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Nele Noppe

Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōji... - 0 views

muse.jhu.edu/...5.lam.html

academic manga dojinshi fans manga_industry

shared by Nele Noppe on 26 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • the world's largest regular gathering of comic fans today is Tokyo's biannual Comic Market
  • dōjinshi phenomenon did not start with Comic Market, Comike and dōjinshi are inextricably linked, having shaped each other's history for three decades.
  • Comike convention has shaped the most important trends defining the development of dōjinshi in Japan today
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • In 1975, a woman who had made critical remarks about the Manga Taikai was excluded from that convention, and [End Page 234] subsequently a firestorm of anger among fans produced a movement against the Manga Taikai led by the famous circle Meikyū (Labyrinth), which resulted in the conception of a new alternative convention. On December 21, 1975, the first Comic Market—"a fan event from fans for fans"—was held in Tokyo.6
  • [End Page 232]
  • [End Page 233]
  • Comike's underlying vision was of an open and unrestricted dōjinshi fair, offering a marketplace without limitations on content or access.
  • With the advent of these fan-consumers (as opposed to fan-creators), dōjinshi became demand-driven publications. Greater competition gradually fostered rising standards of quality, which in turn attracted more circles and buyers. Higher sales shrank production costs and boosted profits, which could then be reinvested in the dōjinshi themselves. Small printing companies, many of which had begun in the minikomi (microcommunication) boom of the early 1970s, were able to use the profits derived from greater demand for their services to modernize their equipment, lowering production costs further and enabling them to construct their production schedules around each Comike.8 Additionally, lower printing costs freed smaller groups from the dependence on bigger groups, which often had strict rules on content and style to avoid conflict among their many members. Having lost their raison d'être, these big clubs and circles gradually faded away, leaving dōjinshi creators to produce stories they liked, in the manner they liked.9
  • [End Page 235]
  • aniparo parodied popular anime series, and in doing so, attracted a new type of fan to Comike, beyond its core group of 2000 or so attendees. These were female fans, mostly middle and high school students strongly influenced by the 1970s florescence of shōjo manga. They began to create and consume dōjinshi in which the (bishōnen or "pretty boy") male protagonists of popular anime and manga were transposed into a very particular sort of erotic story typified by the phrase: "without tension" (yama nashi), "without punchline" (ochi nashi), and "without meaning" (imi nashi)—and hence the contemporary genre title, yaoi.10
  • The eleventh Comic Market in spring 1979 saw the popularity of the cute and pure bishōjo or "pretty girl" (strongly influenced by 1970s shōjo manga) skyrocket among men's dōjinshi circles, attracting many new male participants.
  • The Comic Market was dominated by women from the beginning (90 percent of its first participants were female), but in 1981, thanks to lolicon, male participants numbered the same as female participants for the first time in Comike's history.13
  • [End Page 236]
  • Internal conflicts on the Comike planning committee underlay some of these developments: they marked the ascendancy of the faction led by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who favored Comike's unlimited expansion.15 Though he was criticized for purportedly selling dōjinshi out to commercialism, Yonezawa couched his plans for Comike in terms of a collective organization of the convention by all participants, including staff, circles, and visitors.16 Whatever the underlying reality, these public principles remain little changed today.17

  • Faced with this loss of identity, talent, and space, every other large fan convention except Comike dissolved.

    Yaoi Boom

    But in the middle of the decade, one manga and its anime not only saved dōjinshi fandom from near extinction but was responsible for its biggest boom yet. Takahashi Yōichi's Captain Tsubasa (1981–88, Kyaputen tsubasa),

  • [End Page 237]
  • New dōjinshi conventions appeared, and manga shops began selling dōjinshi on commission. Comparatively lush, custom-made, oversized dōjinshi with more than one hundred pages became common, and popular circles could now live on their fanworks' profits
  • professional creators like Toriyama Akira of Dragonball fame participating,
  • [End Page 238]

  • Despite the self-censorship brought on by the mass media's criticism, Comike nevertheless continued to thrive. Young men tired of new, tighter restrictions on professional manga turned to Comike, and attendance once again swelled to 230,000 in the summer of 1990.23

    Hardcore lolicon was now passé, and erotic dōjinshi for men had greatly changed. New genres were introduced with such aspects as fetishism and a new style of softcore eroticism enjoyed by men and women alike; in particular, yuri (lily), or lesbian stories, emerged.24Dōjinshi also became smaller and shorter due to professional publishers recruiting talented dōjinshi creators en masse: the bulk of dōjinshi were the works of the less talented creators left behind.25

  • Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers. Almost everyone could now afford to make digital dōjinshi as well as audiovisual or even interactive dōjinshi (i.e. dōjin music and dōjin games).
  • The personal technology revolution meant [End Page 239] simplification of fanworks' production processes as well as completely new possibilities for communication and new digital genres. With the growth of dōjinshi in other media, the term "dōjin products" (dōjin seihin) has gradually come into use to describe fanworks of all genres.
  • Further, the conversion of Tokyo's Akihabara "Electric Town" into a district full of shops selling otaku-related goods, as well as the nationwide expansion of otaku-goods retailers and the establishment of Internet communities and message boards in the late 1990s, enabled otaku to live out their interests and to communicate nonstop with like-minded people everywhere. Their interests and culture were easily shared, and consequently information on Comic Market and dōjin culture spread around the world.
  • The rise of the Internet also meant that Comike lost its monopoly as the center of otaku and dōjinshi culture. Nevertheless, Comike remained the most important event for Japanese fans, especially after companies with otaku-related products started to exploit it.28 Firms had been interested in Comic Market for decades as a never-ending pool of promising new talent and as a place to exploit them commercially, and they were willing to pay much money for direct access to these masses of otaku.29 Starting with NEC in the summer of 1995, companies were granted exhibition space to market or to sell their newest products. This was the birth of the dealer booth at Comike, and, as with dōjinshi circles, the number of applicant companies was much higher than that of available spaces: a self-sustaining event with such high attendance was too important for any related company to ignore.30 Companies accepted the existence of unlicensed parody dōjinshi using copyrighted material (albeit in a transformative and thus arguably fair-use manner) since they could now sell exclusive goods at Comike (Figure 3) or use it as a marketing place, attracting to the convention people who were not interested in dōjinshi.
  • In the summer of 2004, 5 percent of all circles participating in Comike were headed by a professional mangaka or illustrator, while another 10 percent had some professional experience.
  • Despite its relative newness, Higurashi became one of Japan's biggest media phenomena, and at the seventy-sixth Comic Market in summer 2009, Tōhō Project became the first dōjin title ever to receive the honor of being considered its own genre.
  • [End Page 243]
  • It seems that dōjinshi circles are not switching entirely to the Internet but rather are using it as an informational and marketing platform for themselves and their creations, spreading the knowledge of and fascination with Comic Market to new spheres.
  • With high attendance, positive media attention, and industry support, Comike's position seems invulnerable. Even the deaths of important figures such as Iwata Tsuguo in 2004 and Yonezawa Yoshihiro—who was the face of Comike for decades—in 2006 did not harm its position. But unresolved problems, such as the use of copyrighted material in parody dōjinshi and the child pornography questions inherent in lolicon and shotakon, remain.
  • Comike was neither the first nor the biggest dōjinshi fair when it was established; its main purpose was to provide the freest market possible, and that freedom has come at a price. The dream of a Comic Market open to every one and everything was never realized, as there were too many physical, financial, and legal restrictions. Even today, the Comic Market suffers from a lack of space, a lack of money, and a lack of legal security. Only two-thirds of applicant circles can participate due to constraints, since, as a small independent operator Comike's financial resources are limited and most of the work is done by volunteers.
  • s the center of attention, with its size and its links to the industry, it is undeniable that Comike possesses the power and the means to influence social, market, and even political developments. In [End Page 244]
  • recent years it has not been reluctant to use this power. Whether through conferences on copyright issues or on the establishment of a "National dōjinshi fair liaison group" (Zenkoku dōjinshi sokubaikai renrakukai) in 2000, it has taken on the responsibility of representing and of regulating Japanese dōjinshi culture.
Nele Noppe

Painting Words and Worlds - 0 views

www.eastasiareview.org/...Lewis_Mia.pdf

academic manga clamp language narrative characters shojo_manga phd

shared by Nele Noppe on 25 May 10 - No Cached
  • Nele Noppe on 25 May 10
     
    is study explores wordplay in the works of CLAMP, a popular Japanese
    mangaka (comic artist) group. Specically, it examines CLAMP's use of
    ateji, the pairing of kanji (Chinese characters) and furigana (a reading gloss)
    with dierent meanings. is allows two dierent words to become one, cre-
    ating meanings that transcend words' literal denitions. Original research on
    ateji in six dierent manga zasshi (comic magazines) and three of CLAMP's
    works-Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, and
    Clover-identies ve distinct ateji techniques. is study focuses on the
    way these techniques are employed by CLAMP to express complex ideas,
    develop plot, and portray characters. As a technique embedded within the
    Japanese language, the implications of ateji use in manga extend beyond the
    medium of comics, pointing to shifting trends in the language as a whole.
Nele Noppe

Thought Police Can't Protect Real Children - 0 views

www.translativearts.com/thoughtpolice2010ej.html

non-academic manga anime sexual_content children law censorship crime games phd

shared by Nele Noppe on 08 Apr 10 - Cached
  • would have established the catagory of "nonexistent youth"
  • The banning of fictional depictions of child abuse would likely be as meaningless as the banning of fictional depictions of car chasing with the aim toward reducing motor vehicle accidents in real life.

  • If content alone was the issue, war footage and horror films should be banned as well.

  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Content in itself is not the issue--Child pornography has been outlawed because the methods involved in production involve real children in possibly abusive circumstances. How the material was produced is what makes it criminal, not what impression it conveys on the audience. 
  • Child pornography involving real children being sexually abused is horrid beyond words. For that very reason, I find it reprehensible to mix together such acts of human misery and suffering with illusionary fantasy that exists only in the author's imagination. Widening the definition of child pornography to include fictional material belittles the gravity of real sex abuse.
  • Many convicted criminals also cite the Bible as their inspiration of conducting astonishingly savage acts, and yet few would attribute the Bible as the root cause of such criminal behavior. Why?--Because free societies accept the principle that people are responsible for their own actions.
  • It is very dangerous to restrict the actions and rights of citizens based on the principle that some limited number of individuals may act irresponsibly. This is the equivalent of removing knives from the household kitchen because someone used a meat cleaver to commit a crime. Again, this logic is unbelievably reckless as well.
  • Furthermore, crime statistics published by the Japanese police themselves show no causality between the proliferation of erotic material and sex crimes. The crime rate has dramatically decreased since WW2 while the availability of erotica and violent fictional entertainment has risen by leaps and bounds during the same period.
  • It is easily imaginable that an endless cycle of accusations and denials will unfold regarding establishing the "true age" of fictional characters. Authors and publishers will more than likely attempt to proclaim that the characters look young, but they are actually above the age of 18. Physical attributes vary between widely depending on race and ethnicity, not to mention fictional non-human characters.
  • Publishers and authors are extremely proficient in adapting toward new regulations. If graphical depictions are banned, then abstract or comedic depictions will increase.
  • Either an ever increasing set of symbols will be deemed to be inappropriate to be linked to a core human attribute--human sexuality--or the futility of the ban will lead the law to become impotent over all.
  • Even today, numerous adult manga publications have self censorship standards that are mind-boggling. Authors have complained about how some editors have insisted on having all female characters appearing in their works be endowed with large breasts because drawing women as they appear more like in real life was deemed "too childish looking." 
  • Banning the fictional depictions of minors involved in sexual situations will make a fundamental core human attribute taboo.
  • Such a ban will stifle creativity and impoverish the cultural landscape.
  • The value attributed to works of literature and art change over time. The works of modern art and literature from the last two centuries are filled with examples where they were deemed to be vile, corruptive trash by contemporary authorities, but now these same works enjoy high status as priceless cultural treasures.
  • A culture grows richer through addition, not by subtraction.
  • A ban on fictional depictions of minor engaged in sexual situations has the very real potential to brand individuals as sex offenders even though they have had no sexual contact with real people. I believe there could be no legal justification for destroying people's lives simple because they drew doodles on paper, but the proposed ban would create such a legal precedence. 

  • I am absolutely certain that history will not look back kindly upon such a ban, and it will join a long list of colossal failures of regulatory policy, such as the prohibition of alcohol in the US between 1920 to 1933, various sodomy laws, the comic book code, and bans on socialist literature in Japan during the prewar era.

    It is important to note that all these failed moral crusades were led by virtuous and diligent individuals intent on making the world a better place. 

Nele Noppe

Otaku: Japan's Database Animals - 0 views

www.amazon.com/...0816653526

academic manga anime akihabara miyazaki_tsutomu manga_industry fans phd

shared by Nele Noppe on 07 Apr 10 - No Cached
  • Nele Noppe on 07 Apr 10
     
    by Hiroki Azuma
Nele Noppe

Moe and the Potential of Fantasy in Post-Millenial Japan - 0 views

www.japanesestudies.org.uk/...Bryce.html

academic manga anime moe fans characters romance sexuality games kawaii zoomorphism affect emotion visual_language boys_love dojinshi phd

shared by Nele Noppe on 11 Mar 10 - Cached
  • If kawaii, or the aesthetic of cute, is the longing for the freedom and innocence of youth, manifesting in the junior and high school girl in uniform (Kinsella 1995), then moe is the longing for the purity of characters pre-person, manifesting in androgynous semi and demi human forms. This is called 'jingai,' or outside human, and examples include robots, aliens, dolls and anthropomorphized animals, all stock characters in the moe pantheon. A specific example would be nekomimi, or cat-eared characters. More generally, in order to achieve the desired affect, moe characters are reduced to tiny deformed 'little girl' images with emotive, pupil-less animal eyes
  • I argue fantasy characters offer virtual possibilities and affect
  • Moe is also used by fujoshi, zealous female fans of yaoi, a genre of manga featuring male homosexual romance. However, the word moe indicates a response to fantasy characters, not a specific style, character type or relational pattern. While some things are more likely than others to inspire moe, this paper will focus mainly on the response itself rather than the forms that inspire it.
  • ...43 more annotations...
  • Both otaku and fujoshi
  • The moe character is a 'body without organs' (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), and the response to its virtual potentials is affect.
  • Massumi argues affect is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential (Massumi 2002). The experience, what he calls an 'intensity,' is outside of logical language and conscious control. Moe provides a word to express affect, or to identify a form that resonates and can trigger an intensity.
  • It is for this reason that moe is consistently misunderstood as first and foremost images of young girls instead of a response to virtual potentials
  • In the field interacting with otaku and fujoshi, I was constantly confronted by the concept of moe, and found it necessary to engage it.
  • These are both men and their discourse centers on male otaku, but I will argue from them a more general theory, applied later in the paper to fujoshi structures of desire.
  • Honda, a youth-oriented novelist and self-styled moe critic, defines moe as 'imaginary love'
  • the salient point is his judgment that a relationship with a mediated character or material representations of it is preferable to an interpersonal relationship.
  • the moe man is feminized
  • While recognizing the conservative nature of otaku sexuality, Azuma attempts to account for the schizophrenic presence of perversion in the moe image. For Azuma, otaku are postmodern subjects with multiple personalities engendered by their environment and enthusiastic media consumption
  • To feel moe for all characters in all situations, the narrative connecting characters or moments in time is de-emphasized.
  • cat ears,
  • response is unconnected with 'reality' and thus offers new potentials to construct and express affects.
  • Separating their desire from reality allowed for a new form of affect called moe.
  • Simply stated, moe is about unbounded potential.
  • Moe is affect in response to fantasy forms that emerged from information-consumer culture in Japan in the late stages of capitalism.
  • conditioning of young girls into 'pure consumers'
  • Such a space is disconnected from social and political concerns, and exists for the preservation of the individual.
  • the media and consumption feeding into moe is a specific sort centered on affect.
  • Manga scholar Itou Gou argues that since the end of the 1980s characters in anime, manga and videogames became so appealing that fans desired them even without stories (Itou 2005). Ito dubs such character types 'kyara,' distinct from characters (kyarakutaa) embedded in narratives.
  • Proof of this can be found in the rise of 'parody' doujinshi,
  • The doll-like and semi-human Ayanami became the single most popular and influential character in the history of otaku anime; fans still isolate parts of the character to amplify and rearticulate in fan-produced works to inspire moe.
  • In works featuring these characters, the original work functions as a starting point, and the extended process of producing and consuming moe takes place among fans in online discussions and videos, fan-produced comics (doujinshi), costume roleplay (cosplay) and figures.
  • virtual potentiality
  • That the moe form, the body without organs, is outside personal and social frames is precisely why it triggers affect.
  • 'moe otaku' a superficial fixation on surfaces and accelerated consumption of disposable moe kyara, impetus for him to declare this younger generation culturally 'dead'
  • One man I spoke with said, 'Moe is a wish for compassionate human interaction. Moe is a reaction to characters that are more sincere and pure than human beings are today.' Similarly, another man described moe as 'the ultimate expression of male platonic love.' This, he said, was far more stable and rewarding than 'real' love could ever be. Manga artist Akamatsu Ken stresses that moe is the 'maternal love' (boseiai) latent in men,[xxi] and a 'pure love' (junsui na ai) unrelated to sex, the desire to be calmed when looking at a female infant (biyoujo wo mite nagomitai) (Akamatsu 2005). 'The moe target is dependent on us for security (a child, etc.) or won't betray us (a maid, etc.). Or we are raising it (like a pet)' (Akamatsu 2005). This desire to 'nurture' (ikusei) characters is extremely common among fans. Further, moe is about the moment of affect and resists changes ('betrayal') in the future, or what Akamatsu refers to as a 'moratorium' (moratoriamu). Moe media is approached as something of a sanctuary from society (Okada 2008), and as such is couched in a discourse of purity.
  • I will now demonstrate how it is further possible to reduce people to characters, or to reduce reality to fantasy in pursuit of moe.
  • Association with the two-dimensional world, and lack of depth or access in the three-dimensional world, makes a maid moe.[
  • The appeal of the maid cannot purely be sexual: As many as 35 per cent of customers are women
  • this arose in Japan in the late stages of capitalism as a result of shifts in consumer-information society
  • bias towards male fans of anim
  • aoi erases the female presence because fans say female-male or even female-female couples[xxxvi] are too 'raw' (namanamashii). Put another way, the reality of relationships is removed from yaoi to make the moe response possible.
  • the ambiguous yaoi 'male' is quite literally a body without organs
  • Many other fujoshi I spoke with dated men even as they imagined possibilities of coupling them as characters with other men.[xl] As Saitou points out, the reality of heterosexual relationships and virtual possibilities of homosexual couplings are separate and coexistent (Saitou 2007). Journalist Sugiura Yumiko explains this as the crucial difference between fujoshi and otaku, who approach fantasy as an alternative for things that they actually want but cannot realize in this world (Sugiura 2006).[xli] A fujoshi, for example, would not 'marry' a two-dimensional character the way some otaku advocate;
  • Sugiura is importantly highlighting that fantasy and reality are separate and coexistent, but this is widespread in moe culture and not solely a female quality.[xlii] As much as male otaku boast of their two-dimensional wives, they often do so with levity as a self-conscious performance
  • While it is true that men tend to feel moe for single characters that they can possess while women feel moe for relationships or character couplings, this broad difference is fast disappearing. In truth, the media popular among so-called 'moe otaku' in recent years has come to resemble yaoi aesthetics: multiple girls in a nostalgic or fantastic world with minimal male presence and heightened emphasis on relationships and emotions
  • In all cases, the database (Azuma 2009) is present. The elements that constitute and indicate a certain type of top or bottom, for example glasses or hairstyle or height, are predetermined; any given top or bottom is a construct of defined character traits and behavior.
  • One of the most recognizable features of the moe phenomenon is the anthropomorphization of objects into objects of desire. Otaku turn cats, war machines, household appliances and even men of historical significance into beautiful little girls to trigger moe. Reality is flattened, and from it emerge polymorphous forms of stimulation. Similarly, fujoshi can rearticulate anything into beautiful boys and sexualized yaoi relations. Moe characters can be based on a written description or drawn image, a physical person or even anthropomorphized animals, plants and objects.
  • The erotic fantasy effectively re-mystified their world, adding a layer of potential to the mundane (the very ground under their feet!) and making the familiar queer and exciting. Latent potential so unlocked, the three friends replayed the moe relationship across other potential players such as shampoo and conditioner, knife and spoon, salt and pepper.
  • More startling and subversive is 'moe politics' (seiji moe), where national histories, international relations and imposing world leaders are reduced to moe characters across which yaoi romance can be read.
  • It should be noted that Hetaria was written by a man, and these sorts of stories are becoming increasingly popular among young men known as 'fudanshi' (rotten boys).
  • it precisely because it is pure that it can give birth to such perverse and polymorphous possibilities.
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