‘The Wandering Adolescent of Contemporary Japanese Anime and Videogames’ Matthew Jacobsen Queen Mary University of London July 2014 Thesis submitted for the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 1 Abstract This thesis examines the figure of the wandering adolescent, prominently visible in Japanese television anime and videogames produced from 1995 to the present. Japan in the 1990s and at the millennium experienced intense economic and social change, as the collapse of the 'bubble' economy of the 1980s resulted in a financial recession from which the country has yet to recover. At the close of the decade, the national experience was characterised in media descriptions of malaise and disenfranchisement, and the loss of perceived core traditional cultural values. Arguably in this period the figure of the adolescent changed qualitatively in Japanese culture, rising to prominence within youth panic discourses circulated by the Japanese news media. These concerned the perceived rise in antisocial and problematic teenage behaviour, including the otaku, the hikikomori shut-in, classroom disobedience, bullying, and prostitution, while multiple cases of brutal murder perpetrated by teenagers became the focus of extensive media coverage. Public discourse expressed alarm at the perceived breakdown of the traditional family and the growing commodification of childhood in Japanese culture. This thesis develops understanding of the shifting attitude in Japan towards adolescence within the context of these cultural anxieties, and through the analysis of anime and videogames suggests strategies that are at work within popular cultural texts that are the product of, contribute to and reorient debates about the position of the suddenly and inescapably visible teenager in Japanese society. Through analysis of discourses relating to the shifting representation of the wandering adolescent as it moves across cultural texts and media forms, the thesis forms an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of Japanese anime and videogames through illumination of a prominent motif that to date remains unexamined. 2 Contents Contents 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 14 Thesis structure and rationale 31 Chapter One: Discursive Surround: Adolescence and Contemporary Japan 39 Section 1 The Wandering Adolescent in Contemporary Japanese Anime from Panic to Abandonment Chapter Two: Introduction and Scholarship on Anime 83 Chapter Three: The Wandering Shōnen in Contemporary Japanese Anime 116 Chapter Four: The Wandering Shōjo in Contemporary Japanese Anime 146 Chapter Five: The Wandering Adolescent, Space, the Family and Abandonment in Contemporary Japan 174 Section 2 The Wandering Adolescent in Contemporary Japanese Videogames from Collector to Explorer Chapter Six: Introduction and Scholarship on Videogames 195 Chapter Seven: The Wandering Adolescent of the Japanese Videogame and the 217 Commodification of Childhood in Contemporary Japan Chapter Eight: The Wandering Adolescent Explorer of Contemporary Japanese Videogames and the Otaku 240 Chapter Nine: Adolescent Spatial Entrapment and Liberation in the Final Fantasy Series 260 Conclusion 276 Bibliography 283 List of Anime Television Programmes Cited 298 List of Videogames Cited 302 Filmography 304 3 Acknowledgements 残酷な天使のテーゼ悲しみがそしては じまる抱きしめた命のかたち その 夢に目覚めたとき誰よりも光を放つ 少年よ 神話になれ - ‘A Cruel Angel’s Thesis’, Neon Genesis Evangelion Thank you to all my friends and family for their love, encouragement and patience during the research and writing of this thesis. I have been repeatedly told that a PhD thesis is never truly a solo accomplishment, but I want to thank especially the people without whom it is safe to say this work would simply not exist: Mark Glancy, for being a steady source of advice, support and guidance throughout my teaching career, and for measured direction, encouragement and draft-reading beyond the call of duty during the craziest times of the writing of this thesis – also for patient, tolerant indulging of Bette at her very worst. Emma Yates, whose extraordinary wisdom, uncanny insight and shrewd guidance over the last three years has had a truly incalculable impact on my life. Thank you for believing so stalwartly in my potential and for being so inspiring – and for always reminding me that there is always an elegant practical solution to existential crises that seem insurmountable. I would not be here without you! Danielle, who has had the often dubious pleasure of living with this work and its writer during some gruelling times, administering emotional triage and, occasionally, full-on surgery. Thank you beyond words, especially for the weekend that we will not forget, but will never speak of again. I would also like to thank my dear friend Chris Sparks for being so supportive during some rough patches, always being an inspiration and, generally speaking, an extremely good influence professionally and personally (and knowing when it is preferable not to be a good influence). I would sincerely like to thank my examiners, Dr. Rayna Denison and Dr. Julian Stringer for the extraordinary level of guidance and detailed commentary on my work. I would especially like to thank Dr. Denison, whose thought-provoking, challenging and encouraging words have made all the difference. 4 Introduction The subject of this thesis is the figure of the wandering adolescent, prominently visible in Japanese television anime and videogames produced from 1995 to the present. Japan in the 1990s and at the millennium experienced high levels of economic and social change, as the collapse of the 'bubble' economy of the 1980s resulted in a deep financial recession from which the country is yet to fully recover. At the close of the decade, the national experience was characterised in media descriptions by a deep- seated malaise and disenfranchisement, and a loss of perceived core Japanese cultural values. For many commentators, including novelist Haruki Murakami, the connection was made between the conditions of the recession and the twin disasters of 1995, the Aum Shinryko cult’s Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway and the catastrophic Kobe earthquake, which ‘will remain embedded in our psyche as two milestones in our life as a people’.1 At the heart of accounts of the Japanese cultural situation of the post-bubble period, the experience of the Japanese adolescent became of particular concern and, circulated by the Japanese print media and television reportage, a series of panics arose concerning the perceived rise in antisocial teenage behaviour. In addition to sensational accounts of classroom disobedience, extortion, bullying, prostitution and the breakdown of the ie (familial) system, several cases of brutal murder perpetrated by teenagers became the focus of extensive media coverage. On January 1st 2000, national newspaper The Japan Times printed an editorial encapsulating the hallmarks of the nationwide malaise as the media had seen it, specifically locating adolescents at the centre of the period’s social consequences: The last ten years have been a dismal experience. In the economic sphere Japan has degenerated from the pinnacle of world success to a fumbling giant; the art of governance is in shambles; and the nation has seen the rise of a moral vacuum as classrooms have turned into battlefields and teenagers sell their bodies in the name of ‘subsidised friendship’.2 While Japan was certainly hitherto a highly active producer of visual media, during this heightened period of cultural transition there was a dramatic mobilisation of 1 Haruki Murakami, Underground (London: Vintage, 2003), p. 206. 2 James McClain, Japan: A Modern History (W.W.Norton and Co., 2002), p. 629. 5 the anime and videogame industries, which became industrially hyperproductive, enjoyed financial success both at home and overseas and in specific cases demonstrated seminal instances of technical and narrative innovation. During the 1990s the adolescent became prominently visible in visual media as a protagonist of a distinct majority of manga, anime television and videogames. I became interested in investigating why this sudden and inescapable visibility of the teenager should occur, and wanted to explore the relationship between changing Japanese discourses around the adolescent in the period and their shifting representation in cultural texts. It seemed to me that in this period the figure of the adolescent changed qualitatively in Japanese culture. From about 1995, there were far more instances of young people who were wanderers; they experienced varying degrees of autonomy and institutional alienation, and I wanted to try to account for this shift. As cultural representations are shaped by, and in turn shape, social practices, an examination of the inner workings of anime and videogame discourse can help to comprehend the Japanese conception of adolescence as a stage in the life cycle, and can account for their representation in visual media. As so much media discourse circulated around the adolescent in the post-bubble period, analysis of the depiction of teenagers in the popular media can reveal much about Japan’s cultural mindset. As will be discussed shortly, comparatively to the West, adolescence came to exist relatively recently as a demarcated stage in the life cycle in Japan, its cultural acknowledgement and definition fundamentally associated with identification of consumer tendencies and product marketing strategies. As in other cultures, the teenager became recognised by the consumer industries as an