AltJapan

Thoughts From Gundam's Crotch

Spent most of yesterday filming the official public unveiling of the life-sized 18 meter Gundam on display in Odaiba for an American TV show. It's been visible for a while, but now the construction fences have been removed, allowing visitors to walk directly underneath. It also marked the first public performance of its "gimmicks" -- turning its head and releasing jets of steam from its vents, while the Gundam theme song blares from speakers strategically placed throughout the park.

The first thing that struck me was how cramped the cockpit would have to be. ("I mean, the 'core fighter' would be, like, smaller than a kei car," remarked the somewhat crestfallen cameraman, a Gundam fan himself, as we gazed at the behemoth over lunch.)

The second was how this particular Gundam represents more than yet another Gundam. Its existence is a totem of the sheer impact the otaku have had on mainstream Japanese society. Marveling that it is officially linked (however tenuously) to the city's Olympic bid, and surrounded by a totally "normal" crowd -- largely comprised of families out for a picnic, with only one or two cosplay stragglers  among literally thousands of otherwise average citizens of all ages -- I couldn't help but remember subculture critic Shin-Ichi Karasawa's comment that “these days, if you define ‘otaku’ as ’someone who watches anime,’ you’re describing half of the people on the planet.” He's right. We're all otaku now.

Shin Otaku Gari

Yahoo Japan News: Two Men Arrested for 'Otaku Hunting' (Japanese language)

It's been a few years, but otaku hunting (or "otaku gari" as it's known in Japanese) is back in the headlines. This time, a pair of men attacked the victims in the Nihonbashi section of Osaka, an area similar to Tokyo's Akihabara. Osaka police took them into custody yesterday. At twenty and twenty two, respectively, they were undoubtedly close to the same age as many of their targets.

According to the suspects' confessions, they targeted some one hundred "otaku looking" individuals, mugging roughly fifty of them for about 3,000,000 yen ($30,000) total. Tactics included bumping a mark, dropping their own (pre-broken) cell phone, and demanding "repair money." In cases where the victim didn't have any money on them, they attempted to force them to take out a personal loan from one of Japan's many consumer lending companies.

The reason? Same as it ever was: "Otaku are weak, they give over the money and they don't talk back."

State of the Anime Industry 2009

In 2001, writer Douglas McGray dubbed Japan "a cultural superpower," coining the phrase "gross national cool" to describe the incredible influence Japanese entertainment then enjoyed throughout the world. Less than ten years later, this hip facade seems to be cracking. Precious few Japanese anime shows air on American television. Anonymous complaints from anime industry insiders incensed at atrocious pay and working conditions continue to mount. And even the Japanese Fair Trade Commission has gotten into the mix, releasing a scathing report of the problems facing animation companies. Can the anime industry save itself? Read on for a rundown of the current state of affairs in the Japanese anime industry as of 2009.

So You Wanna be a Japanese Animator

Echoing the recent coverage of the troubles facing the anime industry, here are translated excerpts of blogs written by Japanese anime industry insiders. Several are taken from a fascinating website called Off the Record Animation Industry Gossip (subtitle: "Read this if you're thinking of becoming an animator! This is the true face of the anime industry! Do you think you can survive?") Bear in mind that as these blogs are anonymous, there is no way to verify the veracity of the claims. But they are a fascinating counterpoint to the "soft power"/"Japan cool"/"otaku utopia" rhetoric often espoused by foreign journalists.

Anime Ja Nai

Japan Times: Future of 'Anime' Industry in Doubt

Tales of gloom and doom in a industry once believed to represent a future cornerstone of Japan's economy! After two years, the young woman profiled by the Japan Times reports making less than $800 a month of ten hour days. The industry lays much of the blame on losses from piracy, which is true as far as it goes and a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But all the piracy countermeasures in the world can't fix an industry that's fundamentally broken.

Saying that one is a fan of anime is like saying one is a fan of TV. It's a medium rather than a genre and needs to be judged by the content. And while there are undeniable bright spots like the occasional Miyazaki film, crossover hits like The Animatrix or Afro Samurai, and arthouse fare like Tekkon Kinkreet, it is growing harder and harder to deny that the quality of the content is really going downhill as a whole.

Working conditions in the anime world are terrible. Anime is associated with cutting-edge imagery abroad, but many of the animation studios I've visited here are run like sweatshops. The buildings are run down and the equipment is outdated. The hours are long. The pay is abysmal. The skillset is highly specialized and difficult to apply elsewhere; most kids with a knack for animation are wooed by the (slightly) higher-paying video game industry right off the bat. And more and more of the basic work needed to train the next generation, such as "in-betweeing," is farmed out to second- and even third-world countries, including by some reports North Korea. All of this has resulted in a serious hollowing out of the industry.

The motley crew of die-hards left can be an insular, isolated bunch, often incapable of producing anything other than fare that appeals to people exactly like themselves. The biggest local hits are super-niche moé and lolicon fare brimming with inside jokes and anime stereotypes that few other than dyed-in-the-wool otaku can decipher. The "golden age," in which ambitious directors transformed anime from kids' stuff into a mature vehicle capable of telling stories that appealed to broad audiences, is essentially over. That's fine; nothing lasts forever. The problem is that the industry's momentum has dramatically slowed, and piracy is only partly to blame. For all the talk of it being Japan's Next Big Thing, anime as a whole is moribund. It is an inbred little medium that is rapidly in danger of becoming irrelevant, precisely and ironically at the very moment when the world is finally starting to pay serious attention. Anime industry, heal thyself. You can do better than this -- both for your own members and for your audience.

Otaku Blues

Japan Probe: Blue Train ending service

R.I.P. Japan Rail's "blue train" sleeper cars. Another hallmark of the early days of otakudom bites the dust.

The blue train isn't directly connected to any kind of subcultural scene. But it made a brief appearance in Nakamori Akio's seminal 1983 essay "This City is Full of Otaku," which marks the first time a journalist ever used the word to describe what was then a very new cultural demographic.

In the article (which is translated in its entirety at NeoJaponisme), Nakamori includes trainspotting "dudes who nearly get themselves run over trying to capture photos of the 'blue train' as it comes down the tracks" along with more traditional otaku stereotypes of the early Eighties ("guys with...Hayakawa science-fiction novels lining their bookshelves, science fair types with coke-bottle glasses who station themselves at the local computer shop, [and] guys who get up early to secure space in line for idol singer and actress autograph sessions.") On a side note, it's interesting that only the last really resonates as an image of otaku these days.

Otacon/Lolicon

I've been playing Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3 for the last few weeks. Hugely anticipated, critically lauded, and brilliantly executed, it's undeniably the current cutting edge of Japanese game culture -- and one of the few recent international successes for an industry that's starting to struggle in the global marketplace. I had been wondering where all the military otaku went in this super-kawaii era we find ourselves living in. The answer seems obvious now: they're coding super-realistic military sims for video game companies. The attention -- make that love -- lavished on the firearms and other military hardware in this game borders on the fetishistic. 

Speaking of which... 

This is Japan, so even the hardest of hardcore military simulations has to feature a healthy dose of moé, that only-in-Japan fetishization of girlish innocence and naiveté. The relationship between introverted computer genius Hal "Otacon" Emmerich and his charge Sunny (seen above) is a diamond-polished window into the souls of the young men who work for Japanese game companies. A doe-eyed nine- or ten-year-old who resembles a child less than she does a scaled-down maid café waitress, she waits on her guardian hand and foot, cleaning, assisting with programming, and serving meals. The pair live as virtual hikikomori shut-ins on a high-tech aircraft that serves as a mobile base for the game's protagonist.

Ah, the ever-changing face of otaku wish fulfillment. Once upon a time otaku dreamed of being international ladykillers like Lupin the Third, giant robot pilots like Gundam's Char Aznable, and invulnerable martial artists like the Fist of the North Star. Now it appears the ideal lifestyle is one of a digital hermit set squarely in front of a computer monitor with an elementary schoolgirl in fetishwear at his beck and call. Could this be what Toshio Okada meant when he referred to otaku subculture as being "already dead"? Love it or hate it, the Otakon-Sunny relationship only really makes sense when it's viewed through the prism of the moé phenomenon.

Kaiju Autopsy

Originally published in 1967, the Kaiju Zukai Nyumon ("An Illustrated Introduction to Giant Monsters") is finally back on the shelves of Japanese bookstores.  "Practically every man in his forties today -- including Crown Prince Naruhito, born in 1960 -- looked at this volume as a child," wrote Takashi Murakami of the book in the catalog for the "Little Boy" exhibition. Reissued after a decades-long hiatus by Shogakukan, stuffed full of amazing illustrations of the innards of kaiju from the Ultraman series, Kaiju Zukai Nyumon is a legend, a cornerstone of the otaku aesthetic, and an absolute pleasure to read.

The book is the crown jewel in the career of Shoji Otomo (1936 - 1973), a magazine editor and tireless proponent of Japanese science fiction until his untimely death at age 36 from a prescription drug reaction. His meticulously detailed illustrations, which resemble those from an actual biology textbook, are a perfect crystallization of the off-the-wall mix of seriousness and playfulness that characterize Showa era kids' entertainment. They also laid the groundwork for an entire aesthetic in Japan: the inevitable super-realistic cutaway illustrations of famous giant robots and vehicles so common during the Seventies and Eighties are direct descendants of Otomo's brainchild. If any single book embodies the glory of an era when giant monsters ruled the airwaves, this is it. Buy it now!

Japan Cool-ing Off?

Interesting article in yesterday's Nikkei Shimbun, Japan's equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. Entitled "Kuuru Jyapan no Yuuutsu" ("The Melancholy of Cool Japan"), it paints a bleak portrait of the domestic video game industry, noting that the top two video game companies worldwide (EA and Activision-Blizzard) are now foreign. Even more to the point is the domestic market's sluggish growth in spite of a near doubling of the size of the market abroad. 

Once Japanese-made games ruled arcades and television screens. What happened?

Arséne in the Membrane

Coincidence? The very same year that Americans were being introduced to a certain black private dick who's a sex machine to all the ladies, Japanese TV introduced an animated series featuring a white private thief who's a sex machine to all the ladies: Arséne Lupin III! There must have been something in the air in 1971.

Early this muggy Tokyo morning nearly four decades later, NHK wrapped up a three-day Lupin III marathon aired in glorious HD (for whatever good high-def does for scratchy, thirty-year-old film stock). Episodes were interspersed with goodies like interviews with key staff and roundtable discussions with Lupin-loving stars. One of the highlights: snippets from a ten-minute test film whipped up in the late Sixties as part of a campaign to convince creator Monkey Punch to allow an animated version of his Mad Magazine-influenced manga about a sex-crazed international jewel thief.