programs, a fan named Mariana from Buenos Aires remarked that even among similarly themed magazines of the time (there certainly were not yet that many), Lazer seemed to stand out:

Señores de revista Lazer: Pregunta: Se pronuncia Laser o Lazer en inglés?

Primeramente, les cuento que la revista me interesó por lo de “Caballeros” y las

“Sailor”. Casi no la compro, porque esperaba la repetición de todo lo que

contaban las demás revistas. . . y hubiera gastado guita al dope. . . Abro: Veo un

personaje idéntico a Seiya, leo “nueva y exitosa serie de Kurumada”. Sigo, y me

encuentro con lo que menos me esperaba: Diversión! Me divertí mucho con solo

leer los cartelitos de abajo de los cuadros. Todavía más leyendo las notas. Me

encontré con una revista genial que fue directamante [sic] a lo que los fans

buscan, sin dar vueltas sobre el mismo punto. (1997, p. 26)

In his interview with Clarín, in response to being asked about why he thought Lazer was so successful at that time, Oberto responds, “Creo que lo que más les interesa a los chicos es que hacemos periodismo serio, no hay datos errados. Además, hablamos el mismo lenguaje que nuestros lectores y somos sinceros en las opiniones” (“Entrevista”).

Most of the (published) fan mail consists of excited chatter from young readers about their interest in the magazine, their favorite televised anime series, and in the case of either comics or onscreen animation, their appreciation for (what they perceive as) a specifically Japanese aesthetic. This is demonstrable in a lengthy letter from the same issue by one Evelyn of Buenos Aires:

Hola! Soy Evelyn Rea, tengo 16 años y voy a 3er año. Como están? espero [sic]

10 puntos. Antes que nada quiero super felicitarlos por la revista. Está genial! Me

gusta que empiecen con un tema y luego lo sigan, es decir, que no concluya todo

en un número. Estoy re-ansiosa por leer el número dos. Les voy a ser sincera, yo

no le doy mucha bola a esos comics americanos. Eso sí, nadie puede pararme ante

el Manga. Soy re-re fanática, me encanta. Es un día de sol hoy (15-7) salí a andar

en bicicleta, cuando de pronto se me dio por ojear la revistaría, y ahí estaba Lazer

#1, esperando a que la compre, apenas vi a Sailor Moon y a Goku y leer lo que

trataba la revista, volé a mi casa para buscar plata y así comprarla. [. . . ] Yo

comencé a ver los Caballeros de Zodiaco en el '94, y en el '96 comencé a ver

Shurato y los Samurai Warriors. Shurato mucho no me atrajo por la atmosfera en

la que se encuentran los personajes (mundo celestial), comencé a ver estas series

en el canal Manchete de Brasil. En su revista hablaron de todas las películas de

CZ, sin embargo me enteré que existe una versión “erótica” lo escuche en las

noticias. Pero es verdad lo de esta versión? Quisiera saberlo ya que ustedes tienen

los medios para saberlo. Tengo toda la serie de los Caballeros grabadas y tengo

todas las películas, y me llené los 3 álbunes [sic]. Antes compraba la revista

oficial de los Caballeros, pero me di cuenta que era “una basura” y lo peor, los

dibujos no eran japoneses, eso me “revienta”. Ustedes son unos re-genios y se las

arreglan para atraer a sus lectores como yo. Tengo mi gran sueño dorado que es

hacer comics o aun mejor, trabajar como animadora en Japón haciendo Manga.

(1997, p. 26–27)

As an Argentine publication, it should not be too surprising that the nationality comprising the majority of Lazer’s readership was, in fact, Argentine. The largely youthful readership consumed Lazer throughout Argentina, but perhaps most heavily in and around the metropolitan hub of Buenos Aires. According to La Nación, the magazine could be found in kiosks across the country, and “Sus lectores tienen entre 15 y 30 años y sus editores estiman que el 70 por ciento son hombres” (“Las historietas”). As reported by Clarín, noting that Lazer was also widely distributed throughout the provinces, “El

40% de la revista se vende en el interior” (“Entrevista”). Although Oberto may have fully

31 anticipated the reality that his patrons and fellow members of a nascent fandom would primarily constitute a community on a national level, as opposed to being more international, he certainly did not advertise Lazer as such; nor did he wish for it to be framed as fixating solely on Japanese culture, as evidenced by his preface accompanying the first batch of fan letters:

No somos una revista sobre cosas japonesas!!! Los japoneses son los mayores

productores de animación y comics del mundo y eso se reflejara en nuestra

revista, pero no pienso limitar la información a Japón, eso sería ser xenófogo

[sic]. Lo mejor siempre viene del intercambio de ideas entre todas las personas

que habitamos este planeta. Además, en el mundo globalizado de hoy cada vez es

mas difícil saber de donde es algo realmente. Las notas de este número son un fiel

reflejo de eso. (1997, p. 26)

Though Lazer did occasionally feature non-Japanese animations (like popular fare featured on Cartoon Network in the United States and abroad), the vast majority of the magazine’s content was, in fact, related to anime and manga. Oberto interestingly disguises this editorial objective, claiming that because Japan is the major producer of animation in the world (a contestable claim), as a publication interested in animation and comics Lazer would unavoidably feature Japanese content. Despite the dominance of content focused on or involving Japanese media in his magazine, Oberto clearly wanted readers to see it as a gauge of global happenings in the realm of comic books and animated TV shows. The realities espoused in this and Oberto’s other missives, however, did not completely coincide with his mission statement: Lazer’s purview was more

32 national than international, attuned almost exclusively to the Japanese programming that made its way to Argentine (or, at the very least, Latin American) airwaves.

Not only was Lazer not as international as its ambitions, it was sometimes, perhaps, too localized. In the seventeenth issue (the same one that caused the censorship controversy), a boy named Luciano sent in a fan letter expressing his obsession with an individual: a young woman in cosplay—a portmanteau of costume and play (also called custom play in some areas) describing enthusiasts who typically make and wear their own costumes to resemble someone from a comic or TV series—as a favorite character of his.

At the time, this girl was Luciano’s classmate, and for some reason, Oberto saw fit to publish the letter in its entirety—including the girl’s full name and her school:

No lo puedo creer! Dolores! Que haces ahí? No lo puedo creer, la fucking madre!

Muy bien, me explico. Mi estimado Leandro-sama: Acabo de adquirir Lazer #16

y no te imaginás mi sorpresa cuando en la página 63 diviso entre los freaks de

Fantabaires a Dolores!!! Muy bien, me explico. Dolores es la Rei Ayanami de la

cual todos los lectores de Lazer están enamorados y de la cual no creo que lleguen

a ver una carta en el Lazermail. Por eso me ocupo yo, Luciano Banchero, 14 años

y amigo de esta Dolores-Rei de 17 años, pa’ más información. Te juro, Leandro,

que mandaría hasta su número de teléfono si no fuera porque soy consciente de

que ella después me faja. Amigos babosos: La señorita María Dolores Merlo no

tiene novio, pero en el Instituto Santa Catalina al cual ambos asistimos TODOS

(preceptores incluidos) nos consideran como tales. Así que si escribe únicamente

les va a romper el corazón con mentiras. Leandro: Please, te ruego que publiques

esta carta si es que Dolo no se atreve a escribir. Ya descarto completamente que

Dolores me va a mutilar (venga 10 por escribir esto, pero, querida, se tiene que

hacer justicia entre todos los que se babeaban con tu bombachas de vieja. Gracias

Leandro por Lazer #16, por existir y seguí así que dentro de poco te vamos a ver

en Locomotion, conduciendo Lazer TV, puteando en castellano y subtitulado en

portugues. (2000, p. 59)

Whether printing this sensitive information was shortsightedness on Oberto’s part or, far more likely, intended as a haphazardly formed gimmick to increase sales is unclear. In the wake of this editorial blunder, however, Oberto characteristically made lemonade out of lemons when the girl herself, Dolores, quickly became the center of too much unwanted attention and subsequently sat down in Oberto’s office for an interview regarding the incident. Oberto’s uninhibited quest for truth and salacious stories led to a double-page spread dedicated to Dolores—under the pretext of discussing her appearances at a local comic book convention—in the twentieth issue of Lazer:

Sin proponérselo, yendo disfrazada de Rei Ayanami de Evangelion a Fantabaires

99, éstachica fue una de las causantes del comienzo del boom del custom play

(disfrazarse de personajes) en nuestro país. Desde ésa aparición, las cartas han

llovido constantemente a Lazer pidiendo que le hagamos una nota,

intensificándose recientemente tras su reaparición en Fanatabaires 200, donde

incluso participó en el segundo concurso de disfraces. Ante tal furor, la

contactamos y amablemente a finales de Enero nos concedió ésta entrevista en las

oficinas de nuestra editorial. Dolores mostró ser una persona sencilla, simpática y

de ideas claras aunque, eso sí, algo tímida. (2001, p. 48)

After his introductory preamble to the interview, along with general questions about her involvement in the fandom, her interest in anime, and other chitchat par for the course,

Oberto asks Dolores about her impressions regarding her newfound popularity. She replies by directly referencing the incident from the earlier issue:

Nunca esperé una reacción así, aún cuando mucha gente hoy día me dice que era

lo más lógico del mundo que pasara algo así. Durante el año en las comiquerías y

hasta en la calle me suelen parar pórque me reconocen. ¡Hasta vinieron a mi

colegio, porque vos publicaste mi nombre en una carta en Lazer #17! Esa la

mandó un chico de mi colegio que va a otro año, cuando me dijo que te había

mandado una carta me calenté, entonces después vino y me dijo que te había

mandado un e-mail diciendo que no la publicaras, entonces le dije “es Oberto, la

va a publicar... ¡Sos un tarado!”. Así que al final te mandé ése mail, más que nada

porque me había molestado eso de la bombacha de vieja que había puesto en el

correo. (2001, p. 49)

Based on Dolores’ own account, it seems that not only did she also try to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation, but that Oberto had already earned a reputation as a bit of a libertine, or at least someone lacking discretion. For good and ill, it seems clear that, as a sort of economic middleman and cultural gatekeeper, Leandro Oberto via Lazer significantly influenced the connotations associated with anime in Argentina (youth, rebelliousness, sex, etc.) and, therefore, its reception as it was being viewed on television.

Chapter 4: Conclusion

Lazer continued to be printed regularly for eight more years after the interview with Dolores was published, largely free of controversy but always with Oberto at the helm skirting reprisals from local governments and Japanese production companies.

Within its pages, similar stories of fan revelry and rebelliousness would emerge; a unique strain of antiestablishment-flavored punk mixed with a dash of sagacity continued to tinge every article, interview, and program listing. Finally, however, its last issue was printed in April of 2009. An official explanation was posted on the magazine’s now- defunct webpage (which had been set up only a few years prior), stating that, in essence, certain major Japanese publishing companies—who owned the rights to many characters, images, and series that not only appeared in Lazer, but were often from titles licensed and distributed by its parent company Editorial Ivrea—had pressured Oberto and his team to do so due to disagreement over usage of proprietary materials:

Lazer deja de ser publicada por presión de Shueisha y Shogakukan. Las

mencionadas editoriales japonesas han transmitido a Ivrea que no ven con buenos

ojos la participación de su staff en la revista Lazer, a la cual -bajo criterios

japoneses- consideran ilegal por hacer uso de imágenes de sus personajes. A fin

de no afectar a Editorial Ivrea -fundadora de Lazer- y para que ésta pueda

preservar su buena relación con estas empresas y no se ponga en riesgo la 36

continuidad de las series de manga de estas dos editoriales japonesas que Ivrea

publica en Argentina, Lazer Ediciones ha optado por cesar la publicación de

Lazer. Lazer, en sus 12 años de existencia, no había sido objetada nunca por estas

editoriales japonesas pese a conocer su existencia. Agradecemos a todos los que

nos han seguido a lo largo de más de una década, ha sido un honor tenerlos de

lectores. (revistalazer.com/ar)

The veracity behind an official corporate statement such as this is somewhat dubious: there may have been other behind-the-scenes circumstances that caused, or at least contributed to, the dissolution of Lazer other than Japanese publishers—with whom

Editorial Ivrea had longstanding business relationships, many of which remain even today—arbitrarily picking a day out of the blue to apply economic leverage or legal pressure to an entity that had been licensing its properties for over a decade. At any rate, circa 2009 the animation business in Japan was floundering along with the rest of the

Japanese economy, in no small part due to the recession in the United States. This, in turn, adversely affected businesses in North America and elsewhere whose business models relied upon these particular Japanese cultural imports.

Additionally, print media itself was struggling as even large publications and news outlets began to increasingly migrate online; physical periodicals like Lazer no longer enjoyed an uncontested dominance over access to information, nor could they compete with the socializing capabilities of the internet. And, as he himself admits in the fifty-seventh issue (in his second to last letter from the editor), Oberto personally did not have a certain spark he once had, namely due to the death of his longtime friend and

37 business partner, Pablo Ruiz: “Me recuerdo a mí mismo pensando que mi equipo con mi amigo y socio Pablo -fallecido en 2005- seguiría hasta que nos jubiláramos” (2009, p. 2).

Oberto would forge ahead on his own in the business of anime and manga, however, as president of Editorial Ivrea. The company still prints popular manga titles in Spanish, and today has branches in Argentina, Spain, and, curiously enough, Finland. The pioneering spirit of Lazer lives on within online communities like Facebook, Twitter, and internet forums. In this sense, it would seem that Leandro Oberto’s original vision to foster a global community of anime aficionados united by a mutual appreciation of art and culture has been realized.

Regarding anime itself, its global presence has only continued to escalate. Along with the problematic of defining it in an increasingly interconnected, multinational workforce (as U.S. productions have historically been outsourced to Japanese animators, so too have Japanese animations been outsourced to Korea while increasingly also worked on in-house by foreign workers of various nationalities), Wada-Marciano notes that Western scholarship continues to struggle with negotiating anime as uprooted text— either by overemphasizing its Japanese-ness through lenses of nationality, or unintentionally placing it within ahistorical, denationalized contexts by focusing almost exclusively on textual analyses (246). These tendencies have even fueled desires on the part of some Japanese producers to efface the inherent Japanese qualities of anime (itself a commercially wielded term and constructed concept in Japan) in an effort to further market it to international audiences:

Anime has continuously demonstrated its adaptive qualities, assimilating itself

within kids’ cultures in various areas of the world for the last four decades and

becoming a shared cultural memory. In doing so, it has attained a level of ubiquity

by masking its origins to a certain degree. (Wada-Marciano 242)

As denationalized as anime has or may become, as long as it is produced by Japanese entities it will carry vestigial traces of Japanese culture with it—be they through intended acts of imitation and homage, or as unintentional expressions of sociocultural backgrounds. Despite the relative singularity of its national origins, however, as has been stated there is no one, single broadcasting history of anime that can be articulated in a temporal or spatial vacuum: the historiography of anime within Japan is not synonymous with those of North America, or Europe, or anywhere else. Studying anime—and its equally important paratexts—within socioeconomic contexts of a particular place, like a nation state, provides insights into interactions between importing and exporting nations, corporations conducting business with one another, and companies communicating with their local customers.

Due to the inevitable coalescing of previously distinct cultures involved in transactions associated with these interactions, transculturation comes into its own as an underpinning theoretical model and rhetorical tool for describing otherwise inexpressible, unique phenomena. Kath expresses this exquisitely in her own writings on transculturation as she recounts her observation of a guest speaker and experienced dancer from Cuba teaching her undergrad class in Melbourne:

As I listened and watched on that day, I realized I was witnessing a cultural form

in the process of changing hands and transforming itself. Within this particular

social context, at this particular place, in this particular moment, a form of dance

and music was being practiced that could not have manifested in quite the same

way in any other context or place or at any other time. The telling of those stories,

the way they were framed, the knowledge assumed and not assumed . . . none of

these were like anything I had ever witnessed in Havana. The events in that

classroom were born of layers of social context, local and global. . . . The dance

form transmuted a little, and those practicing it transmuted a little too. (27)

In the case of post-dictatorial Argentina, a renewed cosmopolitan impulse born out of nationalistic oppression catapulted artistic expression and entrepreneurial imperatives.

Though some Argentines yearned to symbolically reingratiate their nation as an artistic and cultural peer of Europe, others sought participation in global affairs without succumbing to Eurocentric proclivities of the past. Lazer presents itself as an artifact of and testament to this euphoric atmosphere of an Argentina seeking to forget the recent terrible events of the twentieth century and embrace the exciting multicultural possibilities of the twenty first. Its guiding force, Leandro Oberto, himself a child of a newly liberated Latin American society, lead Lazer along a trajectory of bold, pioneering stratagems while crafting his own image as innovative businessman and down-to-earth enthusiast for his adoring consumer base. Though much of Oberto’s financial success came directly from translating and selling manga, his initial surge of popularity and enduring respectability within a navigable subculture is due in large part to Argentine

40 television, where numerous subscribers of Lazer and patrons of Editorial Ivrea were first exposed to anime. In a world before online video streaming, television was king when it came to rapid, transatlantic and transpacific transmission of ideas, stories, and culture:

The phenomenon of mutual influence, inspiration, loaning and borrowing, is

known from any domain of culture, of course, but it seems to present itself with

extraordinary force in the domain of film and TV fiction because of the impact of

the visual, the international traditions of trade in this field, and all the empty slots

on TV that have to be filled. (Agger 66)

Through archival efforts of examining physical manifestations of these mutual exchanges, forgotten eras can be uncovered and new facets of familiar paradigms can be discovered; or, new ones may be developed altogether. When non-scholarly paratext like

Lazer is present, deeper insights into the general reception and interpretation of cultural objects like televised anime series in Argentina can be obtained.

Regarding the present case, future scholars focused on any overlapping topics pertaining to Japanese animation, localization, Latin American television, or global capitalism may find such work instrumental. The conflicting moods experienced by modern nations of desiring to participate in the global economy and the fear of being subsumed by some amorphous amalgamation thereof are certainly not universally experienced—such collective moods differ across time, and vary between nations, regions, and different groups of people. As such, multiple studies must take place, in the spirit of researchers like Elizabeth Kath, in order to uncover the unique circumstances surrounding a given cultural exchange. However, what an analysis of one particular

Argentine publication predicated upon television programs, ostensibly marketed as foreign yet integrated into the local culture via localization techniques (dubbing of dialogue, translated titles, etc.), reveals is that most participants in these exchanges— consumers, by and large—are either ignorant or otherwise unconcerned with the ramifications of such encounters.

As has been noted by innumerable authors recently and experienced intuitively by people from time immemorial, culture is, of course, always changing and adapting, accompanying populations as they travel from one place to the next. The advent of visual and aural media like television, though, has accelerated and magnified these adaptations; culture is no longer as strongly tied to a geographical location as it once was, inextricably associated with the limitations imposed by edifices such as national borders or even nonphysical barriers like those stemming from spoken or written language. As Kath phrases it, “in the global era where the proliferation of communication technologies now bring us into daily, real-time contact with images, sounds, ideas, and practices from around the world, it is not enough to focus only on the uniqueness of the local, even taking into account its diverse historical influences” (30). With the internet accelerating these interactions faster still, there is need for future studies in a similar vein as this one; a look back at artifacts such as programming guides, fanzines, press releases, and other paratexts surrounding more ephemeral, provincial media like broadcast television can shed as much light on a company, country, or culture as any textual analysis of specific programs. Future studies of Japanese anime and other Latin American mediascapes—or indeed, imported programming in any national context—should bear in mind the

42 nonlinearity and multiplicity of media forms and interfaces across various cultural and technological platforms. In such cases, transculturación should prove to be a useful implement.

In the present case, one particular publication serving as a cultural gateway was directed primarily by one man acting as gatekeeper of a burgeoning, mostly regional subculture made possible by globalization. In a capitalistic context such as post- dictatorial Argentina at the turn of the century, where government is sympathetic to free enterprise, economy is a key factor in studying transculturation: in essence, one could view it as transculturation via transaction, or transaction as transculturation. Consumers bring their own expectations to bear in every transaction, just as each producer seeks to cater a product or service for paying customers. Arbiters, mediators, and all kinds of middlemen like Oberto are inevitable, essential variables in these equations; a semi- permeable membrane through which cultural osmosis can occur. This intersection of cultural transmission is ideal for study because, as Kath states, such interaction becomes

“a cultural phenomenon in itself” (29). By studying these sociopolitical phenomena and the specific historical contexts in which they transpire, we can learn more about the transference of culture between specific communities, the mediated reception of tangible goods or intangible ideas, and the systems that facilitate these exchanges.

References

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Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” Translated by Richard Nice. Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 241–58.

“Entrevista con Leandro Oberto, Editor de Lazer: El gurú del manga y el animé.” Clarín, 23 Aug. 2000, https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/guru-manga- anime_0_HJjGmcxCYx.html. Accessed 9 Mar. 2019.

Falicov, Tamara L. The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film. Wallflower Press, 2007.

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Oberto, Leandro. Lazer. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Editorial Ivrea, 1997–2009. Print.

Poupeney-Hart, Catherine. “Mestizaje: ‘I understand the reality, I just do not like the word:’ Perspectives on an Option.” Unforeseeable Americas: Questioning Cultural Hybridity in the Americas, edited by Rita De Grandis and Zilà Bernd, Rodopi B.V., 2000, pp. 34–55.

Revistalazer.com/ar, 20 Aug. 2009. Wayback Machine, http://web.archive.org/web/20090820071101/http://www.revistalazer.com.ar/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2019.

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