Nele's blog
Small thinky thought -pushy versus trust-based media distribution systems
Nele — Sun, 05/23/2010 - 12:58
The Kyoto International Manga Museum live-streamed its conference on the 'virtual children' problem earlier today -the video is still available here. It was a good symposium, with many of the most important problems of this proposed legislation being explained by some very knowledgable people. I'm writing a longer post after I've gotten my grubby hands on a summary of Ito Go's presentation -he was the only one who spoke a bit too quickly and indistinctly for me to follow, and I don't want to misrepresent his words. For now, just a quick word on one of the topics raised that resonated the most with me: what happens when people are unwillingly faced with sexual imagery in public places.
One speaker, Saito Hikaru, talked about the appearance of sexual imagery -which was very much a private thing in Japan until quite recently- in public spaces, and how attempts to legislate the public expression of what used to be private fantasies could end up being an intrusion of the law into people's private space. During the discussion half of the symposium later on, the issue of sexual imagery in public spaces was raised again by Jaqueline Berndt, who noted that we do have a very problematic situation (and this doesn't count just for Japan) if you can't venture into public spaces and avoid being confronted with sexual imagery that you don't want to see or that may even be seriously triggering.
Here we have a big difference between the way commercial media and fannish media are pushed at potential readers/consumers: for-profit media companies will do pretty much anything to have their products be seen and noticed, while fannish creators often go out of their way to help other fans avoid seeing material that might squick or trigger. There was a big debate on fic warnings a couple of months ago. Warnings are one of the main reasons why I like spending so much time in fandom. On the one hand, it's relaxing to know that I will probably not be caught unawares by depictions of things I find squicky or upsetting. More importantly, though, the fact that warnings are there at all is incredibly reassuring. I often skip warnings altogether, because whoever this writer is and whatever the content of the story is, it's enough for me that they did me the small kindness of putting up a warning. I frequently read stories that warn for things I tend to find upsetting, just because having a warning there at all makes me feel safe enough with this author to give the story a go.
This is not to say that I'm deeply apprehensive about every commercial TV episode or movie that comes my way. It's just much easier to trust a piece of media given to you by someone who shows with words and actions that they give a damn how you experience that piece of media after you've shelled out for it (with time, money, or whatever currency is asked).
Livecast of symposium on virtual children in manga tomorrow!
Nele — Sat, 05/22/2010 - 14:14
Attention, all who know Japanese and are interested in the recent legal wrangling in Japan on virtual children in sexual situations in manga: tomorrow (Sunday) the Kyoto International Manga Museum will be hosting and livecasting a symposium on the subject. Details about how to follow the livecast will appear on the museum's Twitter. The symposium starts at half past one in the afternoon; check here to find out what time that is in your location. I will attempt to follow and summarize what's said; hopefully the audio will be good and my less than stellar academic Japanese will be up to the task. Interesting people such as Ito Go, Takemiya Keiko and Jaqueline Berndt will be among the speakers.
Call for papers: the visual language of manga (including dojinshi/fan comics)
Nele — Thu, 05/20/2010 - 07:33
Apologies for ignoring you, internets, truly -it's been a mad couple of months with lots of deadlines everywhere. Some good news: my colleague Hans and I are guest editing an issue of the online e-journal Image and Narrative dedicated to the visual language of manga. 'Manga' most definitely includes dojinshi and any other fan comics with a manga slant, so I'm reposting the call for papers here as well. Please throw us questions and comments and fascinating proposals! We're working on a Japanese translation of the CFP, too.
Call for Papers: The Visual Language of Manga
Image and Narrative is an open access scholarly publication. Apart from papers in the traditional scholarly format, we also welcome experimental formats and approaches, such as innovative use of visuals, web applications, or collaborative works. There will be no minimum or maximum length for contributions; contributors are assumed to know best how much space they need to get their particular point across in an academically sound manner. We are particularly interested in contributions that include discussion of methodological and research ethics issues faced by the author(s). Examples of suggested approaches include:
- theoretical models that can be applied to the the study of visual aspects of manga
- new technologies and their influence on the study of visual aspects of manga, for example data mining and visualization software
- the visualization of sexual content in manga, for example in relation to recent efforts by lawmakers in Japan to regulate depictions of minors in sexual situations
- gendered visual language in manga
- the historical evolution of visual representations of different nationalities and/or minorities in manga
- the use of visual cues in manga to overtly or subtly favor a particular position, for example in 'political' manga such as Gōmanism Sengen
- visual properties of 'author' manga as opposed to what are considered 'popular' titles
- the influence of new platforms for manga publication (such as cellphones and online manga-reading applications) on the visual language of the manga published through these platforms
- connections between visual style of a commercially published manga and the style of that manga's adaptation by amateur manga artists in dojinshi
- visual characteristics of so-called 'OEL manga' and other comics by non-Japanese authors that claim the label 'manga'
The issue will include translations of existing Japanese scholarly texts on the visual language of manga. The editors welcome suggestions as to existing Japanese scholarly texts whose translation into English would be of particular interest for this issue.
Due dates: Proposals should be sent by 15 July 2010, with final submissions in either English, French or Japanese to be submitted on 15 November 2010. Submissions in Japanese will be translated into English. (Contributors submitting in Japanese may be asked to submit a few weeks early to allow more time for translation by the editors. Contributors may of course create their own translations.)
Proposals: Please send proposals of less than 500 words to nele.noppe@arts.kuleuven.be by 15 July 2010.
Guest editors: Hans Coppens and Nele Noppe (Let's Manga project, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium - http://japanesestudies.arts.kuleuven.be/popularculture)
Nonexistent children still refusing to exist in spite of more attempts to legislate their existence
Nele — Thu, 04/08/2010 - 16:49
Dan Kanemitsu has a great post up about why the proposed Tokyo ban of depictions of "nonexistent youth" in sexual situations is dangerous nonsense. Discussion about this proposed legislation has only been postponed at this point, and the city of Osaka has apparently decided they want to appear vigilant as well (and will engage in added vigilance by regulating women's comics and boys' love/yaoi. Thank heavens someone realizes that women's expressions of sexuality need extra policing! </sarcasm>).<br /><br />Getting up in arms about nonesxistent children seems to be a real trend these days. A similar law has gone live in the UK only a few days ago. With the February sentencing of US citizen Christopher Handley for possessing “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children" and Australia recently mulling criminalization of viewing or linking to online depictions of what might be nonexistent children in sexual situations, it almost looks as if countries are egging each other on to see who can look toughest on child pornography.
- The banning of fictional depictions of child abuse would likely be as meaningless as the banning of fictional depictions of car chasing with the aim toward reducing motor vehicle accidents in real life.Content in itself is not the issue--Child pornography has been outlawed because the methods involved in production involve real children in possibly abusive circumstances. How the material was produced is what makes it criminal, not what impression it conveys on the audience.
- If content alone was the issue, war footage and horror films should be banned as well.
- Child pornography involving real children being sexually abused is horrid beyond words. For that very reason, I find it reprehensible to mix together such acts of human misery and suffering with illusionary fantasy that exists only in the author's imagination. Widening the definition of child pornography to include fictional material belittles the gravity of real sex abuse.
- Many convicted criminals also cite the Bible as their inspiration of conducting astonishingly savage acts, and yet few would attribute the Bible as the root cause of such criminal behavior. Why?--Because free societies accept the principle that people are responsible for their own actions.
- It is very dangerous to restrict the actions and rights of citizens based on the principle that some limited number of individuals may act irresponsibly. This is the equivalent of removing knives from the household kitchen because someone used a meat cleaver to commit a crime. Again, this logic is unbelievably reckless as well.
- Furthermore, crime statistics published by the Japanese police themselves show no causality between the proliferation of erotic material and sex crimes. The crime rate has dramatically decreased since WW2 while the availability of erotica and violent fictional entertainment has risen by leaps and bounds during the same period.
- It is easily imaginable that an endless cycle of accusations and denials will unfold regarding establishing the "true age" of fictional characters. Authors and publishers will more than likely attempt to proclaim that the characters look young, but they are actually above the age of 18. Physical attributes vary between widely depending on race and ethnicity, not to mention fictional non-human characters.
- Publishers and authors are extremely proficient in adapting toward new regulations. If graphical depictions are banned, then abstract or comedic depictions will increase.
- Either an ever increasing set of symbols will be deemed to be inappropriate to be linked to a core human attribute--human sexuality--or the futility of the ban will lead the law to become impotent over all.
- Such a ban will stifle creativity and impoverish the cultural landscape.
- Banning the fictional depictions of minors involved in sexual situations will make a fundamental core human attribute taboo.
- Even today, numerous adult manga publications have self censorship standards that are mind-boggling. Authors have complained about how some editors have insisted on having all female characters appearing in their works be endowed with large breasts because drawing women as they appear more like in real life was deemed "too childish looking."
- The value attributed to works of literature and art change over time. The works of modern art and literature from the last two centuries are filled with examples where they were deemed to be vile, corruptive trash by contemporary authorities, but now these same works enjoy high status as priceless cultural treasures.
- A culture grows richer through addition, not by subtraction.
- A ban on fictional depictions of minor engaged in sexual situations has the very real potential to brand individuals as sex offenders even though they have had no sexual contact with real people. I believe there could be no legal justification for destroying people's lives simple because they drew doodles on paper, but the proposed ban would create such a legal precedence.
- I am absolutely certain that history will not look back kindly upon such a ban, and it will join a long list of colossal failures of regulatory policy, such as the prohibition of alcohol in the US between 1920 to 1933, various sodomy laws, the comic book code, and bans on socialist literature in Japan during the prewar era. It is important to note that all these failed moral crusades were led by virtuous and diligent individuals intent on making the world a better place.
Haru Comic City, the dojinshi market, James/Snape, fandom etiquette, dojinshi legal troubles etc etc
Nele — Wed, 04/07/2010 - 18:54
(Beware, lots of links to Japanese-only sites in this one.) While I was in Japan last month, my Japanese advisor dragged me to Haru Comic City so I could chat with a former student of hers who is now active as a dojinka in Tokyo. This was my second time at a big dojinshi convention (sokubaikai), but since I was only there for about five minutes at the very end on that first occasion, that one probably doesn't count. The one-day Haru Comic City was held in the same building as the more famous Comiket (the one with over half a million attendees), but in the end I didn't even get to see the fabled big halls because there were so many damned people in the way. The number of attendees was staggering and I was afraid of losing sight of my advisor, so I stuck to the smaller (heh) west halls. It sounds very abstract to say that the dojinshi market is worth 50 billion yen, but this is suddenly much easier to imagine when you're standing in the midst of an ocean of dojinshi-toting women. (The total manga market, pockets and magazines but minus dojinshi, is estimated at 450 billion yen. That's only nine times the value of the fannish manga market. 50 billion isn't peanuts by any definition, and the dojinshi market is still growing, while the manga market for pockets and magazines appears to be shrinking. Interesting.)
I hadn't reviewed the catalog of participating dojinka before walking in and was thus flabbergasted to find myself suddenly in front of the table of Natch, one of my favourite JamesXSnape artists. I was a bit star-struck and mostly stammered my way through the conversation, but she was extremely nice and patient, and in the end gave me a piece of candy and her mail adress. After I was done repeating "I'm such a fan of your work" about twenty times, I nattered on about my research a bit. She hadn't read any non-Japanese Harry Potter fanwork and was very curious about the possible differences between that and Japanese dojinshi. James/Snape being such a rarepair in English seemed to surprise her quite a bit. In Japanese HP dojinshi, this pairing is immensely popular. Natch said that for her and many other Japanese fans, James' bullying of Snape in the HP canon indeed comes across as pigtail-pulling more than anything else (as we suspected earlier).
It was later pointed out to me by my friendly guide that standing in front of the table monopolizing the artist like that had been a bit rude. Ack. Fortunately I'd compensated by buying an issue of every dojinshi on the table. We had a talk on sokubaikai etiquette -what do do when you want to talk with the artist (move to the side of the table and buy something afterwards), rules for picture-taking (don't, basically), and so on. Most of it was very reminiscent of etiquette in English-language online fandom. One of the things I was very worried about was how dojinka would perceive the presence of a (foreign) researcher in their territory. According to my guide, dojinshi research in Japan is so rare that most people have never even heard of academics interested in their fannish activities, so they haven't had many bad experiences with "scholars" barging into fandom and attempting to do research in a clueless/rude manner à la SurveyFail.
All the same, sez Guide, it probably made a lot of difference that I admitted to being a fan myself. The pathologisation of anime/manga/Japanese pop culture fans inside and outside Japan is long-standing and not quite over yet, and people do tend to be wary of outsiders with no love for or understanding of dojinshi culture poking their noses in. Dojinka fear endangering themselves and by extension the whole dojinshi community by “inviting” legal problems; although Japanese companies are generally tolerant of dojinshi production, there have been several incidents of varying severity in which dojinshi creators clashed with rights holders. (Examples of these clashes between dojinka and rights holders include the well-known “Pokemon dojinshi case" and “Doraemon dojinshi incident”, as well as several minor incidents such as the “Harry Potter copyright problem”. The latter refers to a bogus online rumour started in December 2001 that the overseas and Japanese copyright holders of the HP franchise were about to crack down on HP-based dojinshi, prompting dojinka to lock down websites and cancel HP-specific sokubaikai for several months afterwards.)
Dojinka go to great lengths in order not to draw attention from others not involved in dojinshi culture who might not be understanding of its activities. Websites are routinely hidden from search engines so that only those who've purchased a dojinshi containing the URL can find an artist's site (which is why I'm not linking directly to Natch). In addition, dojinka often admonish their readers at the start or ending of a dojinshi not to show the work to anyone unconnected with dojinshi culture, or put the dojinshi up on general auction sites where anyone might find it. The differences in warnings in dojinshi and warnings on English-language fic are fascinating, by the way -I'll certainly be comparing them later.
Because I need some sort of conclusion to these musings, have a random book rec. Hiroki Azuma does some absolutely fascinating analysis of dojinshi culture in "Otaku: Japan's database animals", which was translated into English last year. I only just finished the book and am not nearly done with thinking it through, but it's marvelous. The review barely even touches upon most of the book's most interesting points. There are precious few good translations of Japanese scholarship, and this one is a gem. Oh, just go and snap it up, this not-Amazon has it for cheap and does free worldwide delivery :)
(Edit: While I was busy bothering Natch, my advisor did the rounds of the other Harry Potter tables and bought everything with Snape in it as a present for me. I adore that woman.)
(Edit 2: Here's a more useful review of Azuma's book.)
