mechademia

1
Emerging
Worlds
of Anime
and Manga
Mechademia
An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts

FreNCHY LuNNiNg, eDiTOr

Mechademia is a series of books, published by the University of Minnesota Press, devoted to

creative and critical work on anime, manga, and the fan arts. Linked through their specific but
complex aesthetic, anime, manga, and the fan arts have influenced a wide array of contemporary
and historical culture through design, art, film, and gaming. This series seeks to examine, discuss,
theorize, and reveal this unique style through its historic Japanese origins and its ubiquitous
global presence and manifestation in popular and gallery culture. Each book is organized around
a particular narrative aspect of anime and manga; these themes are sufficiently provocative and
broad in interpretation to allow for creative and insightful investigations of this global artistic
phenomenon.

u N i V e r S i T Y O F M i N N e S OTA P r e S S minneapolis • london

http://www.mechademia.org/

The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the Minneapolis College of Art and
Design, whose Faculty Enhancement Grant 2005 helped support this project.

“The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism” was originally published in Anne
Allison, Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006).

“Kurenai no metalsuits, ‘Anime to wa nani ka/What is animation’” originally appeared as “What Is

Animation?” in Ueno Toshiya, Crimson Metal Suit: Anime as a Battlefield, translated by Michael
Arnold, Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan, 2006); reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Anime timeline by Brian Ruh. Manga timeline by Patrick Drazen. Illustration by Ke Jaing. Contents
Copyright 2006 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
1 Anifesto
Published by the University of Minnesota Press Fr eN CHY Lu N N i N g A N D CHri S TO P Her BO LTO N
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i l l ustrated by sa ra p oc oc K
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
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11 The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
A N N e A LLi S O N
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

                 23 Globalizing Manga: From Japan to Hong Kong and Beyond

WeN DY S i u Y i WO N g

Mechademia Editorial and Advisory Boards 47 The World of Anime Fandom in America
S u S A N N A P i er
Senior Board Editorial Board
Michelle Ollie, Associate Editor Brent Allison
Christopher Bolton, Admissions Editor C. B. Celbulski 65 Costuming the Imagination: Origins of Anime and Manga Cosplay
Timothy Perper, Review and Trish Ledoux THereS A Wi N g e
Commentary Editor, Otaku Editor David Rapp
Martha Cornog, Review and Brian Ruh
Commentary Editor Theresa Winge 78 Assessing Interactivity in Video Game Design
Marc Hairston, Otaku Editor M A rK J . P. WO LF
Patrick Drazen, Otaku Editor Advisory Board
Gilles Poitras, Otaku Editor Pamela Gossin
Yuriko Furuhata, Otaku Editor Adam Haecker
87 Mori Minoru’s Day of Resurrection
Thomas LaMarre John A. Lent TATS u M i TA KAYu Ki
Thomas Looser Nora Paul tra nsl ated by c hri stop her bolton
Haijime Nakatani Lester Shen
Susan Napier
Abé Mark Nornes 92 Superflat and the Layers of Image and History in 1990s Japan
Mark J. P.  Wolf THO M A S LO O S er
Wendy Siuyi Wong
ANNE ALLISON

The Japan Fad in Global

Youth Culture and
Millennial Capitalism

In the Hollywood hit of 2003, Lost in Translation, Tokyo is the backdrop for
a tale about modern-day angst and cultural dislocation. As shot by the film’s
director, Sofia Coppola, the screen fills with scene after scene of a searingly
beautiful Tokyo: neon-lit Shinjuku, a pristine sushi bar, the quietude of a
temple, a nightclub’s jagged excesses. All of this is filtered through the per-
spective of two American travelers who are as lost in this foreign culture as
they are in their personal lives back home. Strangers when they first meet,
the two connect over shared insomnia and malaise. Both are reluctant visi-
tors to a country that neither one is interested in; both find Japan utterly
strange. Yet the strangeness inspires not only gaffes and gaps in cultural
(mis)communication but also intimacy between the two. By the time they
part, Japan has acquired a new attractiveness and meaning for them. Yet nei-
ther character exhibits greater knowledge or understanding of the country:
they are as clueless as when they first checked into their hotel. Indeed, the
film’s audience shares the same position, as strangers “lost” in a culture that,
while quirkily and sensuously beautiful, is foreign and outside “translation.”
In 2004 ABC aired an episode of the long-running children’s television
show, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, with a story that referenced Coppola’s

11
 movie. Titled “Lost and Found in Translation,” this story of a cross-cultural on the show come to read and appreciate the differences of their Japanese
encounter is played with a twist: here the protagonists will not only lose counterparts. Bearing a style that the Americans find cool in its own right,
but also find their way in(to) a different culture. The episode opens in the the show’s cultural logic doesn’t defy translation as much as yield a different
United States with the rangers—teenagers who morph into superheroes to interpretation.
fight alien monsters and defend the earth—in their everyday garb, working I use these two tales of imaginary encounters between Americans and
on a social science project comparing two cultures. On television, they dis- Japan/ese to reflect on the rise of manga, anime, video games, and various
cover a program from Japan that turns out to be a version of Abarangers (that play trends around the world, including the United States. Starting in East
season’s variant of Power Rangers) dubbed into English. Two of the three and Southeast Asia in the 1980s and other parts of the world such as Western
Americans are riveted, fascinated by the cy- Europe, Russia, Peru, and the United States in the early to mid-1990s, the
borgian upgrades and fighting stances of the global market in Japanese youth products has skyrocketed. Called the coun-
the global market in
Japanese rangers. But the third dismisses try’s GNC (gross national cool) by the American reporter Douglas McGray
Japanese youth products
the foreign show as inauthentic, saying that (2002), these exports now exceed what had been the leading industries in
has skyrocketed. these
they “got it all wrong” and discounting the Japan’s postwar economy: automobiles and steel. Having tripled in the past
exports now exceed what
enemy as a “guy in a rubber suit.” His pals, decade—a time of a nagging recession precipitated by the bursting of the
had been the leading
however, remind him that it’s just a TV show Bubble economy in 1991—the industry of cool culture is bringing much-
industries in Japan’s
and urge him to use his imagination. Sitting needed capital to Japan, both real and symbolic. Taken seriously these days
postwar economy,
back and watching more, he gets into the even by the Japanese government, which hopes to channel it as a form of
automobiles and steel.
action and admits that it’s “kinda cool.” The “soft power,” J-cool raises questions about what precisely the nature of its ap-
episode ends with a message about cultural peal is around the world; what, if any, influence it is having on global culture;
difference voiced by the new convert. “We’re not so different after all, just and how exactly “Japan” figures in any of this. Concentrating on the United
a slightly different interpretation.” Returning to his homework assignment, States here because of how its own cultural industries have dominated the
he announces the title to the others: “Japanese versus American Culture— global imagination, I consider how Japanese properties are entering not only
Closer Than We Think.” the marketplace and play habits of U.S. kids but also the imaginary of Ameri-
Both the above stories, produced by U.S. cultural industries in the new cans more generally. In a place where storytelling has been so ethnocentric,
millennium, feature Americans who are discomforted in their encounters the omnipresence of Japanese cartoons on Saturday morning TV, for exam-
with a foreign culture. In both cases, that culture is Japan; in both cases, the ple, and the shelves of manga sold in chain bookstores like Borders (many
discomfort is dispelled. The reasons for this, however, are different. In the printed right to left in Japanese style) are striking. Does this really represent
former, a blockbuster movie for and about adults, the characters are dislo- a shift, however, from the global (cultural) power of Americanization? Fur-
cated from home in a cultural milieu they feel lost in. But, in what has been ther, what do we make of the fact that this fad, so driven by youth, is also so
called a love story, the couple uses the alienness of Japan to bridge their own incomprehensible to American adults, that “culture” here comes in the reg-
personal alienation in the company of one another. And, in this, the setting ister of virtual, fantasy worlds, and that J-cool trades in an image of Japan
could be anywhere, reviewers have suggested, and Japan acts more figura- more imaginary than so-called real?
tively than literally to signify a sense of dislocation in the world at once un- The influence of Japan on American pop culture is hardly new. Godzilla,
easy and potentially pleasurable. The story line in “Lost and Found in Trans- of course, was a huge hit in the 1950s, with its endless sequels and incar-
lation”—an episode for a children’s television show featuring kids—is quite nations that have survived until the new millennium. Japanese television
different. Here, the tale is set in the United States, where the foreignness shows like Astro Boy and Speed Racer have been broadcast on regional sta-
Americans confront is on the screen instead of the street. Fictional and un- tions since the 1960s, Japanese metal robots and transformers have sold in
real, the ranger escapades constitute popular culture: something that Ameri- American toy stores since the early months after World War II, and entertain-
can youth take very seriously. And it is in these terms that the U.S. rangers ment technology such as the Sony Walkman and Nintendo Game Boy has

12  a n n e allis o n th e japan fad in g lo bal yo u th c u ltu re  1 3

 layers. In addition, it gives the impres-
sion that it is not simply the train that
moves; the entire world is in motion.
THOMAS LAMARRE
In one of the early sequences in
Ôtomo Katsuhiro’s Steamboy (2004), as
the young hero travels by train to Lon-
don, the English countryside streams
past the window, and the landscape—a
series of rolling hills, clumps of trees,
and small houses—looks like a diorama
(Figure 1).3 But it is not one of those
dioramas that use three-dimensional
figures and scale models. It recalls the
ones that children make in school with
a shoebox and cardboard cutouts. Each
house and hill and tree is decidedly flat,

The Multiplanar Image

as if cut out and pasted in place. All
sense of depth comes from the play be-
tween the cutout layers. As your view-
ing position moves, you distinctly feel
the gap between these different layers
When I take the Shinkansen, I love watching the countryside stream past or planes. The gap between layers is
the windows. I can’t help but recall Paul Virilio’s remark, that the landscape hard to catch by looking at a static se-
seen from the train window is art, just as much as the works of Pablo Picasso ries of screen grabs, so you’ll have to
or Paul Klee. Virilio calls the effect of speed on the landscape an “art of the imagine the effects of motions (or see
engine.”1 And he associates it with cinema. “What happens in the train win- the film on a large screen, which really Figure 1. Sequence from Steamboy.
dow, in the car windshield, in the television screen, is the same kind of cin- accentuates the play between layers).
ematism,” he writes.2 For Virilio, this art of the engine, these effects of speed, The depth of these open layers is a strange depth—strange, that is, in
for all their beauty, are deadly. Cinematism entails an optical logistics that comparison with the hyper-three-dimensionality that is now familiar to us
ultimately prepares us for the bomb’s-eye view, consigning us to a life at one from digital animation in the style of Pixar; strange, too, in comparison to
end or the other of a gun, or missile, or some other ballistic system. Maybe cinematic norms. The diorama style in Steamboy does not construct depth in
it’s just me, but as I look at the landscape from the bullet train, I watch how accordance with the conventions of geometric perspective. This animetism
the countryside seems to separate into the different layers of motion, and focuses less on realism of depth than on realism of movement. It lingers on
how structures transform into silhouettes. These effects make me wonder if the effects of speed, but here the image’s different layers seem to move inde-
there is not also an “animetism” generated through the effects of speed. This pendently of one another. The result is a multiplanar image.
animetism does not turn its eyes from the window in order to align them Of course, in this “steampunk” tale, Ôtomo goes to great lengths to evoke
with the speeding locomotive or bullet or robot. It remains intent on looking and alter technologies of the Victorian era, and his use of diorama-like land-
at the effects of speed laterally, sideways, or crossways. Consequently, ani- scape is part of the historical conceit. The diorama recalls optical technolo-
metism emphasizes how speed divides the landscape into different planes or gies of the period, and the sequence emphasizes the diorama effect by slowly

120 th e mu ltip lan er imag e  1 2 1

 pulling away from the landscape to frame it in the train window—a perfect Since Ôtomo also worked on Spriggan (as general supervisor), you might
dioramic moment. The multiplanar image is not limited to Steamboy or to old- think that these multiplanar effects are part of his distinctive style, or of
fashioned optics, however. In Spriggan (1998), for instance, in the sequence Studio 4°C, which is associated with experimental styles, not only on Ôtomo
in which the young hero drives through Istanbul, the landscape appears as a projects such as Memories (1995) and Spriggan but also on series like Eternal
collection of flat, superimposed layers of buildings (Figure 2). Again you feel Family (Eien no kazoku, 1997–98) and films like Mind Game (2004). Multipla-
the openness between the flattened planes of the image, which defies certain nar effects, however, appear all the time in animation, not only in Ôtomo
conventions of depth yet imparts a distinctive sense of movement. Rather films or experimental animation. These travel sequences from Steamboy and
than move into the landscape, you seem to move across it, soaring, speeding, Spriggan touch on something fundamental to animation—at least to those
spinning, wheeling. forms of animation that grow out of cel animation.

THE MULTIPLANE CAMERA

A basic feature of cel animation is the layering of celluloid sheets, or cels,

which produces odd effects of depth—odd, again, from the standpoint of
certain conventions of rendering depth. Take a very simple scenario, for in-
stance, in which you draw the lines of a character in dark ink on a transparent
sheet of celluloid and carefully apply colors. You then place the character cel
on top of a background (painted on celluloid, glass, or some other support).
Two layers alone can produce effects of depth. If you draw and color the back-
Figure 2. Sequence ground somewhat lighter than the character, the more boldly drawn character
from Spriggan. will appear closer to the viewer—which is usually the desired effect. Now you
draw various positions of movement for the character and take exposures.
When projected, the character will appear to move in the foreground; if you
slide the cel a bit, the character seems to move over or across the background.
Still, as depth goes, this is not all that deep.
The difficulties begin when you want to create illusions of movement in
depth, as Walt Disney did in the early 1930s.4 As you stack more and more
cels, you can create some sense of depth, but you also begin to get silhouette
effects, and a host of other problems arise. For instance, the colors of the
lower cels tend to change, and lighting becomes difficult. Things truly take a
turn for the worse, however, if you want to create the sensation of moving
into or out of a background—for instance, if you adopt the viewing posi-
tion of a character moving toward something in the background. Say that
you want to create the sensation of walking toward a barn under a full moon.
You can change the camera focus (zooming in or out) or move the camera
closer or farther away from the picture. The problem is that, as the barn gets
bigger, so does everything around it in the picture. The moon, for instance,
also grows larger—rather than remain the same size, as it ought. Piling on

122  th o mas lamarre th e mu ltip lan er imag e  1 2 3