Popular Culture in East Asia - Spring 2024 Lectures

Spring Term 2024 Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene artsparkschool.com Lectures: Mondays 11:15-13:45, room 310 Putvinskio 23 Seminars: Mondays 14:00-14:45 (1st group), 15:00-15:45 (2nd group) Assignments for seminars (lecturer Kristina): for each seminar you will have to read an assigned article or to do an assigned task. This is a prerequisite for a successful participation in a seminar discussion or activity. Note that the article material will be included into the midterm test questions. Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Exam (test with open questions)- 40% Midterm exam (test with mixed type questions)- 30% Homework (opinion papers)- 30% (3 opinion papers per 10%) ___________________________________ 3 opinion papers (on topics related to Korean, Japanese and Chinese popular culture) of 800-900 words to be uploaded to Moodle after each country’s case part of the lectures. Your argument on a selected topic should include introduction, main part and conclusions. Do not forget the references!!! Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene  Lecture slides, suggested literature lists, reading assignments and other related materials will be placed on Moodle site every week, so do not forget to check Moodle regularly!  If you are not registered on Moodle of this course, please consult the teacher immediately. Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Two parts: -popular culture in theory -cases of Korea, Japan and China Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Photo: https://sundial.csun.edu Now let‘s jump to jamboard: https://jamboard.google.com/d/1ERuiSFD91i22nWYloohxP_yD PgScIMcm9eEW6aOx5ww/edit?usp=sharing Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene 1.Introduction to Japanese Pop Culture: 1. Definition and scope of Japanese pop culture. 2. Historical background and evolution. 2.Anime and Manga: 1. Exploration of the anime and manga industry. 2. Key genres, popular series, and their impact. 3. Global influence and fandom. 3.J-Pop and Music: 1. Overview of the Japanese music industry. 2. Analysis of J-Pop and its various sub-genres. 3. Influence of Japanese music on the global stage. 4.Fashion and Street Culture: 1. Trends in Japanese fashion. 2. Street fashion styles like Harajuku and Gyaru. 3. Influence of Japanese fashion on the global fashion scene. 5.Video Games: 1. Historical development of the Japanese video game industry. 2. Iconic games, gaming culture, and eSports. 3. Impact on global gaming trends. 6.Film and Television: 1. Overview of Japanese cinema and television. 2. Notable directors, actors, and film genres. 3. International recognition and influence. 7.Pop Culture Icons: 1. Discussion of iconic figures in Japanese pop culture. 2. Impact of characters like Hello Kitty, Pokémon, and others. 8.Cultural Festivals and Events: 1. Introduction to cultural festivals like Comiket and events like Tokyo Game Show. 2. The role of these events in promoting Japanese pop culture. 9.Cultural Impact and Soft Power: 1. Exploration of Japan's use of soft power through pop culture. 2. How Japanese pop culture influences global perceptions of Japan. 10.Social and Technological Aspects: 1. Examination of the role of social media in promoting Japanese pop culture. 2. Impact of technology on the creation and distribution of pop culture content. 11.Challenges and Criticisms: 1. Addressing challenges and criticisms within Japanese pop culture. 2. Discussion on cultural appropriation, stereotypes, and other issues. 12.Future Trends: 1. Exploration of emerging trends in Japanese pop culture. 2. Predictions for the future development and global impact. Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene  A general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development  A particular way of life, whether of people, a person or a group  Signifying practices (“the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity”) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Culture =texts+practices (signifying practices) Signify/produce MEANING Popular culture= certain way of life + signifying practices K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Consider that: -popular culture emerged following industrialization and urbanization -popular culture is always defined in contrast to other conceptual categories: folk culture, elite culture, working- class culture, etc. ‘Empty’ concept ‘Relational’ concept K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  Seen as distinct from other forms of culture according to its value in an implied hierarchy of artistic value ART REMAINS DISTINCT FROM POP BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BELIEVE IT IS. (Taylor Atkins, 2023:22) Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene  Designates entertainments produced for and consumed by non-elites (those who do not govern or control economic resources)  “Communities of taste”: social distinction defined by consumption habits  Folk culture vs. popular culture: non-profit, no author, traditional vs. profit-oriented, intellectual property, depart from tradition Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene 1) Culture that is well liked by many people (quantitative dimension) 2) Culture that is left over after high culture (inferiority dimension) mass produced vs. individual act of creation commerce vs. quality K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene 3) A mass culture consumed passively Popular culture as a form of public fantasy, representation of collective wishes and desires Is commercial culture always successful financially? 4) Culture that originates from ‘the people’ Who are these ‘people’? 5) A site of struggle between subordinate and dominant groups (perspective of hegemony theory) 6) Postmodernist view: no distinction between high and popular culture (blurring ‘authentic’ with ‘commercial’) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrHj59HbFGM&t=83s Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene SEBASTIAN MASUDA “ALICE×DOLL – ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND THE DOLLS” EXHIBITON, 2023-2024 Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene ATTACHING DATA TO THEORY OR BUILDING THEORY FROM DATA? „POCO POP“ approach: study of popular culture by including cultural studies theory „POP TO PREP“ approach: study of popular culture as intercultural skills K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  Characters (narrative and non-narrative)  Music (idols, J-pop, K-pop etc.)  Cinema  Television (TV dramas, popular shows etc.)  Videogames  Media and technology (vocaloids, emoji, purikura etc.)  Anime  Printed media: manga, magazines, popular literature  Sites and spectacles (festivals, particular places)  Fashion … K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė POSSIBLE CATEGORIES OF EA POPULAR CULTURE SEE YOU NEXT WEEK! Kristina Barancovaite-Skindaraviciene Popular culture in theory (1) Contemporary Popular Culture in East Asia, Spring 2024 Today‘s topics Mass society theory The Frankfurt School Theory of commodity fetishism and false needs Semiology Structuralism K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Mass society theory (W. Kornhauser, C. Wright Mills…) Originated in the 19th c. Disruptive consequences of industrialization and urbanization -destruction of village communities -decline of religion -absence of moral integration -’atomization’ of people mass society as ‘atomized’ society and mass culture as source of ineffective morality K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Photo: The Guardian Mass society theory (2) Masses seen as lacking taste (what is taste???) Division between the past and the present/future Folk vs. mass culture (Authentic and autonomous vs. mass production, false needs and desires) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Mass culture: Standardized Superficial An easy escapism Discourages thinking and intellectual challenge (entertainment vs. art) Democratic Destroying values DANGEROUS K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Discouragement of thinking? Photo: www.amazon.co.jp K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Americanization Embodiment of all the “flaws” of mass culture Distortion of traditional values “Shiny barbarism” (Hogart 1958) Introduction of new genres as a threat to social values America itself as object of consumption ( a symbol of pleasure) Positive view on Americanization (Huxley 1979) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The Frankfurt School The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research established in 1923 Representatives: Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) The focus of study: consumer capitalism, culture industry (its control over the minds and actions of people) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Cultural industry and human freedom Enlightenment: rational emancipation (science, rational progress) Popular culture: science brings to cultural industry, which does not liberate people, but rather impedes their consciousness in making decisions. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The theory of commodity fetishism (Th. Adorno) Money defines and dominates social relations in capitalist societies Exchange value (money) over use value (practical usefulness) Social relations and cultural appreciation are objectified and dominated by money. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Exchange value and use value K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė False needs to secure the stability of capitalism Consumerism and popular culture as creators and satisfactors of false needs in order to conceal true needs The notion of freedom in culture industry: are the consumers of the popular culture free in their choices? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Freedom of choice? Photos: www.fashionsnap.com; shop-list.com; tokyofashion.com K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė False needs Social status (social recognition and respect) Entertainment (social connectedness) Emotion (produced emotion) Competition (produced scarcity) Recognition and rewards (e.g. in games) Coolness (constantly changing fashions) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė False needs and false solutions? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcKaNqfykg K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Culture industry and ideology Cultural products standardized and individualized at the same time Culture industry deals with false needs and false solutions The consumers of cultural products are passive, powerless and dependant (culture industry is imposed upon the masses, but masses welcome it only if they don’t realize it is imposed on them) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė What have you learned so far? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Structuralism and semiology Semiology The science of signs: systems of signification, means by which human beings communicate by signals. Langue and parole: system/structure of language and practical language culture as a system Signifier and signified= a sign Denotation, connotation, a myth (a particular cultural image/phenomenon expressed by the process of signification. In other words: message of a certain discourse) The factor of cultural knowledge Critique: lack of social factor K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė F. de Saussure‘s relational theory of language Meaning is produced by establishing difference in relation to other objects Meaning can be made horizontally (syntagmatic axis) and vertically (paradigmatic axis) Substitution of elements The language does not simply reflect the reality. It shapes what constitutes for us the reality. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė R. Barthes about cultural myths Myth is a set of ideas and practices that promotes the values and interests of dominant groups in society. It originates at the secondary signification level (connotation). Primary and secondary signification Primary signification Signifier Denotation Sign Secondary signification SIGNIFIER Connotation SIGN K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Signified SIGNIFIED Source: J. Storey. Cultural theory and popular culture. 7th Ed. p. 124 R. Barthes about cultural myths Myths and counter myths Double function: myth derives from cultural knowledge and lets us understand certain things, but also imposes it on us. As a researcher one should attempt to look for the background (historical, sociocultural) of the myths created by popular culture. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Example of semiotic analysis: Valentine‘s Day in Japan (Y.Minowa,O.Khomenko, R.W. Belk 2011) Periodization of Valentine‘s Day in Japan (1958-1969; 19701979; 1980-1991; 1992-2002) Gender image development in Valentine‘s Day related advertisements (from masculine domination expression through submissive indirect gaze of women, to commodification of men and winning „strategies“ for women, women‘s empowerment and gifts for pets, lottery tickets as Valentine presents, and finally tomo-choko, gohoobi-choko, gyaku-choko). K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė What do these images tell us? 1 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė 2 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė 3 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė What signifiers of modern femininity and masculinity can you find in these videos? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut1OzEVUiM4 Red Velvet „Birthday“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBDkYofMUs4&t=178s Stray Kids „LALALALA“ K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Structuralism Systems of culture based on the structure of oppositions The popularity of cultural products as dependant from certain structure of oppositions: repetition of a habitual scheme, universal themes, ideologies determined by the demands of mass culture, childishness of audience (or not?), historically specific contexts K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Source: quora.com K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kishootenketsu storytelling structure in Asia Ki- introduction Shoodevelopment Ten- twist Ketsu- conclusion Photo: https://www.authorcarlara.com Daughters of Itoya, in the Honmachi of Osaka. The elder daughter is sixteen and the younger one is fourteen. Throughout history, generals killed the enemy with bows and arrows. The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes. (San‘yoo Rai) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The most popular pc/console game genres in Japan in 2023 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Elements of RPG (Role-playing games) Antagonists Protagonist Objective Helpers K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Let’s watch and analyze: Nail shop Paris (2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-cNAUWknrU (Korean) http://kissasian.ch/Drama/Nail-Shop-Paris/Episode-1?id=1375 (English) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė POPULAR CULTURE IN THEORY (II) CONTEMPORARY POPULAR CULTURE IN EAST ASIA, SPRING 2024 TODAY’S TOPICS 1) POSTMODERNISM AND POPULAR CULTURE: CULTURE OF SIMULACRA, HYPERREALITY, GLOBALIZATION, CONVERGENCE CULTURE 2) HOW DO AUDIENCES RESPOND TO THE POPULAR MEDIA? MEDIA AUDIENCE RESEARCH K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė POSTMODERNISM (1960-70S) BLURRING THE CONCEPTS OF ‘HIGH’ AND ‘LOW’ CULTURE (SONTAG 1966) BLURRING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN COMMERCIAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ART (ANDY WARHOL) K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD (1924-1998) “THE POSTMODERN CONDITION” (1979) REJECTION OF ‘METANARRATIVES’ (UNIVERSAL HISTORICAL OR SOCIAL CONCEPTS LIKE MARXISM, ENLIGHTENMENT ETC.) THE POSTMODERN SOCIETY IS PLURALISTIC AND DIVERSE: IT IS OVERWHELMED BY A VARIETY OF IMAGES TRANSMITTED THROUGH MASS MEDIA AND INTERNET. PLURALITY OF SMALL NARRATIVES DERIVED FROM SYMBOLIC AND LINGUISTIC PRODUCTION REPLACES METANARRATIVES. SCIENCE AND EDUCATION ARE JUDGED BY THEIR PERFORMATIVITY, NOT BY THE PROGRESS IN SEEKING ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE FOR POPULAR CULTURE TASTE IS IRRELEVANT, VALUE DEFINED BY MONEY POSTMODERNISM AS A STEP TO NEW MODERNISM K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė DEFINITION OF ‚METANARRATIVE‘ METANARRATIVE (GRAND NARRATIVE) IS A THEORY THAT TRIES TO GIVE A TOTALIZING, COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT TO VARIOUS HISTORICAL EVENTS, EXPERIENCES, AND SOCIAL, CULTURAL PHENOMENA BASED UPON THE APPEAL TO UNIVERSAL TRUTH OR UNIVERSAL VALUES. (NEW WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA) K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė JEAN BAUDRILLARD (1929-2007) CONTRARY TO MARXIST THOUGHT THAT SOCIETY IS FORMED BY ECONOMIC FORCES, IN POSTMODERN WORLD THE SOCIAL LIFE IS INFLUENCED BY SIGNS AND IMAGES ECONOMIC REALM IS INSEPARABLE FROM CULTURAL REALM POSTMODERNISM IS A CULTURE OF ‘SIMULACRUM’ IDENTICAL COPY WITHOUT AN ORIGINAL. RELIGION AS A PRIMORDIAL FORM OF SIMULATION, AND DIVINITIES AS THE OLDEST FORM OF SIMULACRA. THE NOTION OF HYPERREALITY: “THE METICULOUS REDUPLICATION OF THE REAL, PREFERABLY THROUGH ANOTHER, REPRODUCTIVE MEDIUM, SUCH AS PHOTOGRAPHY” (IN WOLFREYS ET AL 52) (CITED FROM WOLNY R. W. 2017) K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė HYPERREALISM: MASCOT CASE FADING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN REAL AND IMAGINARY (WE RATHER REACT TO THE IMAGES TRANSMITTED BY MASS MEDIA THAN TO REAL PHENOMENA OR PEOPLE) HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=KB4MXXU_GT0 (CHIITAN) FUNASSYI HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=X9GR_24W1-Q K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė HYPERREALISM: VOCALOID CASE HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.CO M/WATCH?V=YSYWTESOEOC K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė HYPERREALISM: MAID CAFE CASE K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ibPC_e_kU (interview with maids at My home cafe) HYPERREALISM: V-TUBER CASE KIZUNA AI K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sPnwZUMckE GAWR GURA GLOBALIZATION AND POSTMODERNISM VIEW OF GLOBALIZATION AS CULTURAL AMERICANIZATION. PROBLEMS: 1) COMMODITIES EQUALED TO CULTURE 2) COMMODITIES THOUGHT TO HAVE INHERENT VALUES AND SINGULAR MEANINGS 3) ‘FOREIGN’ PERCEIVED AS ‘SOMETHING FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY’ 4) AMERICAN CULTURE ASSUMED TO BE MONOLITHIC K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė CONVERGENCE CULTURE CONVERGENCE CULTURE IS THE MERGING OF THE VARIOUS FORMS OF MEDIA SO THAT THE MEDIA CONSUMER HAS BECOME AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN THE GUIDING FORCES BEHIND THAT MEDIA. IT IS THE CONVERGENCE OF CONSUMERS, PRODUCERS, CORPORATIONS, AND ADVERTISERS SUCH THAT THE LINES BETWEEN EACH PARTY’S ROLE IS NO LONGER A STRICT BOUNDARY BUT IS IN A FLUID STATE. (JENKINS, 2012:18) CONVERGENCE CULTURE RESULTS FROM: 1) CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP (USING DIFFERENT MEDIA PLATFORMS) 2) TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE (NEW PLATFORMS FOR MEDIA CONTENT) 3) CONSUMERS OF MEDIA (CONSUMERS SELECT THE MEANS HOW THEY PREFER USING MEDIA) K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė MEDIA AUDIENCE RESEARCH: HOW AUDIENCES RESPOND TO THE MEDIA? Direct-effects theory (‘Hypodermic syringe model’) ‘Active audience’ concept Encoding/decoding model of the media K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Reference about media audience research: Milestone & Meyer 2012, pp.151-164 DIRECT-EFFECTS THEORY THE MAIN IDEA: MEDIA TEXTS CONTAIN CERTAIN REPRESENTATIONS AND MESSAGES, WHICH ARE DIRECTLY AND UNCRITICALLY ABSORBED BY THE AUDIENCE. MEDIA REPRESENTS POWER, WHEREAS AUDIENCE IS PERCEIVED AS POWERLESS AND PASSIVE. (COMPARE TO THE IDEAS OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL) DIRECT-EFFECTS THEORY AND FEMINISM: MASS MEDIA AS MAINTAINING PATRIARCHY THROUGH TRANSMITTING STEREOTYPICAL IMAGES AND NARRATIVES ABOUT GENDER CRITIQUE: MEDIA INFLUENCE ON INDIVIDUAL CONSUMERS AND AUDIENCES IS MORE COMPLICATED AND MORE VARIED THAN THE DIRECT-EFFECTS THEORY SUGGESTS. K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė LINEAR COMMUNICATION MODEL SENDER (MEDIA)- MESSAGE- RECEIVER (AUDIENCE) (SIGNS K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė MEANINGS) CONCEPT OF ACTIVE AUDIENCES AUDIENCES ARE ACTIVE IN 2 WAYS: 1) MEDIA AUDIENCES ARE ACTIVE IN THE PROCESS OF MEANING PRODUCTION (THE FINAL MEANING DEPENDS BOTH ON MEDIA GENERATED MESSAGE AND ON THE VARIETY OF INTERPRETATIONS BY THE AUDIENCE); 2) AUDIENCES ARE ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN INTERPRETIVE RESISTANCE TOWARD RECEIVED MESSAGES/TEXTS (THE AUDIENCES ARE CRITICAL ABOUT WHAT THEY SEE/HEAR/ READ AND SOMETIMES REJECT MEDIA’S MESSAGE) JOHN FISKE (1989): THE CONCEPT OF POLYSEMY OF CULTURAL TEXTS THE NEAR REVERSE STANCE COMPARED TO DIRECT-EFFECTS MODEL: AUDIENCE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN MEDIA K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė POLYSEMY CONCEPT Preferred meaning Excess of meaning K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Space for interpretation Cultural text: words, images, colors, text Uncontrolled condition: media is powerless vs. audience is powerful ENCODING/DECODING MODEL BY STUART HALL (1980) MEDIA PRODUCERS ENCODE A TEXT WITH A PARTICULAR MEANING/ MESSAGE (PREFERRED MEANING). THE AUDIENCE CAN ADOPT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING POSITIONS IN EVALUATING THE MEDIA MESSAGE: 1) PREFERRED READING POSITION; 2) OPPOSITIONAL READING POSITION; 3) NEGOTIATED READING POSITION. BASED ON HEGEMONY THEORY: MEDIA AND AUDIENCES ARE ENGAGED IN CONTINUOUS POWER STRUGGLE OVER MEANING. CRITIQUE: NOT VERY SUITABLE FOR FICTIONAL MEDIA, WHICH AIM TO ENTERTAIN AUDIENCES. K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė OTHER POSSIBLE AUDIENCE RESPONSES TOWARDS A MEDIA MESSAGE JACKSON ET AL. (2001) DISTINGUISH 12 DISCURSIVE DISPOSITIONS (RESPONSES): 1)CELEBRATORY; 2) COMPLIANT; 3) HOSTILE; 4) APOLOGETIC; 5) DEFERENTIAL; 6) DEFENSIVE; 7) VULNERABLE; 8) DISTANT; 9) REFUSING; 10) ANALYTICAL; 11) DISMISSIVE; 12) IRONIC. WHAT ELSE CAN INFLUENCE THE RESPONSE BY THE AUDIENCE? SOCIAL BACKGROUND SOCIAL POSITION GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION GENDER SEXUAL ORIENTATION INDIVIDUAL/ COLLECTIVE MEDIA CONSUMPTION K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė LET’S DISCUSS THE FOLLOWING IMAGES WHAT IS THE PREFERRED MESSAGE IN THESE IMAGES? WHAT ARE POSSIBLE RESPONSES OF THE AUDIENCE? HOW WOULD THEY DIFFER ACCORDING TO AUDIENCE’S AGE, GENDER, MARITAL STATUS, INCOME ETC.? K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė OOKU: THE INNER CHAMBERS K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė REFERENCES MILESTONE, K. & A. MEYER (2012). GENDER AND POPULAR CULTURE. CAMBRIDGE: POLITY PRESS BUTLER, J. (1990). GENDER TROUBLE. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE GILL, R. (2003). GENDER AND THE MEDIA. CAMBRIDGE: POLITY GOFFMAN, E. (1959). THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE. HARMONDSWORTH: PENGUIN BOOKS GIDDENS, A. (2001). SOCIOLOGIJA. POLIGRAFIJA IR INFORMATIKA K. Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii phenomenon and contemporary Japanese pop culture Contemporary popular culture in East Asia Spring 2024 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė "When I consider what Japanese culture is like, the answer is that it all is subculture. Therefore, art is unnecessary." – Takashi Murakami Foto: Tonari no Zingaro/Instagram K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Today‘s topics: Concept of kawaii Fashion styles and types of kawaii Kawaii ambassadors Kawaii characters Purikura K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The concept kawaii: meaning 可愛いかわいい ‘pretty’, ‘sweet’, ‘cute’, ‘adorable’ Connotative meanings: ‘humble’, ‘embarrassed’, ‘pitiful’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘soft’, ‘tiny’, ‘attractive’ (Kinsella 1995) Related words: sunaoni (obedient) enryogachi (reserved) kodomoppoi (childish) mujaki (innocent) musekinin (irresponsible) Derivative ‘kawaisoo’ (pathetic, poor, pitiable) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii meaning (Nihon kokugo daijiten) 1. Looks miserable and raises sympathy, pitiable, pathetic, piteous. 2. Attractive, cannot be neglected, cherished, beloved. 3. Has a sweet nature, lovely. (a) (of faces and figures of young women and children) adorable, attractive. (b) (like children) innocent, obedient, touching. 4. (of things and shapes) attractively small, small and beautiful. 5. Trivial, pitiful (used with slight disdain) Cited from: Nittono (2016) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The concept kawaii: origins The first author who mentioned kawaii is the writer Sei-shonagon, who wrote about pretty things in her essay Makura-no-soushi (枕草子）in 11th century (Heian period) The original word for kawaii was kawohayushi meaning “face embarrassed” The first stylized image representing the kawaii concept was Maneki neko cat from Edo period (1603-1868), as it was round and fat. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Manga description of pretty things by SeiShonagon Kurosu, M. (2017) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Word transition in Japanese regarding cute or pretty, beautiful and embarrassed feeling or pity (see Nittono 2016: 81) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Development of kawaii culture Beginning: 1970s (kawaii writing style called marumoji emerged) Flourishing: 1980s (subculture becomes representative of Japanese pop culture) Revival in mid 1990s (media mix projects, mascots) Kawaii culture industrialized: -animation -fashion -entertainment industry -food -symbols of institutions and places -everyday items K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė From sweet kawaii to dark kawaii 1970s: shift from consumption of things to consumption of images 1980s: sweet kawaii, the culture of shōjo, kawaii as a mechanism of self-pity and escapism. 1990s and later: cuteness merging with horror and violence as a sign of felt anxiety about one’s powerlessness. (see Sato, K. 2009) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Photo: Zedge Kawaii can be perceived as: Phenomenon Culture Style/fashion Aesthetics Philosophy of life “What emerges is that cute is not just an aesthetic in Japan. It is a [new] philosophy of life” (Shimamura 1991) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU4_6Xlw0-Q K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://shop.6dokidoki.com Kawaii is everywhere K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii is everywhere K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Types of kawaii Two aspects of kawaii by Nittono (2016): “Kawaii has two aspects: one is an aspect of feeling and another is an aspect of cultural value.” Three types of kawaii by Marcus,Kurosu,Ma &Hashizume (2017): 1) Psycho-physical kawaii (mixture of perception and emotion). Psycho-physical kawaii attributes: round shape, pink, orange, yellow, green colors, soft and fluffy materials, small size 2) Cultural kawaii (Lolita, Gal and similar fashion styles) 3) Generic kawaii (description of fashion, appearance or characteristics of a person) 4) Other types of kawaii: yume-kawaii (fashion), kimo-kawaii (creepy cuteness), guro-kawaii (grotesque), ero-kawaii K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė (erotic), busu-kawaii (ugly cuteness), yami-kawaii (ill Yume kawaii Foto: https://aminoapps.com/c/kawaii-lifestyle/ K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Busu-kawaii Guro-kawaii K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Foto: Kurosu, M. (2017); aminoapps.com Ero-kawaii Foto: https://aminoapps.com K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Yami-kawaii Inspired by manga about Menhera-chan and her bunny Usatan (author: Ezaki Bisuko, 2014) A mixture of yume-kawaii sweet style and guro-kawaii grotesque style Main motives: plasters, bandages, syringes, pills, bunnies, notes about thoughts related to suicide, death, etc. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii fashion styles Lolita Gyaru (Gal) Decorakei K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Dekora-kei https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WblNctc3ys Doku (toxic) kawaii K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Fuwa kawaii K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Neo kawaii K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Lolita Appeared in 1970-80s as a protest form against social norms Style is based on the European fashion of Victorian style dolls Characteristic attributes: corsets, multilayered skirts, underskirt panties, wigs, laced umbrellas etc. There is a big variety of Lolita sub-styles: Gosurori, Warori, Sweet Rori, Gurorori etc. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė How similar is kimono and Lolita dress? Jūnihitoe- robe of aristocrat women of Heian period (10-12c.) Restricted movements as a symbol of femininity GosuroriGothic Lolita Sweet Lolita (Amarori) 和 Japanese Lolita (Warori) Grotesque Lolita (Gurorori) Gyaru („gal“, „girl“) Became popular in the end of 1990s and the beginning of 2000s Gyaru sub-styles: kogyaru, ganguro, mamba (yamamba), kuro gyaru, shiro gyaru, tsuyome gyaru,agejo, gyaruo (male version),... Characteristic: artificial tan, complicated dyed hair styles, very bright make-up, long decorated nails, sexy clothes, colorful eye lenses, platform shoes.. Kogyaru Introduced by singer Amuro Namie Mikuru-kei („small face“) Clothing style- school uniform style skirt, long socks, oiran shoes Namie Amuro in 1996. Source: http://www.amuro.fr/ Kogyaru Oiran shoes Gyaru wearing oiran shoes Agejo gyaru and Hime gyaru Harutamu- a famous model gyarusa, founder of the clothing brand GALEO Gangur o Colorful hair Especially deep tan Glitter White eye-make up Mamba/Yamamba Urahara: UraHarajuku style The pioneers of Urahara fashion are designers Hiroshi Fujiwara („Good Enough“),Jun Takahashi („Undercover“) and Nigo ( „Bathing Ape“, 1993m.) Which style do you like best? ☺ Harajuku and Shibuya: the centers of kawaii fashion Harajuku: Lolita style Shibuya: Gal style Kyary Pamyu Pamyu: “Harajuku fashion isn’t about imitating somebody else. That’s why I feel wonderful. Everyone in Harajuku wears what they themselves think is kawaii”. Misako Aoki: “I think that even after we grow up, every girl has the desire to be a princess, and playing dress-up is fun no matter how old you are. Dressing in Lolita fashion satisfies my desire to be a princess and to dress up. Also, I didn’t have much confidence when I was in junior high and high school, but I believe wearing such outputs made me feel stronger. I guess dressing in these outfits is a way for me to assert myself”. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Harajuku as the symbol of youth subcultures and fashion The aim: to satisfy akogare (longing) for fantasy world Aomoji-kei: wearing whatever you like (fashion is based on creativity, self-expression and freedom) Two main elements: fashion (Lolita) and music (Visual-kei) Tradition and modernity („Visual kei is all kabuki“) From players to creators Close relation between art and consumption (Higuchi Yuko, Sebastian Masuda...) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Visual kei and kabuki Kawaii Monster Cafe in Harajuku K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Sushidelic restaurant in New York K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii Ambassadors In 2009 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan assigned three Kawaii Ambassadors: Misako Aoki, Yuu Kimura, Shizuka Fujioka K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Misako Aoki, 2024 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Seiko Matsuda Kawaii idol of 1980s www.seikomatsuda.co.jp K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uePXqPyROQ Kyary Pamyu Pamyu An unofficial Kawaii Ambassador, “Harajuku Pop-Princess” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAGyQ5Rmz7o K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii-related concepts Moe- strong sense of preference/ attachment Meido- waitresses of cafes wearing a uniform Sailor-fuku- girls’ school uniform K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii as emotion Kindchenschema by Konrad Lorenz (1943): a set of physical features that make an object to be perceived as cute, inviting to be approached, nurtured and protected. Infantility is only one element of kawaii, not a necessary condition. Psychological and behavioral effects of kawaii according to Nittono (2016): ✓ Draws attention and interest; ✓ Induces positive feelings; ✓ Increases carefulness and narrows the focus of attention; ✓ Improves interpersonal relations (‘kawaii spiral’ and ‘kawaii triangle’ caused by smile) Japanese culture and kawaii: amae (behavior aiming to gain love and acceptance from others); chizimi shikō (orientation towards miniature, small and touchable things); ō-gata (cultural value that appreciates harmony rather than fighting and overreaching others) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Characteristics of kawaii objects/characters Small Round Soft K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Of pastel color Helpless Kawaii characters Anime characters Yuru-kyara (mascots) Appearance: round, soft, big eyes, lacking body or face parts Imperfectness, helplessness, sincerity K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Yuru-kyara Yurui kyarakutaa- loose character The first yuru-kyara: Kewpie for mayonnaise company (1909) Yuru-kyara are used to promote the products or other things with which regions attempt to brand themselves and visually represent the place’s distinctive qualities (Birkett 2012) Later origins of yuru-kyara: National Sports Festival characters since 1983 (Gunma-chan) Features of yuru-kyara: undetermined gender, kawaii appearance, representative dialect, age between 4 and 10 years old, names with diminutive -kun and chan endings, etc. Mascot Grand Prix contest since 2011 Mascots have their own Facebook profiles, websites etc. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Yuru-kyara Grand Prix Takata no Yumechan K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Shinjo-kun Facebook account Funassyi Twitter account K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kumamon is not a bear, and Hello Kitty is not a cat! K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://youtu.be/gtvX0TbdKRk Initiator of “Pink globalization”: Hello Kitty (see Yano 2018) Hello Kitty is not a cat! “Real-making” process: Born in 1974. British, the full name Kitty White. Likes travelling to Japan. Global figure Why Kitty is without a mouth? Kitty as an enabler of social communication through the aesthetic of kawaii, nostalgia to childhood, girlishness, being a commodity for exchanging heartful gifts K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Various Yuru-kyara SENTOKUN SANOMAR U KUMAMON FUNASSHI K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė BARI-SAN Mascot of Nara city: Sento-kun or Mantokun? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Meron kuma Zombear Gajiro Some not so kawaii mascots? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii food K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaii food at „Sanrio Cafe“, Ikebukuro K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Purikura The term is an abbreviation of “purinto kurabu” (print club) Purikura is both a photo booth and a photo-sticker The start from 1995, the peak in 1999. Inventor: Sasaki Miho from videogames and software company “Atlus” (subsidiary of SEGA) The main audience is young girls that collect purikura stickers and place them into cute albums called purichō Significance of purikura culture: textual/linguistic (kira moji, gyaru moji, new lexicon), social (emphasizing friendship, relationships, resisting gender and sexuality norms) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Special vocabulary of purikura (Miller 2018) Hatsupuri- first PK Hisashipuri- PK after a long time Pinpuri- PK done by oneself Rabupuri- PK with a boyfriend Kapuri- PK for couples Eropuri- erotic PK Kosupuri- cosplay PK Yabapuri- gross PK Kimopuri – creepy PK K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Kawaiification is OVER! K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Japanese Popular Press and Film Contemporary Popular Culture in East Asia K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Print media alert us to the idealized models of society people are orienting to or challenging. (Miller 2008) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The main genres of popular press Manga Magazines Non-fiction literature (informational, advice, popular psychology etc.) New literature genres: cell phone novels, light novels K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Historical guidelines Magazines, books Manga  Edo (1603-1868)  Edo (1603-1868) 1770- The term ’manga’ appears (Hokusai ukiyo-e) -City libraries for samurai, merchants and literate farmers -Basis for self-help and practical advice books  Meiji (1868-1912) Language unification (standard language) Printing technologies: mass printing The first magazine: Seiyo zasshi (1867)  1970-80s Women’s style magazines („New women’s magazines“)  2 kinds of manga: children’s manga and political caricatures  1940-50s -Picture show (kamishibai), manga for rent (kashinohonya), manga booklets (yokabon) -The most popular artist of manga: Osamu Tezuka (Shin Takarajima, Jungeru Taitei, Tetsuwan Atomu etc.) -Kawaii style manga getting popular  1970s 1950s Bunko- small books that can slide into a pocket   1920-30s - Shojo manga Tankobon format- manga books 1983- Eastablishment of Comic Market: institution that promotes the development of Dojinshi manga  1990s Flourishing of adult manga, otaku 1980-90s Men’s style magazines; light novel genre K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  2000s Japanese manga gains international popularity; keitai novels; light novels gaining popularity Nonfiction popular press  Practical advice books Topics: Usage of keigo (polite speech), good manners, etiquette, self-help manuals, body language (sitting on cushions, bowing etc.) Aim: Self improvement, improvement of one’s social position. In Edo period it is popular to try serving the society/state as good as possible, this way assuring one’s personal welfare. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė New literature genres: cell phone novels and light novels  Characteristics of light novels: simple, chatty, entertaining writing style, target audience is young adults, illustrated with manga/anime art style, long titles, genres correspond to manga/anime rather than literature  Characteristics of cell phone (keitai) novels: literary techniques combined with visual qualities, format adapted to cell phone screen, stories do not provide solutions to the raised problems („inspire tears but not activism“ Friedman, 2018: 330), written in the first person to create a sense of reading messages from friends, casual writing style K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Maho no i-rando: website for circulating cellphone novels https://maho.jp/ K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Average number of characters from the novels’ titles, and number of light novels published per year, considering only “original” novels. Source: Tomotani, J.V., 2020: 122 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The most popular genres of light novels  Fantasy  Comedy  Romance  Action  Adventure  Isekai/Virtual reality  Drama  Sci-fi  Harem  Mystery K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Classification of manga  Yonkoma manga (4 panels )- since 1920s  Gekiga manga (aimed at adults) since 1950s  Kodomomuke manga (aimed at children)- since 1950s  Shonen manga (aimed at young men)- since 1960s  Shojo manga (aimed at young girls)since 1970s K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Development of manga  Origins: Choju Jinbutsu Giga (“Birds and animals play human”), 12th century emakimono (picture scroll)  Origins2: ukiyo-e woodblock prints with illustrated novels, 17th century No series of frames or speech balloons yet  Manga with frames and speech balloons appeared in 1800s  Later developments since 1950s: from four-panel layout (yonkoma manga) to diverse panel sizes (Tezuka), dramatism, action, psychological treatment of characters in shojo manga, OEL manga (Originally English Language): non-Japanese manga for non-Japanese audience created in a Japanese design/format  (Choju jinbutsu giga by Ghibli) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qBFTgzGtK8  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHcGN-brzPk  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY5WmcfGj-g K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob8jf5Ge2vw Development of manga 12th c. 17th c. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Gekiga as alternative to mainstream manga  Story manga with little or no comical effect, oriented at young adult or adult male readers.  The most famous artists of gekiga: Tatsumi Yoshihiro (1935-2015) and Shirato Senpei (1932-).  Themes: thriller, mystery, suspense, social issues etc.  Characteristics: “aspect-to-aspect” transition of narrative panels (when the same scene is shown from multiple perspectives without action of characters), newly invented onomatopoeia (in response to audiovisual media), realistic pictures  Development of gekiga: 1950s: looking for new target audience (adults); 1960s: arena for social activists, creation of sense of community between the readers and creators of manga; 1970s: massification and commercialization; 1980s: diminished alternativeness and integration into Japanese comics culture K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė GARO (monthly alternative comics magazine) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Shōjo manga magazines  Publishing houses use manga magazines for testing out the popularity of published manga  The structure of shōjo manga magazine: about 400 pages, out of them about 90% is serialized manga and the remaining 3040 pages include furoku (list of presents for the feedback), survey info, articles about manga artists etc. Close connection between shōjo manga and girls’ culture K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  Editorial team consists of 3-7 editors, each of them is in charge of about 20 artists. Active collaboration in the creation process. Tankobon manga books Foto: https://davidcharlesfox.com K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Manga’s effect on Japanese society  3 main areas of concern: 1) Too much information provided in manga format 2) In such areas as politics, education or religion information is treated as a tool to create appeal by conveying it in an entertaining format 3) Violent and sexually explicit manga can make a negative impact on young readers  Manga studies at Kyoto Seika University, Faculty of Manga  Intellectual property rights management: how to maintain cultural ownership of the increasingly hybrid manga and anime goods? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Exoticism of Japan through popular culture Paradox of Japanese culture,based on the principle of contradiction (traditionmodernity; different-familiar; conservative- open minded) MANGA and ANIME: a gate to Japanese culture? K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Anime origins  20c.- kamishibai  During the WW2: propaganda anime „Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943) and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (1945)  Sice 1960s Japanese anime becomes popular in the West (USA). Osamu Tezuka establishes Mushi Production (1961)  1985: Hayao Miyazaki contributes to the establishment of Studio Ghibli K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Tetsuwan atomu (Astro boy) 1963 https://davidcharlesfox.com/cultural-significance-of-manga-and-anime/ Ghibli museum in Mitaka K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/ The most popular genres of contemporary anime  Action  Adventure  Comedy  Drama  Slice of Life  Fantasy  Magic  Supernatural  Horror  Mystery  Psychological  Romance  Sci-Fi K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Sub-genre variety  Cyberpunk  Mecha  Shounen  Game  Music  Shounen-ai  Ecchi  Parody  Space  Demons  Police  Sports  Harem Super Power  Tragedy        Post Apocalyptic Josei   Reverse Martial Arts  Harem Kids   School Historical   Seinen Hentai  Shoujo Isekai  Shoujo-ai Military K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Vampire Yuri Yaoi Otaku and Akihabara  Since 2000s Akihabara advertised as the “Holy Land of Otaku” (オタクの聖地）  “Akihabara boom”: otaku performances in Pedestrian Paradise on Sundays in Chūo-dori (the main street in Akihabara)  From 2008 06 12 till 2011 01 23 The Pedestrian Paradise was banned due to the illegal actions of otaku performers  Presently Akihabara is the 15th mostly recommended place for tourists, and the 8th most disappointing because of false advertising and associations with “Porno Japan” and “Weird Japan” instead of being a center for all manga and anime fans. K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Akihabara Liberation Demonstration, 2007 K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Japanese media mix: everybody can create their own world Manga/novel Anime Toys,figurines, games Press, advertising K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Musical track Fan production Example of „Densha Otoko“ (2004) Cosplay Internet story Video games The movie Music (song from a the movie) Drama Worldwide (EN translation of the drama) Theatre Anime Light novels Manga Merchandising K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Figurines The idea of overlapping worlds Present in the most popular genres of Japanese films overseas, namely in anime and horror movies, as well as light novels (isekai genre) The origins can be traced from the traditional Noh theatre K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The case of anime. Overlapping worlds in “Your name.” by Makoto Shinkai Symbolic ties between the worlds through kuchikamizake, Musubi no kami deity K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The case of J-horror: the space and Japaneseness  The concept of MA 間  Space in J-horror: both familiar and isolated, dreadful  Doubling of spatial layers (real world, underworld)  Feeling of claustrophobia, ghosts live in homely yet unhomely spaces  Women as victims and as monsters K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė The ancient horror and fantasy genres... K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Appeal of J-horror outside of Japan Relies on digital technologies, easy to modify according to target audience Long cultural tradition of ghost, spirit stories Hybridity of J-horror filmmaking (local + global) Plot motifs that make J-horror relevant to international audiences: urban modernity in crisis; uncanny media devices; dissolution of the nuclear family (Scherer 2016, Wada-Marciano 2016) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Female ghost tradition: O-Iwa from Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan https://www.moriareviews.com/horror/ghost-story-ofyotsuya-1959-yotsuya-kaidan.htm (1959) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1964947481/?playlistId=tt2916416&ref_=tt_ov_vi “Ringu” by Nakata Hideo (1998) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė “Ju-On: The Grudge” by Shimizu Takashi (2003) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Magazines  Classification of magazines according to their target audience: age, occupation, marital status, gender  (www.j-magazine.or.jp ) JMAA http://www.zakko.or.jp/subwin/genre.html (magazine genres)  The role of magazines in creation and modification of culture  Advertising  Twin-magazines (versions for male and female readers) K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Female and male counterparts of style magazines  Non-No K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė  Men’s Non-No Classification of magazines by audience Gender Age Marital status, social status, education, hobbies, profession K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Depiction of body and race in magazines  Beauty ideology  Consumerism (of body and for body)  Westerness vs. Japanese-ness  Male/female perspective K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Language of magazines  Unfinished sentences  Katakana script  Kawaii speech  Form of desire –tai  Authoritative tone  School tone, grading  Encouragement of imitation K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė Exporting Japanese popular culture to the world K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė CULTURAL EXPORT According to Kassalow (1983), a society’s ways of thinking about life can become a standard for other societies if 3 criteria are met: 1) society’s national economy surpluses over an extended period of time; 2) There is a consensus in an exporting society that their model is a good one; 3) Leaders of a given society are willing to export it. Japan’s case: 1980s “learnt from Japan boom”: exporting Japanese management system knowledge 1990s till now export of popular culture THEORIES EXPLAINING CULTURAL EXPORTS  Joseph Nye’s „soft power“ theory: instead of intimidating with its military or economic power, a country attempts to fascinate other countries by using its culture and ideals as means to create an attractive image of a country.  Peter van Ham’s „brand state“theory: by consuming a product, people also acquire a lifestyle, an attitude and sometimes respect associated with the product and the country that produces this product.  „Cultural emperialism“ theory: harmful effects brought about by the massive import from foreign cultures to local traditions and culture (“from West to the rest”) JAPANESE POPCULTURE EXPORT  Japanese cultural export started in 1980s, when the West started studying Japanese corporate culture.  Since 1990s- international interest in Japanese popular culture: manga, anime, fashion, popular music, movies, computer games, everyday lifestyle. (2000s: initiatives for Cool Japan campaign)  Since 2006: official trend of pop diplomacy carried out by the government JAPANESE POPULAR CULTURE POLICIES  First initiatives: in 2002 Prime Minister Koizumi proposed a policy if intellectual property-based nation, which included the strategic development of contents industry (‘contents’ includes movies, animated cartoons, game software etc.) “Japan’s Gross-National Cool”  2005: The Copyright Law (the center of attention is commercial value of ‘characters’)  In 2006 Prime Minister Abe initiated the cultural industry strategy to promote popular culture  In 2010 The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry established a new Creative Industries Promotion Office  In 2013 Japanese government launched the so-called “Cool Japan Fund” to support advertising and public relations of Japan’s creative industries overseas.  The aim: to create the image of Japan as a peaceful nation that loves beauty, enjoys a spirit of harmony and co-exists with nature. Literature  Craig, N. (2009). Manga, Anime, and Visual Art Culture. In: Sugimoto, Y. (ed.)Modern Japanese Culture. Cambridge University Press  Miller, L. (2008). There’s More than Manga: Popular Non-fiction Books and Magazines. In: A Companion to Anthropology of Japan. Blackwell Publishing  Tanaka, K. (2003). The Language of Japanese men’s Magazines: Young Men Who Don’t Want to Get Hurt. In: Benwell, B. (ed.) Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.  Kinsella, Sh. (2000). Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Surrey: Curzon Press  Tanaka, K. (1998). Japanese Women’s Magazines: the Language of Aspiration. In: Martinez, D.P. (ed.) Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures. Cambridge University Press  Skov, L. & Moeran, B. (eds.) (1995). Women Media and Consumption in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press  Freedman, A. & T. Slade (eds.) (2018). Introducing Japanese Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge  Yomota,K.Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė I. (2014). What is Japanese cinema? A history. New York: Columbia University press POPULAR MUSIC C U LT U R E IN JAPAN Classification Hōgaku 邦楽 (Japanese music) and yōgaku 洋楽 (Western music) Art music; folk music; popular music Nihon ongaku- only art music and folk music (Japanese) Differences among the main genres Genre Target audience Author Distribution Recognition time Aims Art music Social elite, higher social strata Identified Composed in a written format Long Art value Folk music Local/ regional communities Not identified Transmitted verbally Long Encouragemen t of unity feelings in a community Identified By using records Short Financial benefit Popular music Wide Entertainment as a cultural institution Industry Technology Audience PRODUCT Research of entertainment and leisure time Gonda Yasunosuke (1887-1951): research on the audiences of films and theatre Kon Wajirō (1888-1973): research on crowd behavior 1960s: term ‘mass communication’ (masukomi) 1970-1980s: Ogawa Hiroshi (popular music) Development of popular music in 1910-1945 Prototype- kabuki theatre and shamisen music 1920s: recording studios appear. Sheet music with lyrics and beautiful covers http://www.birgittabellman.se/japan-and-japanese-musicduring-wwii/ (ryūkōka 流行歌 genre: “popular song”) ‘Modan’- electronic sound, microfones, electronic recordings. “Jazz age”. Jazz as a metaphor for city noise. moga Mobo and 1930s: copyright issues (copyright law of 1930s protected only the rights of Japanese artists; Japanese Association for the Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) established after the WW2) Development of popular music in 1945-1970 American influence Electric guitar- symbol of new teenage culture, symbol of rebel spirit Popularity of Rockabilly (influenced by Elvis Presley): the first popular music targeted specifically at teenagers Appearance of musical TV shows (e.g. Kōhaku Uta Gassen) Enka 演歌: the popularity of sentimental ballad songs Enka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc_x0wX0EJ8&list=RDw AAtnnEPtwM&index=5 (Anko Tsubaki wa Koi no Hana by Miyako Harumi, 1969) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55VDHAfroec (Zundoko Busshi by Kiyoshi Hikawa, 2002) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JPKop-dYJ8 (Kawa no nagare no youni by Misora Hibari) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ITkTqA_fA0 Interview with Jero, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4wdkxqP_U Aijin by Jero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDcehWHRyho Matsuppoi yo by Mogamigawa Tsukasa, 2015 Enka Melancholic Japanese ballads of longing Structural approach: kata ('stylised formulas’ ) in enka: 1) Lyrical kata: nostalgia towards furusato (gendered aspect) 2) Performative kata: vocal techniques from pre-modern forms like jooruri, minyoo signifying expressions of melancholy, stoicism, grief, pain. Kobushi vocal technique. 3) Compositional kata: imitation of traditional instrument sounds Hibari Misora- legendary enka singer. Vocaloid by Yamaha as her reproduction (2019) Senpai-kohai hierarchical relations Gambaru Japanese spirit Aged audiences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UUNxyp88sE&feature=emb_l ogo Jazz and hip hop: Japanese imitations? Imitation as a culturally valued style of learning American, Japanese or global? Similarities with Western hip hop: -vocal style; -lyrical themes; -visual presentation (clothes, dance) Why can‘t we accuse Japanese hip hop for being a copy of Anglophonic hip hop? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQjRvhlXCC8 Anarchy, 2008 Development of popular music since 1970: Aidoru アイドル The term ‘aidoru’ appeared in 1960s. It describes teenager singers of 1970s. Aidoru: -up to 16 years old; -everybody sings, no matter if they do it well or not; -”port of communication”: sound, image, money, emotions -ability to communicate (to chat), talking is more important than singing -participate in media, create the image of a close buddy and a remote person at the same time To girls aidoru “sell power”, whereas to boys they sell “cuteness” Aidoru fanship Popular music since 1990s The term ‘J-pop’: all popular music, except enka. J-rock, Visual kei, development of hip hop industry Since 2000s: anime music, vocaloids Aidoru bands, talent producing agencies (e.g. Johnny&Associates by Hiromu Kitagawa) Chaku-uta (melodies for phones) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5whFTc6SaI8 Shirogane by LiSA („Demon Slayer“) 2022 J-rock and Visual kei Like hip-hop, J-rock is similar to Western rock in sound, lyrics, visuality and numerous subgenres. Characteristics of Visual kei: -introduced in 1982 (X Japan); -various rock subgenres; -visual effects (a wish to „shock“ the audience) -androgynous looks; -almost exclusively male performers; -no defining musical theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p8y64ZFLMo&t=76s Dir en Grey, 2021 Hatsune Miku: a virtual idol The first concert on March 9, 2010 at Odaiba Creator: Crypton Future Media, Inc. (voice synthesizer software) Image created by illustrator KEI, voice is originally by voice actress Fujita Saki Miku’s profile: 16 years old, 158cm tall, 42kg weight Media as platform vs. Media as content: what is the secret of Miku’s popularity? Other vocaloids Kaito https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTBaQfrnp8 Sachiko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x16j4V15ylI Impact of J-pop in Asia Reasons of the rise of J-pop in Asia: 1) hybrid music fusing foreign and Japanese traditions; 2) images of J-pop idols are closer than Western; 3) popularization of Japanese dramas and language. The rise of J-pop popularity since 1980s Fan clubs in Taiwan and Hong Kong Impact of J-pop: 1) popularization of Asian cover versions of J-pop songs; 2) introduction of Japanese idol system; 3) adoption of Japanese methods; 4) use of Japanese words in lyrics; 5) collaboration with the Japanese. (see Ng Wai-ming 2004) Karaoke Karaoke: ‘empty orchestra’ appeared in 1960s, when singers started using tape recorders for musical background 1980s: karaoke boxes Rules of karaoke socialization: -order of singers based on hierarchy; -inferiors should not sing the favorite songs of the superiors or elders; -women should sing if requested by men; -sing only one song per turn; -never show off if you are more talented than others; -applaud to everyone equally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJqOZB6x8Rs (Kinki Kids_Distance, 1997) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7FiiI7fDSw (Miyako Harumi_Suki ni natta hito) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JFbcAriZkE (SMAP, Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana, 2003) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY (BABYMETAL_Gimme Chocolate) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83uFs-o1yBA (Onyanko Club_Sailor Fuku, 1985) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdQKnjpd_Vg (Wink_Namida wo misenaide, 1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGKGT91D9dI (Morning Musume ‘18_Are you happy?, 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSvxqpwa1nc (Morning Musume_Memory Seishun no hikari, 1999) Literature Kitagawa, Junko (2009). Music culture. In: Sugimoto, Y. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture. Cambridge University Press Hosokawa, Shuhei (2008). Popular Entertainment and the Music Industry. In: Robertson, J. (ed.) A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan. Blackwell Publishing Condry, Ian (2018). Hatsune Miku: Virtual Idol, Media Platform, and Crowed-Sourced Celebrity. In: Friedman, A. and T. Slade (eds.) Introducing Japanese Popular Culture. Routledge Condry, Ian. (2012). Popular Music in Japan. Kelly, Bill. (1998). Japan‘s Empty Orchestras: Echoes of Japanese Culture in the Perfromance of Karaoke. In: Matinez, D.P. (ed.) The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures. Cambridge University Press Wai-ming, Ng (2004). The Rise of J-pop in Asia and Its Impact. https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/cover%20story%207_0403.pdf This article was downloaded by: [Patrick Galbraith] On: 12 November 2013, At: 11:03 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Asian Anthropology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raan20 Maid cafés: The affect of fictional characters in Akihabara, Japan Patrick W. Galbraith a a Cultural Anthropology, 205 Friedl Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA Published online: 11 Nov 2013. To cite this article: Patrick W. Galbraith , Asian Anthropology (2013): Maid cafés: The affect of fictional characters in Akihabara, Japan, Asian Anthropology, DOI: 10.1080/1683478X.2013.854882 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2013.854882 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. 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Galbraith* Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Cultural Anthropology, 205 Friedl Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA Maid cafés are establishments where waitresses wear costumes and talk to customers. Inspired by dating simulation games, maid cafés first appeared in the late 1990s in Akihabara, Japan, an area where dating simulation games were sold and players gathered. Maid cafés extended relations with fictional characters from media to physical reality, allowing players to interact with fictional characters in human form, while at the same time interacting with humans who perform characters. Having proliferated in the 2000s, maid cafés depend on dedicated customers, or “regulars.” Because physical and personal contact is strictly prohibited, maids only interact with customers “in character,” but regulars nevertheless form long-term, affectionate relationships with them. Maids are paid to perform affective labor in the café, and regulars pay to be there, but affective relations cannot be reduced to money relations. Based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, this article shows how relationships are both enabled by the maid café and in excess of it. Interactions with the maid are not oriented toward the goal of “getting the girl,” and relations are not private or exclusive. Instead, the maid character – both fictional and real, always more than the individual – allows for affective relations that go beyond the common sense of human relations. Keywords: Maid cafés; Japan; affect; characters; relationships “It’s a nice bit of sexual utopia not to be yourself, and to love more in the beloved than only her... ” – Theodor W. Adorno1 Introduction This paper explores affective relations in maid cafés in Akihabara, Japan. In these cafés, waitresses costumed as maids serve food, pose for pictures and play tabletop games with customers. When not filling orders, the waitresses, called “maids” (meido), wander around the café and engage customers in conversation. Despite a huge amount of media exposure and a subsequent tourism boom in the mid-2000s, most maid cafés rely on devoted patrons, or so-called “regulars” ( jōren). This article focuses on the relationships that develop between regulars and maids in maid cafés, which are commoditized spaces. Regulars purchase time in a café, along with food, drink, and services, and these purchases allow for interactions with the maids. For their part, maids are paid to attract customers, ensure a fun and memorable experience, and keep regulars coming back. What occurs in maid cafés seems to be part of the larger phenomenon that Henry Jenkins calls “affective economics,” where desires, connections, and commitments are measured and commoditized (Jenkins 2006, 61– 62). In Japan, Akiko Takeyama points out that the *Email: [email protected] q 2013 The Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 2 P.W. Galbraith affect economy is nestled in the entertainment industry, which capitalizes on attachments to satisfy multiple players in mutual yet asymmetrical ways (Takeyama 2010, 238). While one could critique a system of unequal power relations and exploitation, this paper follows the lead of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who see potential in affective labor, or “labor that produces or manipulates affects” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 108). Contrary to Jenkins’ market-side analysis, Negri argues that affect cannot be measured, and that it remains always unruly (Negri 1999, 88). Affective labor, and more broadly the affect economy, is productive of affective relations, a dense and interconnected meshwork that cannot fully be translated or reduced to wage or commodity relations. This paper seeks to understand the affective relations between regulars and maids in maid cafés, which are sites of alternative sociality in contemporary Japan. It is important to note from the outset that affective relations such as those found in maid cafés are not entirely new or unique to Japan. A comparative historical perspective is offered by John D’Emilio, who argues that the shift to a culture of mass production and consumption in the United States undermined the family as a self-sufficient unit of production, at which time it took on new significance as an “affective unit” (D’Emilio 2007, 252). However, D’Emilio continues, capitalism created the conditions for the decline of this affective unit with the growth of factories, rise of wage labor, and migration to urban industrial centers. D’Emilio points out that new identities and orientations of desire emerged “based on the ability to remain outside the heterosexual family” (D’Emilio 2007, 253). Important here is not only that people were alone in the city, but also that they had money to spend and were open to new encounters, for example in commercial districts. Alongside this trend emerged a strident ideological defense of the family, which identified scapegoats for social instability. D’Emilio notes that scapegoats included homosexuals and feminists in the United States in the 1970s (D’Emilio 2007, 255–256), while in Japan at the same time social instability was blamed on individualistic youth and indulgent consumers (Kinsella 1998, 291–292). Aware of the potential for an ideological order to sanction abuse and abandonment of outsiders, D’Emilio advocates for affective units that go beyond the private concerns of family. The erosion of family as a support system in capitalist societies since D’Emilio’s writing only makes his argument more relevant. While atomization and alienation are common conditions under neoliberalism, in Japan, family ideology remains remarkably strong (Allison 2009), which has led to much criticism of isolated and unstable youth as immature failures. For D’Emilio, the solution, necessary for survival, is “affectional community,” or networks of support that do not depend on bonds of blood or the state (D’Emilio 2007, 257). Inspired by D’Emilio’s discussion of commercial districts and establishments fostering such communities in the United States, this paper argues that maid cafés are one example of how networks of support have emerged since the bursting of the economic bubble and decline of family and work groups in Japan since the 1990s. While D’Emilio focuses on gay identity and maid café regulars are primarily men attracted to the waitresses, in both cases new identities and orientations of desire emerged outside of the heterosexual family. Maid café regulars overlap with otaku, or fans of manga, anime, and games, who in Japan in the 1990s were considered to be sexually immature, socially irresponsible, and potentially dangerous (Kinsella 1998, 308 –311). Applying a labeling approach, Kam Thiam Huat convincingly shows that “otaku” are those who are thought to take consumption and play beyond the limits of “social common sense” (shakai-teki na jōshiki) (Kam 2013a, 152; Kam 2013b). In Japan, common sense demands that people fulfill socially productive roles and responsibilities. For Kam, “‘Otaku’ is... a label for those who fail... by engaging in play that detaches them from their roles and responsibilities” (Kam 2013a: 160). This is compounded by the common Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Asian Anthropology 3 sense of masculinity, which has it that men should consume and play in ways that are gender appropriate and do not interfere with (reproductive) relationships with women (Kam 2013a, 160– 161; Kam 2013b, 58– 59). If, as Kam suggests, otaku are considered to be “failed men,” then this description also applies to maid café regulars, whose frequent visits to maid cafés and affective relations with maids are seen as an escape from the roles and responsibilities of adult society. While some forms of entertainment are designed to make a man “feel like a man” (Allison 1994, 8), maid cafés do not offer sexual services and prohibit physical and verbal harassment of staff.2 Even regulars never “get” the girl, which contributes to an image of them as passive or failed men. Resonating with Kam’s work on Japan, Judith Halberstam argues that the common sense notion of success in capitalist society includes the achievement of “reproductive maturity” (Halberstam 2011, 2). Essentially heteronormative, such common sense forces intimacy into the couple and family, the most socially recognized and valorized relationships. Maid café regulars challenge common sense notions of success by deferring and denying sexual arousal, which allows affectively charged relations with maids to continue indefinitely. These “unconsummated erotics” are part of what Elizabeth Freeman calls “queer life” (Freeman 2002, xv). Relations with maids are not private or exclusive, which allows for the formation of affectional community around them in maid cafés. The affective charge experienced in interactions with maids is called moe, a keyword among otaku. One maid explains the concept of moe as follows: “It’s like, the inside of your heart is pink.... When your heart is a bright, warm color, maybe that feeling is moe” (Galbraith 2009a, 136). Though used incessantly in maid cafés, the word moe has its roots in online discussions among otaku in the 1990s, where it was slang for an affective response to fictional characters (Galbraith 2009b). Japan is by no means unique in realizing the affect of virtual contact (Hardt 1999, 96; Pettman 2009), but the prevalence and quality of manga, anime, and games has meant that more people enter into affective relations with purely fictional entities (Steinberg 2009; Condry 2013, Chapter 7). As affective relations with fictional characters became more visible, moe was described as a “phenomenon” in Japan, and the phenomenon overlaps with the emergence of maid cafés in Akihabara in the late 1990s and early 2000s.3 Not only are maid cafés inspired by dating simulation games (Galbraith 2011), but also waitresses working in maid cafés develop their own “characters,” which they perform when interacting with customers. Maid café regulars often adopt handle names and perform alternative versions of themselves while interacting with maids and one another, which contributes to an atmosphere of role-play. Details of who the maid and regular are outside of the café are withheld – one is not allowed to ask for a maid’s real name or any other personal information beyond her hobbies – and yet relations are affectionate and remarkably durable. That is, a real relationship develops with a fictional character, who is also real. Taking relationships with fictional characters too seriously is an aspect of otaku culture that is considered to be antisocial, but it is more accurate to say that maid café regulars are social in different ways. Even if common sense has it that maid café regulars are failed men, Halberstam reminds us that in failure we imagine “other goals for life, for love, for art, and for being” (Halberstam 2011, 88). This paper focuses on those other ways of living and loving, but further argues that they are not necessarily goal oriented. The maid café, described as “moe space” (moeru kūkan) (Galbraith 2009a, 136; Aida 2006) allows for interaction with fictional characters, whose affect disrupts common sense and allows for imagining and relating otherwise. For Honda Tōru, the maid café is a space for fantasies to enter reality: “Let’s call it a world positioned on the border of the twodimensional and three-dimensional.... A vague 2.5-dimensional space like a maid café is P.W. Galbraith Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 4 Figure 1. This flier, announcing an event at St Grace’s Court in Akihabara, shows the maid as both a costumed waitress and a character. Note that the character is running along a line from “threedimensional” (sanjigen) toward “two-dimensional” (nijigen). Photograph by the author. Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Asian Anthropology 5 a place where the two-dimensional concepts and delusions lingering in my soul can easily be brought into the three-dimensional world” (Honda 2005, 19) (Figure 1). This intriguing concept of “2.5-dimensional space” (nitengo jigen kūkan), or a space between the “two-dimensional” world of manga, anime, and games and the “threedimensional” world as we know it, is crucial to understanding the maid café. Honda sees relations between and with fictional characters as “thought experiments” (shisō jikken) (Honda 2005, 145), which spill out into the maid café (i.e., experimental relations with the maid where human relations are imagined otherwise). For Honda, the maid as fictional character simulates love in familiar forms, but ultimately challenges the common sense of love: “For a long time, everyone expected that the common sense belief that ‘love ¼ three-dimensional world’ would continue, but it has begun to be destroyed by the appearance of the moe phenomenon” (Honda cited in Condry 2013, 194). Positioned between the two- and three-dimensional worlds, the maid café is a space where “delusions” (mōsō) inspired by manga, anime, and games can impact relations between regulars and maids. If, as Ian Condry suggests, sharing affective responses and attachments to fictional characters contributes to the “emergence of alternative social worlds” (Condry 2013, 203), then the maid café is where those worlds most dramatically intersect with and impact the world of everyday human relations. For this paper, I draw on fieldwork conducted in five maid cafés in Akihabara between 2004 and 2009.4 Akihabara is an area of Tokyo associated with stores selling electronics, computers, and, since the 1990s, manga, anime, games, and related merchandise. The first maid cafés appeared in Akihabara in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the majority are still located there. My main site was @home café, which I frequented from 2004, shortly after it opened, until 2009, by which time it had five locations and had served over one million customers.5 Though I also interviewed maids and café owners, the bulk of my time was spent hanging out with 50 regulars, who visited a maid café at least once a week. Though there were male and female regulars, I focused on the former for the simple reason that they were by far the majority. My focus on Japanese, male, regular customers means that I do not spend time on female, casual, or international customers. This bias both constrains and enables my analysis of maid cafés. I thus refer to regulars as men (he, his, master), while at the same time arguing that interactions in the maid café trouble the form of masculinity that has become hegemonic in postwar Japan. Regulars come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging in age from late teens to early forties. They tend to be students and working men with enough economic security to come to cafés regularly and spend money. Some live alone, others with family, but the majority of regulars do not have to support dependents.6 Most are not married, though some have girlfriends. Given their social positioning, maid café regulars might be seen as what Lawrence Eng calls “reluctant insiders” (Eng 2012, 99–100), who are both included in and alienated from the mainstream (majoritarian, masculine) and actively seek alternatives to it. Like the otaku in the United States that Eng discusses, the maid café regulars that I encountered in Akihabara were all fans of manga, anime, and games. It is important to note that not all maid cafés display this same bias in clientele. Further, not all customers are as aware of the origin of maid cafés or are as attracted to fictional characters as the regulars that I spent time with in Akihabara between 2004 and 2009. Having noted the necessary limitations of fieldwork, I now turn to describing my fieldsite. What is a maid café? Maid cafés are a representative form of “concept cafés” (konseputo kissa), in which decorations and services transform normal cafés into something special. For the sake of Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 6 P.W. Galbraith simplicity, and following local conventions, I generally refer to all concept cafés in Akihabara as maid cafés. Early maid cafés attempted to capture the grandeur of a Victorian mansion, but later shifted to colorful décor and costumes, saccharine music and cute, talkative maids. Often called “entertainment style” or “moe style,” maid cafés like @home are by far the most popular in Akihabara. While male managers and kitchen staff are on the premises, in most cases only costumed waitresses, called maids, appear on the floor of a café. To ensure rapid turnover, a customer’s stay is limited to 60 or 90 minutes; there is a seating charge of about 500 yen (100 yen equals approximately one US dollar). When the time is up, regular customers may leave, immediately line up to wait outside the café and re-enter once it is their turn (again paying the seating charge). Before a customer enters the café, a maid appears at the door and asks him, “Is this your first time coming home?” (gokitaku hajimete desu ka). The question, as awkward in the original Japanese as it is in translation, captures the ambiguity of interaction in a rational, commercial space designed to simulate and foster affective relations. If it is indeed one’s first time, the maid explains the café rules, of which there are many: no photography with a personal camera; no touching; do not ask the maids personal questions or make sexual advances; each customer must order at least one drink; and so on. @home café has these rules printed in three languages on a laminated card that the maid asks the uninitiated to read. After this, the maid ushers in the customer, rings a bell and announces the “return” of the “master” (goshujin-sama) and/or “young miss” (ojō-sama).7 All the maids on the café floor turn, bow and say in unison, “Welcome home, master” (okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama), and/or, “Welcome home, young miss” (okaerinasaimase, ojō-sama). After the master and/or young miss is seated, the maid presents a menu and says, “Thank you for coming home today” (gokitaku arigatō gozaimasu). In a maid café, one does not designate a preferred server, and can expect service from whichever maid on the floor is available. The maid serving any given table may change over the course of the visit, especially during peak business hours. Regulars, however, have favorite maids and expect to be able to talk to them during visits to the café, if not also to be served by them. This is not an official designation and maids and masters negotiate this among themselves. In practice, each maid has a number of regulars who come to the café to see her. Tipping or gift giving to procure service or establish a relationship is not allowed. In maid cafés, maids do not sit down next to masters, even when engaging in conversation, but rather stand across from them, often separated by a counter or table. Though bodies may be in close proximity – for example, when the maid leans across the counter so that the regular can hear her over the cacophony of music and chatter that is characteristic of the space – conversations are short, because the maid cannot neglect her duties as a waitress. The maid moves around the café bussing tables, serving, and chatting with customers and other maids. Regulars typically come alone specifically to interact with maids, and when not talking to maids, they patiently wait, watching maids and other customers. While some maid cafés offer extensive menus, representative meals include omelet rice, Japanese curry, and hamburger steak, and for dessert parfaits, sweet beverages, and cakes. All of these menu items are easy and cheap to make; despite the mediocre quality, prices are notably inflated. The higher prices for food and drink in the café reflect the value of service, which is to say the affective labor of the maids as they interact with customers. Service includes an element of fantasy role-play, which impacts how food is presented and received. The narrative of the café is that the maids make the dishes offered on the menu, which are said to “have heart” (kokoro wo kometa) or be “filled with love” (aijō tsumatta). (Everyone is fully aware that the part-time kitchen staff, mostly male, make the food, but there is a willing suspension of disbelief.) When bringing an order to the table, maids kneel Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Asian Anthropology 7 down to eye level so as not to look down when addressing a master. Formalized and ritual interactions such as pouring tea or allowing the master to choose the color of his straw are ways to keep the maid at the table and get the customer talking to her. The service facilitates interaction between the master and maid. In the case of @home café, service is elaborate. When a master orders omelet rice, the maid asks him to think of a word or image for her to write on the food using ketchup (contained in a special bottle with a narrow nozzle to allow for drawing). Once the preparation is complete, the maid asks the master to join her in an incantation to make the food taste better. The most basic incantation is the chant “moe moe kyun,” where kyun is onomatopoeia for a movement of the heart and moe means an affective response (to a fictional character). Reinforcing the words of the incantation, both the maid and master make heart shapes with their hands, which each holds over his or her left breast and then moves toward the food as if a beam of energy is being emitted. If prompted, the maid will explain that love (from two hearts, the maid and the master) has been injected into the food. Having completed the ritual, the maid and master both clap in celebration. This ritual is repeated, with small variations, every time the maid delivers an order to the master. While the service is repetitive and may be boring to those unfamiliar with maid cafés, regulars enjoy this structured, familiar interaction with the maid. There is a rhythm to it, and a pleasure to synchronized bodily movement (and bodily proximity), which can be observed in the moe moe kyun ritual. Further, the service itself is a touchstone to the maid fantasy, which at @home café is inextricably tied to moe and what is called “moe moe service.” The repetition of key phrases and actions invokes the maid character, a fiction inspired by the compound movements of manga, anime and game characters. In other words, service in a maid café is productive of interaction with the maid as fictional character, embodied and captured in gestures. In addition to service based on food and drink orders, interaction can be purchased with the entertainment menu, which includes options such as playing a tabletop or card game with the maid (500 yen for three minutes) or taking an instant photograph with her (500 yen per shot). Each of these entertainment options allows for interaction in a specific form. For example, when the master purchases a photograph (called a cheki, a material object produced by an instant camera), he is asked to go to a special spot at the center of the café and pose with a maid while another maid operates the camera. Though no bodily contact is allowed, there is a palpable excitement to being in such close proximity to the maid. This is amplified by the to-be-seen-ness of the interaction between master and maid, which is witnessed by the maid operating the camera, other customers in the café at the time the photograph is taken, the maid who poses with the master and later looks at the photograph as she personalizes the material object with a written message, the master who receives the photograph and gazes at it, and others to whom he shows it. Some regulars maximize interaction with the maid by ordering multiple photographs over the course of a single visit. As seen with the photograph, interaction with maids can involve everyone in the café. Approximately once every hour at @home café, there is an event called “fun time” (otanoshimikai). (The name also implies anticipation, which is palpable among regulars who know about the event and look forward to it.) During fun time, maids challenge everyone in the café to a game of rock-paper-scissors. Like the moe moe kyun ritual, this game has special gestures and vocalizations that go with it, which everyone learns and performs together. The competition continues until only one master remains; the winner joins the maids at the center of the room, answers a few questions and receives a small prize (for example, a paper coaster signed by the maid). What is valued is time to interact with the maids, to talk to them and have them respond in certain ways.8 Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 8 P.W. Galbraith Proscribed and rule-bound interactions with the maid are productive of a relationship between master and maid, which is key to the affect of the café. If there is a goal to visiting the maid café, it is not getting the girl or achieving sexual release. Masturbation, and even visible erection, would be cause for expulsion from the café. There is not an explicit rule against it, however, because such behavior is absolutely unthinkable. In the maid café, one is excited, but needs to control bodily urges, which contributes to a dispersed and openended erotic charge (for comparison, see Frank 2002, 121 – 122, 135 –138). Maintaining the distance between bodies and not attempting to realize the fantasy of intercourse with the maid allows for continuous stimulation. This masochistic deferral brings to mind BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism) as described by Margot Weiss, who sees the rules governing interaction between players as productive of “circuits and exchanges” (Weiss 2011, 62, 79, 82). Along with rules, Weiss points out that the use of “toys” contributes to the development of techniques of pleasure (Weiss 2011, 127). In the maid café, costumes and controlled gestures transform waitresses into maids. Further, tabletop games, cameras, and the presentation of food all produce controlled scenes that index fantasy relations. Skillful players use objects to set up a circuit, where material connects bodies, as well as reality and fantasy, and channels energy between them. As Weiss astutely notes, the circuit depends on commodities, but is nevertheless productive of intimacy: “Mediated through commodities, such play creates intimate connections between people; the toy as prosthetic becomes a social prosthesis – a way to produce connection and intimacy” (Weiss 2011, 135). However, unlike BDSM, maid café regulars do not make a distinction between “role-playing” and “authentic energy sharing or intimate connection” (Weiss 2011, 66). Rather, masters and maids share energy and forge intimate connections while role-playing, and this is no less authentic or real for the fictional aspects of it. Purchasing commodities and services allows for the formation of a circuit between masters and maids. Each purchase in the maid café provides an opportunity for interaction. The more a regular comes to the café and consumes, the more time he spends with the maids, interacts with them and is recognized, which further facilitates interaction. Regulars very seldom mention the cost of visiting a maid café, a minimum of 1000 yen (seating charge plus one drink), even if they come multiple times a week or day. Regulars continued to frequent their favorite cafés over the five years that I conducted fieldwork in Akihabara. Lest their devotion be doubted, many @home café regulars I encountered carried a “black” membership card, which indicates that they visited the establishment 2000 times or more. Repeat visits to maid cafés and getting to know maids and be known by them contribute to affective relations. Affective relations with the maid, Part 1: The circle To better understand affective relations in the maid café, it is helpful to contrast it with another form of entertainment that at first appears similar: the hostess club. At a hostess club, like at a maid café, women are paid to talk with men. More specifically, as related by Anne Allison in her ethnographic account of a Tokyo hostess club based on fieldwork conducted in 1981, women are paid to sit with groups of men, attentively listen, light cigarettes, pour drinks and facilitate conversation (Allison 1994). By Allison’s estimation, most of the customers in her club were “salary men,” or white-collar workers, who visited at company expense (Allison 1994, 36). These men’s employers budgeted for such entertainment not only as a reward for hard work, but also as a way to extend workplace relations into leisure time. Participation in these outings was semi-mandatory. By sharing time and activity with one another, men bonded as a group, an affective unit framed by and Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Asian Anthropology 9 in the service of the company (Allison 1994, 14). Allison notes that the group is defined not merely by corporate belonging, but also by gender performance. In the hostess club, one is a workingman among workingmen gazed upon by a beautiful woman, who affirms the value of men’s work. Being flattered and attended to by the hostess pumps up the male ego; men act lecherously, which is said to be in their nature as men (Allison 1994, 19). Despite heavy flirtation and light petting, interactions with the hostess do not end in sex and are not supposed to contribute to a lasting relationship with her (i.e., as friends or lovers). Men do not spend too much time at any one club, which limits the potential for getting to know any particular hostess (Allison 1994, 16). The visit to the hostess club is meant to contribute to the strengthening of bonds among a group of workingmen, who come to the establishment together, experience it together and leave together to find the next place. A respectable man does not come back to a hostess club alone or see a particular hostess. Interactions with the hostess do not take men away from roles and responsibilities at work and home; the hostess is meant to recognize the good man, who is productive at work and a provider at home. A visit to the hostess club replenishes the man and props up “corporate masculinity.” If high-end hostess clubs in the 1980s were places for successful men, then maid cafés in the 2000s, separated by the tumultuous socioeconomic flux of the 1990s, are places for men who fail to achieve reproductive maturity. Where the hostess club keeps men away from home and connected to work (Allison 1994, 103), the maid café seems to keep them away from both. In the maid café, there is no work cohort with which to bond inside the café and no one imagined to be waiting at home outside the café. Rather than strengthening bonds forged outside the café, regulars develop bonds with maids inside the café. While visiting a hostess club alone and regularly might be seen as a sign of failure to perform social roles and responsibilities, this is the norm at maid cafés. Indeed, one spends an hour in the maid café, about the same amount of time on average that one spends in the hostess club, but then returns to the café again and again to spend more time with maids. In some cases, regulars leave the café after the time limit only to immediately line up outside and return to the café. In contrast to hostess clubs, regulars do not come to maid cafés to talk to other men, but rather to talk to maids. More fundamentally, in a maid café, one is not recognized as a man fulfilling social roles and responsibilities, and is not made to “feel like a man” (Allison 1994, 8). Maid café regulars are not the “good men” of Allison’s hostess club, the hegemonic ideal of the salary man. Discussions between maid and regular center on hobbies, and seldom veer into the territory of work and home life; these real world or social concerns would ruin the fantasy of the exchange. Tellingly, windows in the maid café are blocked with curtains to create a contained fantasy space, and reflective surfaces such as mirrors are absent. Not only does the maid not prop up corporate masculinity, but she is also not a target for “natural” male advances. Physical and verbal harassment, including touching and even words that make maids uncomfortable, are explicitly banned in the maid café. The master must master his own bodily urges. Further, as a master, he engages in a kind of fantasy role-play as opposed to the self-exposure seen in hostess clubs (Allison 1994, 24). In short, the maid café is not productive of durable and respectable social identity. (This is why hostess clubs are “normal” [Kam 2013a, 160] and maid cafes are for “otaku.”) Despite the apparent applicability of the otaku label with its connotations of antisociality, maid café regulars are social in different ways. To rephrase this, the maid is at the center of emergent alternative social worlds. An example from the field will help ground this discussion. Dragon, age 34, is an audio technician from suburban Tokyo.9 He does fairly well for himself, but tells me that he feels like he has given up on his dream of becoming a musician. He is single and plays the guitar. Dragon recalls that he started Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 10 P.W. Galbraith coming to @home café in 2005. On his first visit, Dragon met Ringo, a maid who wants to be a singer and is part of @home’s idol group, Kanzen Maid Sengen. Dragon was soon coming to the café whenever he could. Dragon is fiercely loyal, saying of @home café, “This isn’t just a place I eat. It’s a place I belong. That is why I always come back here. I don’t go to other cafés. This is where I want to spend my time.” More specifically, Dragon wants to spend his time in the café with Ringo, whose work schedule he has memorized. In addition to regular café visits, Dragon also buys tickets to Kanzen Maid Sengen concerts, which take place in small live houses around Tokyo, and boasts that he has never missed one of Ringo’s shows. During Kanzen Maid Sengen concerts, Ringo’s fans, Dragon included, know the parts of each song where she is featured, at which time they call out and praise her. This support is vital to Ringo’s success. Dragon tells me that he wants to help Ringo fulfill her dream to become a singer. He is overjoyed at her growing recognition – he tells me that one can sing Kanzen Maid Sengen songs at certain karaoke establishments – which in some ways translates to his status as one of her regulars and supporters (for a comparison, see Takeyama 2005, 208). Dragon reports feeling rewarded when he can use his skills to help set up sound equipment for Kanzen Maid Sengen (he does this for free). In the café, Dragon and Ringo speak of shared experiences at concerts and as musicians (a mutual recognition of dreams), which makes their relationship seem special. Dragon tells me that he loves Ringo, but he never confesses to her; he is content to skip the drama and be near her in a continuation of their relationship as master and maid. As master and maid, the relationship between Dragon and Ringo is both comfortable and exciting; there are limits, but nothing is settled. With this ambiguous distance between them, there is enough room to move and be moved, for an exchange of energy and affection that invigorates life. At first glance, Dragon seems like a stereotype of the maid café regular: failed dream, no girlfriend, paying for and fantasizing a compensatory relationship with a maid, cannot (or will not) make a move, a failed man. However, Dragon is only a failure if we evaluate his relationship with Ringo by a common sense measure of success based on reaching a goal (often tied to achieving reproductive maturity). The relationship between Dragon and Ringo was open-ended and ongoing. If their relationship starts at some point (i.e., boy meets girl), then any line drawn from that point is not vectored toward a point of termination (i.e., getting the girl); the line is not at all straight, but zigzags unpredictably; and that movement, the line itself, is the relationship. Dragon loves Ringo, but his love is not corralled into the socially recognized and valued forms of the couple or family. Rather, Dragon is part of what he calls a “circle” (sākuru) of regulars that has formed around Ringo. The circle is a loose association of people who support someone or something. Relations between any given member of the circle and what they support are not private or exclusive, because others are also in relations with the person or thing and with one another. A promiscuous affective charge moves through the circle. Not an imagined community or feeling of belonging to an abstract and homogeneous collective, the circle is a concrete, joyful encounter of heterogeneous bodies. In refusing to confess to Ringo and change their relationship, Dragon maintained his affective relations with Ringo in the circle. This is not a failed relationship between man and woman, but a different one. As Michael Warner notes, alternative forms of intimacy, including what he calls a “circle,” often go unnoticed in a world that only recognizes and values intimacy in the couple or family (Warner 1999, 134). A world fixated on achieving these “normal” relations can only see Dragon as a failure, a label that glosses over the texture and experience of intensity that gives shape to a life. Though not all of the relations between Ringo and her regulars were commoditized, especially those surrounding her solo live performances post @home café, affective Downloaded by [Patrick Galbraith] at 11:03 12 November 2013 Asian Anthropology 11 relations with maids can and do occur in commoditized space. Regulars pay to occupy a space near the maid, which they co-occupy with others, but that fact does not make relations any less authentic, real, or affective. Indeed, just as capitalism generally has the potential to support the growth of affectional communities (D’Emilio 2007), maid cafés support forms of connection and attachment that go beyond what one might expect of commodity-exchange relations. Maid cafés encourage regulars to spend their special days with the maids in the café. For example, if a re

Popular Culture in East Asia - Spring 2024 Lectures

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