THE FORMATION OF TEMPORARY COMMUNITIES IN ANIME FANDOM: A STORY OF BOTTOM-UP GLOBALIZATION ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Fullerton ____________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Geography ____________________________________ By Cynthia R. Davis Thesis Committee Approval: Mark Drayse, Department of Geography & the Environment, Chair Jonathan Taylor, Department of Geography & the Environment Zia Salim, Department of Geography & the Environment Summer, 2017 ABSTRACT Japanese animation, commonly referred to as anime, has earned a strong foothold in the American entertainment industry over the last few decades. Anime is known by many to be a more mature option for animation fans since Western animation has typically been sanitized to be “kid-friendly.” This thesis explores how this came to be, by exploring the following questions: (1) What were the differences in the development and perception of the animation industries in Japan and the United States? (2) Why/how did people in the United States take such interest in anime? (3) What is the role of anime conventions within the anime fandom community, both historically and in the present? These questions were answered with a mix of historical research, mapping, and interviews that were conducted in 2015 at Anime Expo, North America’s largest anime convention. This thesis concludes that anime would not have succeeded as it has in the United States without the heavy involvement of domestic animation fans. Fans created networks, clubs, and conventions that allowed for the exchange of information on anime, before Japanese companies started to officially release anime titles for distribution in the United States. With the advent of the internet fans do not need to rely on conventions to access new content. Fan conventions continue to grow and thrive due to the temporary communities that fans form at these conventions, which give them opportunities to express themselves and their love of anime that they feel they cannot do in everyday life. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 Research Goal and Methods ................................................................................. 3 Organization.......................................................................................................... 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 8 Cultural Diffusion ................................................................................................. 8 Cultural Economies and Production ..................................................................... 12 Conventions, Festivals, and Trade Fairs ............................................................... 18 3. A BRIEF GLOBAL HISTORY OF ANIMATION ............................................. 28 Era One: Animation Pre-History .......................................................................... 29 The Earliest Modern Animation ........................................................................... 32 Moral Panic ........................................................................................................... 33 Moral Panic and Early Animation in Japan .......................................................... 35 Early Animation in America and the Importance of Disney ................................ 44 The Disney Era ..................................................................................................... 49 The Rise of Japanese Anime ................................................................................. 54 Overview ............................................................................................................... 62 4. HOW ANIME SPREAD TO AMERICA ............................................................. 64 Anime Finds Its Way into America ...................................................................... 64 Fansubbing ............................................................................................................ 68 Anime Fans and Otaku ......................................................................................... 72 iii 5. MODERN ANIME CONVENTIONS.................................................................. 78 The Growth of American Fan Conventions .......................................................... 79 The Anatomy of a Modern Anime Convention .................................................... 85 The Exhibit Hall (aka The Dealers Room) .................................................... 86 The Artist Alley ............................................................................................. 86 Cosplay .......................................................................................................... 87 The Masquerade ............................................................................................. 88 Concerts ......................................................................................................... 89 Panels and Workshops ................................................................................... 90 AMV Contest ................................................................................................. 90 Results ................................................................................................................... 92 Demographics and Convention Attendance .................................................. 93 Travel and Accommodations ......................................................................... 94 Reasons for Attending ................................................................................... 99 Social Media .................................................................................................. 101 Temporary Communities ...................................................................................... 103 6. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 106 Animation: From Past to Present .......................................................................... 106 Future Directions .................................................................................................. 109 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 110 APPENDIX: SURVEY AND INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.......................................... 111 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 113 iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Estimated Convention Attendance for Selected Conventions ............................. 85 2. Number of Interviewees Who Have Attended Conventions Before .................... 93 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Bowl found in Iran’s Boat City ............................................................................ 29 2. The Cameraman's Revenge (1912) by Ladislaw Starewicz ................................. 33 3. Fantasmagorie by Winsor McCay....................................................................... 33 4. Momotaro (left) fights the Mickey Mouse lookalike (right) in Momotaro vs Mickey Mouse (1934) ........................................................................................... 41 5. Animated foreign films released in Japan during the Occupation Era ................ 43 6. Mickey Mouse (left) and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (right). This would be the only time Disney drew the two characters together ............................................. 50 7. Tetsuwan Atomu, (1963) ..................................................................................... 54 8. Many fans who first watched Speed Racer (1967) (left) and Pokémon (1997) (right) did not know that these shows were Japanese in origin, thanks to their placeless and culturally odorlessness nature ........................................................ 57 9. Greeting card from Osamu Tezuka to Carl Barks, whom Tezuka was very fond of. ................................................................................................................. 58 10. Donald Duck appears in an issue of Tetsuwan Atomu. ........................................ 59 11. Time special Pokémon issue, November 22, 1999 ............................................... 60 12. The main characters from Cowboy Bebop (1998) ............................................... 61 13. Samurai Champloo (2004) ................................................................................... 62 14. People standing at the front of an anime club meeting in New York City in the mid-1980s, explaining to the crowd what is happening on screen ...................... 67 15. Crunchyroll logo .................................................................................................. 72 vi 16