Unfortunately, I won’t have time to teach Japanese or Anime/Manga in ‘08-’09. It’s really sad, but it’s for the best. I am excited to work full time for a community organization based in Chinatown and Brooklyn. But I will definitely miss spending time in the classroom talking about Japanese pop culture and language.
However, I’m working on a manga project that I’m writing and illustrating. Since I’m executing both aspects by myself, it is going veeeeeery sloooooooowly. I might unveil it on this blog, or I might create another home for it. In any case, I’ll announce it here as soon as it is ready.
At TRCS today we had a very interesting class (student presentations!), where we talked about Harajuku fashion. Here are some images of Harajuku fashion:
From the pages of FRUITS, an influential fashion book focusing on Japanese street fashion. (early 2000s)
“Sweet Goth Lolita” walking down the street with a “Dark Goth Lolita” (mid- to late-2000s)
Ganguro girls from the magazine EGG (late 90s, early 2000s).
Who’s that tall white woman? Oh right, it’s Gwen Stefani. And the others? Figments of her “imagination.”
Some questions raised during the class:
Who’s trying to be something they’re not?
What is Harajuku? Is it a street? Is it a fashion trend? Is it a movement? or is it something Gwen Stefani “imagined”?
Is Lolita a girl’s name? Is it a porcelain doll?
Why do people want to look different? Why do they want to look not-like-themselves?
Do I want to look different? Do I want to BE different?
What is “really” Japanese?
Here are the youtube videos I mentioned:
watch this, “Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani:
and now this, from Mad TV:
What do you think the folks at Mad TV are really trying to say?
This afternoon at E, we had a very interesting and dynamic discussion of the article below (follow the link).
A lot of people who are peripherally exposed to anime, like the readers of the Wall Street Journal, seem to have the impression that Anime = Porn. In the editorial “Manga Mania” (Aug 31, 2007), Bianca Bosker presents a convoluted and flawed, badly-researched argument that using anime to promote Japan’s image overseas is a bad idea because anime is pornographic and propagandistic. There is a pretty good analysis of the editorial by la_contessa here.
Basically la_contessa critiques the tendency of ignorant Amerikans (including the over-educated Bianca Bosker, a fellow at the Far Eastern Economic Review) to
collapse all anime – a diverse and rich medium of expression – into a single genre and
assume that All Anime Is Porn.
Here are some choice quotes from Bosker’s article that help la_contessa to make such a critique:
Perhaps the biggest problem is the highly sexualized nature of the form, which can be exceptionally seedy, if not illegal.
Anime and manga also tend to perpetuate negative images of daily life in Japan.
What la_contessa fails to do however is offer any analysis of why they tend to do this. Here are my two cents:
Ethnocentric Amerikans think that the little they see of anime is representative of the entire phenomenon. This is comparable to how many Amerikans think that All Asians Are Basically The Same.
The most ubiquitous anime available in the US is online and in video stores and is unabashedly pornographic in content. Why? Because it sells, duh!
And if I may, I’d like to make the following extended metaphor:
The Amerikan perception of anime is like the Amerikan perception of hip-hop. The highest-selling hip-hop and rap songs/videos are the super-sexual and most hedonistic, but does that mean there aren’t rappers and emcees writing really good music? Take 50-Cent, the Ying-Yang Twins, Lil Kim (especially back in the day). Then take a look at the Coup, Blackalicious, Talib Kweli… the list goes on in both directions. Byron Hurt has a really great documentary on this phenomenon of who produces gangsta rap, who profits, who gets exploited, and who ultimately suffers the consequences. It’s called Beyond Beats and Rhymes. I urge everyone to check it out, even if it has little or nothing to do with Japanese language/culture. (On the other hand, both hip-hop and anime cultures have global appeal, and there are interesting intersections between the two…)
She sings in the language of Amami. Some of my my students have been listening to Hajime Chitose’s songs during class. Her is a little interview I found while I was going through my old stuff.
Family Name: Hajime
Name: Chitose
Born: Jan 5 1979 Amami O-shima (Kagoshima Prefecture)
Hits: “Wadatsumi no Ki”
Albums: Hainumikaze
Amami-kotoba (the language of Amami) is an “old language” – Hajime laughs that young people only use it to joke around. But where she grew up, far from the cities, she used it every day at home and in the community. When she started going to Tokyo to record, people told her it was interesting and different, which is how she decided to protect her own language, she says in this interview.
She first started singing shima-uta (the style of songs, literally “island-song”) in middle school, when she met someone through her samisen class who won the National folk song contest.
This is a great website for those of you who are advanced Japanese readers (meaning you can read hiragana and katakana and you know some grammar). It’s called pop-jisyo. It allows you to read any Japanese (and other Asian) language website just by pointing your mouse over an unfamiliar word! Enjoy.
Some students in one of my classes proposed doing a research project on an aspect of Japanese culture and history. In honor of their desire for deeper understanding, I have decided to do presentations of my own! One of my dreams is to write a book on representations of different races and ethnicities in Anime. This might seem like a small topic for some of you, but trust me, it is HUGE. I even have another blog devoted entirely to talking about race in anime, so I won’t be able to go through all of it in one post. For now, let’s start by talking about the history of anime in Japan and beyond. There are many histories related to anime, but I am going to try to present this in a way that’s easy to follow.
First, you should know the difference between anime and manga. You can go to wikipedia, but I don’t like their article on the subject of anime, so here is a little blurb I wrote up about anime vs. manga:
Anime is a controversial term, but I’m going to use it to refer to media originating in Japan as well as influenced by Japanese style animation media (like Korean, Chinese, and U.S.-produced works). Note that Anime is a MEDIUM or an ART FORM not a GENRE. These days, critics are becoming more conscious about the difference, but there was a time when film critics would lump all anime into a single genre, ignoring the wide range and depth of genres within Anime. Japanimation refers to anime that is produced “in Japan” – but many of these are made with out-sourced Korean labor, so it’s complicated.
Manga is comic-book format anime-style literature. Basically: stylized comics originally from Japan or strongly influenced by Japanese anime style. Manga are written/drawn by manga-ka.
To begin, TEZUKA Osamu is considered by most anime and manga historians to be the “God of Manga.” He created some of the first modern manga in Japan and inspired the “Golden Age of Manga” in the late 1940’s. He created some of the most famous characters in the world, like Astro Boy (1963), Kimba the White Lion (1965), etc. Here is a clip from Youtube:
One of the first things that you mght notice is that Astro Boy has massive eyes that take up well over a third of his face. Compare to this animated short of Betty Boop, a major source of inspiration for Tezuka:
Notice that this particular clip of Betty Boop shows her as a ringleader for some kind of Third World freak show, ahem, I mean “Talent Show,” with caricatures of all races. Betty Boop was created in 1930, way before the Civil Rights struggles of the 50’s and beyond. The Betty Boop series wasn’t the first popular spectacle to make a profit off of racist stereotypes. Minstrel shows like the show Betty Boop puts on in this animated short were popular as far back as the blackface minstrel shows of the 1800s.
Also, going back to Astro Boy, notice that he can fly faster than a speeding train, he can fly around the world (there is a shot of milk maids in the Swiss Alps), and he can explode through mountains. The production date (1963) of Astro Boy indicates that it was made for a post-war (read: after World War II) era in which Japan is struggling to heal from the destruction of the incendiary bombs from the air raids on all major cities. Not only that, the Japanese government, under the Allied (American) Occupation, was trying to promote technological advancement in order to become a “First World” nation.
I think that’s enough for now. More next week! Don’t forget to post your comments!
Tachiyomi – an activity in which one reads (yomu) while standing (tatsu)
So you want to read manga but lack the funds with which to do so… Well, there are some very helpful and free websites brought to you by hard-working scanlators (people who scan, then translate manga). Below are a few sites offering scanlations:
For those of you looking to immerse yourself in spoken Japanese but lack the funds to go to Japan, you can watch J-Dramas – Japanese TV shows (really, they’re just Japanese soaps) – for real, live, up-to-the-minute trendy spoken Japanese. Here is where to find them if you are sick of going on Youtube or google-video:
Finally, for those of you who just have to engage in tachiyomi and already exhausted the local library’s collection of manga, you can read-while-standing for as long as your legs can hold you up at:
Book Off:12 E 41st St Manhattan - original Japanese and translated Japanese and Korean manga and manhwa on the second floor
Kinokuniya: 6th Ave & 41st ST (Bryant Park) Manhattan – new location, squeaky floors, wall art by one of my heroes, Takehiko Inoue (see pics)
Forbidden Planet:840 Broadway (Union Sq) Manhattan – on the second fl. they have a decent collection of manga, manhwa, DVDs, Gothic Lolita Bible, etc.
Borders - I heard at NYCC that the major chains are increasing shelf space just for manga and other graphic novels
Barnes & Noble – see above
I’ll have to check out some of these other stores in midtown Manhattan and get back to you. There are more, just forget where they are…
In October 2007 the Japan Foundation announced a 26.4% increase over the past 4 years in the number of people studying Japanese around the world.
The Foundation cited the dissemination of Japanese pop-culture, including anime, movies, and video games, as a major reason for the increase. Countries with the highest number of students were: Korea, China, and Australia. The most common reasons for learning Japanese were “to gain more knowledge of Japanese culture” and “to become able to communicate in Japanese.”
The world is being flooded with Japanese culture – from anime to sushi to Jpop. You might think you’re learning Japanese but are you… really? (Actually, this title comes from the 1980s Vapors song “I think I’m Turning Japanese.”) This blog is an attempt at organizing what we learn about Japan.
