ANIME’S ANCESTRY: KAWABATA’S THE SCARLET GANG OF ASAKUSA AND OE’S HELP US TO OUTGROW OUR MADNESS AS A PRELUDE TO JAPANESE ANIMATION A Thesis by Cynthia Naomi Moss Bachelor of Arts, Friends University, 2010 Submitted to the Department of English and the faculty of the Graduate School of Wichita State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts December 2012 © Copyright 2012 by Cynthia Moss All Rights Reserved ANIME’S ANCESTRY: KAWABATA’S THE SCARLET GANG OF ASAKUSA AND OE’S HELP US TO OUTGROW OUR MADNESS AS A PRELUDE TO JAPANESE ANIMATION The following faculty members have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content, and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts with a major in English. ____________________________________ Peter Zoller, Committee Chair ____________________________________ Kimberly Engber, Committee Member ____________________________________ Wilson Baldridge, Committee Member iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Peter Zoller, for his patient guidance and support. Without his inspired topic suggestion, this thesis would not exist. I am grateful for every fielded concern and encouraging comment. Appreciation is also due to Dr. Kimberly Engber and Dr. Wilson Baldridge for their thoughtful commentary, creative input, and interest in the project. I am grateful to my parents, who offered help every step of the way. My thanks also go to Merritt Stuever, both a sounding board and patient support. iv ABSTRACT Much research exists on the considerable influence of American and European culture on the newly opened borders of Japan in the 1920’s, yet there is very little recognition of French influences beyond the acknowledgement of Surrealism in literary and artistic circles. Evidence exists, however, that French thought made a deep and lasting impression on Japanese culture; an effect that permeated the formation of Japanese philosophy to the modern expression of Japanese animated film, or anime. Currently, evidence does not bear out a premise of direct influence, but unmistakable parallels in philosophical development point to French writer and thinker Georges Bataille, who extended Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism as a literary tool formulated to demand a response from the audience. Japanese writers Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe used imagery in a similar way as Georges Bataille; they used images derived from their own culture as well as shared surrealist symbols and grotesque imagery. Just as Bataille did, Kawabata and Oe worked out their own personal, societal, and psychological concerns in a sensory-heavy method in order to shock the audience into mental and emotional participation. Specific grotesque or erotic symbolism employed by Bataille, Kawabata, Oe, and anime is not evidence of the connection; instead, it is how each used the shock value of grotesque imagery to create a sensory overload in order to demand audience involvement in a personal and nationwide discussion. The intent of this exploration is not to prove that Japanese anime is founded on French ideology, but instead to clearly and plausibly demonstrate a link between the two, in Kawabata’s parallel constructions and Oe’s assimilation regarding Bataille, and to show the development and extension of Georges Bataille’s philosophy in early and modern Japanese anime. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION: BATAILLE’S CONCERNS…..……………………………….....1 2. JAPAN AND THE OTHER…………………………………………………….……..8 3. KAWABATA: MODERNISM AND PARALLELS………………………………...12 4. OE: POSTMODERNISM AND ASSIMILATION…………………………………..22 5. THE STATUS OF IMAGE IN TEXT AND FILM…………………………………...35 6. EXTENUATION IN ANIME…………………………………………………………39 7. CONCLUSION: SYMBOLISM AND ASSIMILATED PHILOSOPHY……….……52 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………54 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: BATAILLE’S CONCERNS Much research exists on the considerable influence of American and European culture on the newly opened borders of Japan in the 1920’s. Many Japanese writers outwardly claim this impact: Kenzaburo Oe names Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Norman Mailer, among others, as profound influences on his imagination and prose. Yet there is very little recognition of French influences beyond the acknowledgement of Surrealism in literary and artistic circles. Evidence exists, however, that French thought made a deep and lasting impression on Japanese culture; an effect that permeated the formation of Japanese philosophy to the modern expression of Japanese animated film, or anime. Currently, evidence does not bear out a premise of direct influence, but unmistakable parallels in philosophical development point to French writer and thinker Georges Bataille, who extended Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism as a literary tool formulated to demand a response from the audience. Bataille used his version of surrealist imagery as a way to create a sensory experience, one which shocks the reader so deeply that he cannot remain objective and unchanged; he must engage emotionally. Japanese writers Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe used imagery in a similar way; they used images derived from their own culture as well as shared surrealist symbols and grotesque imagery. Just as Bataille did, Kawabata and Oe worked out their own personal, societal, and psychological concerns in a sensory-heavy method in order to shock the audience into mental and emotional participation. While Oe more fully assimilated Bataille’s system of shock, Kawabata employed a more detached style, avoiding grotesque imagery except in his use of symbols; his novels parallel Bataille in this regard. Specific grotesque or erotic symbolism employed by Bataille, Kawabata, Oe, and anime is not evidence of the connection; instead, it is how each used the 1 shock value of grotesque imagery to create a sensory overload in order to demand audience involvement in a personal and nationwide discussion. The intent of this exploration is not to prove that Japanese anime is founded on French ideology, but instead to clearly and plausibly demonstrate a link between the two, in Kawabata’s parallel constructions and Oe’s assimilation regarding Bataille, and to show the development and extension of Georges Bataille’s philosophy in early and modern Japanese anime. The connection between French philosophy, Bataille, Kawabata, Oe, and anime is a tenuous bridge, all are connected by the similar demands each places on audiences: the demand of mental interpretation of graphic violence into metaphors of sensation and meaning instead of mere sensationalism. Georges Bataille, a French critic and author who wrote his most important works during 1927-1967, was a major influence on 20th century French thought. Bataille was originally attracted by Surrealism, but kept his distance from the group after falling out with its founder, André Breton. Although Bataille refused to align himself with Surrealism and its founder, his text demonstrates Breton’s idea of “rapprochement,” or the juxtaposition of incongruous elements, as expressed by Breton: “It does not seem possible to bring together, voluntarily, what he calls ‘two distant realities.’ The juxtaposition is made or not made, and that is the long and the short of it…It is, as it were, from the fortuitous juxtaposition of the two terms that a particular light has sprung, the light of the image” (Breton 37). In “Coincidences,” the post-novel commentary in Story of the Eye (1928) by the author, Bataille explains that the eye ties back to the blind eyes of his syphilitic father, which were particularly wide and blank when Bataille helped his father relieve himself. This, according to Bataille, explained why urine accompanies almost every image of the egg or eye in the story (Bataille, Story, 107). Bataille’s Story of the Eye demonstrates the concept of “rapprochement” 2 both phonetically and textually. The images of the egg (l’oeuf) and eye (l’oeil) display both alliteration and similarity of spelling in both English and French, while visually, an egg, eye and bull testicle are all remarkably similar in appearance. Bataille’s subconscious memories of his father and his presence at a bull fight in which a matador lost an eye all play out in his novel as a juxtaposition of disparate imagery that was involuntary and shone with “the light of the image.” The egg, the eye, and testicles are all generative images, as evidenced by Bataille’s being “totally taken aback” as he makes the connection that the disparate images in his novel are not the result of studied reflection, but an involuntary, subconscious spark (Bataille, Story, 104). Bataille also remained faithful to Surrealism’s basic tenets of “challenging the social and physical limits of man” (Beaujour 157). Indeed, in his extensive life’s work he seemed intent on challenging all the possible intellectual limits of man, such as concepts of architecture, the definition of the word “prison,” representational imagery, complacency, and totalitarianism. Bataille embraced every chance offered to him to test limitations; he even refused to allow his novels to take a traditional form. Denis Hollier comments: “But to speak on something imposes a form on it—because of a specific requirement of this type of discourse, one specific to discourse as such—from that moment on, it becomes an object of knowledge. Form is the temptation of discourse to arrest itself, to fix on itself, to finish itself off by producing and appropriating its own end. Bataille's writing is anti-discursive; it endlessly deforms and disguises itself, endlessly rids itself of form” (24). Bataille challenged the simple formula of a novel, recognizing that following the tacit rules of discourse is an implicit limit in itself. As Denis Hollier shows, Bataille made a specific, informed choice to discard the novelistic form in order to cast off its limits and deny the written word as an authority simply because of its form. This refusal of form has a powerful impact: “Perhaps Bataille's work gets its 3 greatest strength in this refusal of the temptation of form.