Zitat:
Generational Debat
TM: I have to confess, I don't think I fully understand the moe sensibility.
TO: The moe generation is mostly made up of otaku thirty-five or younger.
I myself belogn to the previous otaku generation, so frankly I don't understand moe.
The generational shift is aprubt. Some people below a certain age know what moe is about. but those of us above that age can't figure out why they like bishoujo so much. It seems to us that they like anything involving beautiful young girls.
There is a generational debate. The liveliest topic in the otaku world these past few years has been this debate.
Amongst themselves, otaku refer to belonging to this generation or that.
KM: I'm not that interested in the generational debate. Once youhave a clear definition of otaku, then you can have a generational debate. But there is no generally accepted frameworkfor understanding otaku. So it's futile to subdivide otaku.
TO: Morikawa-san, what is your definition of otaku?
KM: If you track the central focus of so-called otaku through the generations, Okada-san's generation focused on sicence fiction, followed by a generation that favoured anime, which in turn followed by another interested in moe anime and bishujo games. How did this evolution take place? Manga provided a handy example. Before I was born [in 1972], colledge students reading manga on the trains were considered a social problem.
Back then, manga were for children. Grown-ups were supposed to watch TV dramas. Foreign TV drama were batter than domestic ones, and films were even bether than that. And European films were considered more sophisticated than Hollywood movies. There was a clear cultural hierarchy, and manga were at the bottom. The spiteful label otaku was attatched to grownups who had unacceptable tastes and still ennjoyed kids' stuff.
Sa far as society is concerned, today's otaku taste for moe is more repugnant than watching porn. Eroticism is not the only motivation that informs their fasciantion with moe. They have a strong urge for what is unacceptable.
Otaku who buy Weelky Dearest My Brother not only feel affection for toy figures, but also enjoy being the kind of people who "buy emparassing, tasteless things."
TO: Otaku are bashful. They are intelligent but so bashful that they're more comfortable with children's anime than wo regular movies.
They can shed their reserve if a serious idea is filtered through a "Made for Children" lavel. I suspect that people who love thys and figures, manga, and anime love them because they can see the world throughthisfilter of reticence.
Otaku consume this stuff because of the twists that indulge their shyness.
At any rate, I have never seen an orientation towards the unacceptable among otaku.
For example, Space Battleship Yamato dates from the first half of the 1970s, followed by Mobile Suit Gundam. Now, Morikawa-san, would you say Gundam was more unacceptable than Yamato? I dont think so.
the more examples you show, the less solid your theory becomes.
KM: Well, let me repeate myself. Being no godd, dame, doesn't mean the quality is poor. On the contrary...the quality is very high, but it's a matter of self-consciousness on the part of the otaku.They are concerned that their self-indulgence appears socially unacceptable.
TO: Well, then. do you mean from the mid- to late 1970s, things got progressively more unacceptable from Yamato, to Gundam and then to Nausicaä? I dont think so.
an inclination for dame appears to exist because otaku have shifted to bishoujo these past few years. within this limited context, you may have a point, but veteran otaku have to disagree.
KM: Generally speaking, I see a downwards spiral.
Aum Shinrikyou was influenced by Genma Wars. In the 1980s, otaku dreamet of Armageddon; they fantasized about employing supernatural powers to create a new world after the end of the world.
But Aum's subway attack in 1995 throughoutly shattered the post-apocalyptic otaku dream of creating a new world in which they would be heroes.
After their apocalyptical fantasies collapsed, they stadily shifted to moe. Before theri Armageddon obsession, there was science fiction, which provided otaku with an alternative to the actual future. In the broadest terms, moe has replaced "future".
TO: But your definition of "science fiction" is narrow. In Japan, science fiction was viable as a literature of alternative futures only through the 1930s. From the 1960s onwards, science fiction became socially conscious, a lens into alternative societies.
In Japan science fiction was associated with the future only during the brief periode between Word War I and II. As you know, Japan sinks by Sankyou Komatsu, a blockbuster in 1973, wasn't a story about the future. Futuristic science fiction never took off here.
TM: Morikawa-san, how do you define the "future"?
KM: Teh future is not merely a time yet to come. It's a vision of the world based on sicentific understanding.
TO: Again, that is true only through the 1940s. Even the vision of the future presented by Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were discredited by the harsh attacks from the New Wave movement.
Whether we're talking about science fiction or anime, our views are so divergent. I don't see things the way sou do, Morikawa-san. Not at all.
KM: You mean, we have an unbridgeable gap?
TO: Not necessarily. I am sympathic to your observaton that Expo 70 prefigured an otaku landscape, and that today's otaku are fascinated with moe. But as far as your definition of otaku is concerned, I think you are wrong. Because we are reading different "texts".
TM: I'm beginning to see a crucial generation gap between Okada-san and Morikawa-san. Speaking from my generation, I, too, find otaku more compelling than moe.
TO: Murakami-san, i know you are preoccupied with otaku, but I don't think that otaku will generate anything more interesting than moe.
I belong to a group of model-tank makers. When I meet with them, I can't tell them appart from the guys who are obsessed with moe. They carry backpacks and wear sweatsuits. They look like stereotypical moe enthuasiasts, but you never know, which toy figure - bishoujo or model tank - they're going to pull out of their backpacks.
If we refer to them as a "tribe", they all belong to the same tribe, but model-tank guys are never into bishoujo. Actually they hate bishoujo.
(hiermit meint er, dass sie von Kleidung und Verhalten in dieselbe Gruppe eingeordnet werden könnten. "zoku", jap. Gruppe, Stamm wurde ursprünglich verwendet, um die Gruppe jugendlicher Motorradganger mit spezifischer Kleidung und Verhaltensweisen zu bezeichnen.)
KM: How are they different from mania?
TO: To answer your question, I have to go back ti my own definition of otaku. The sole differnece between mania and otaku is their social acceptabilitiy. Otaku are mania who are socially rejected. Conversely, the hobbies of mania are those that are socially acepted.
For example, the moment girls decide that motorbikes aren't cool, motorbike mania become motorbike otaku. It's just a matter of societal labeling. That's the difference between otaku and mania.
KM: Doesn't that mean they are oriented toward the unacceptable?
TO: No, it doesn't. Even if a motorbike mania suddenly becomes a motorbike otaku, he doesn't become an otaku because he is unacceptable. He only becomes unacceptable because society says he is.
Let's use an extreme example. It's possible that one day the Japanese people will suddenly become the enemie of the world for some reason.
Would you then say we Japanese are inheretly unacceptable? I don't think so. It boils down to the question of societal labeling.
KM: In that case, let's suppose that one day anime is legitimized and enters school text books. Would otaku obsessed with anime toady still love anime then? I think not. That's not plausible.
Okada-san, if we accept your definition, otakushould love anime regardless of how society values it. If anime became so wonderful that schooteachers recommend it to their students, would otaku still seek out anmie? I seriously doubt it.
TO: I can prove you wrong. Some otaku works are socially accepted, others are not. Anime films by, say, Hayao Miyazaki or Mamoru Oshii are respected. Have otaku lost interest and quit watching them? No.
I dont think societabl labelings affect what they are attracted to. In fact, many otaku support Mamoru Oshii's latest animated film, Ghost in the Shell 2:Innocence.
Moriwaka-san, when you talk about dame, the unacceptable, aren't you talking about "literature" (bungaku)? For practicioners of jun-bungaku [literally, "pure literature"], literature was about ecoming unacceptable. After Evangelion came out as a TV serie in 1995, everybody fell in love with dame.
Until then, literature was only relevant within the realms of pure literature. Some rock musicians may have liked it a bit. But, thanks to Evangelion, ordinary people, young people enthuasiastically embraced it. Eva made it OK for the main character to be pathetic. By the standards of conventional anime, it's inconceivalbe that Eva's main character diesn't try harder. But that's precisely what makes him so appealing today. While literature used to shock and suprise us in the past, anime shocks and suprises us today. A dame-orientation was called literature.
(Er spricht hier von Zwischenkriegs- und Nachkriegsliteratur, Autoren wie Kawabata und Mishima, die Dekadenz und Schönheit trotz moralischem Verfall feierten und von der Konfessionsliteratur, wie z.b. Mishimas "Geständnis einer Maske" und noch einige ander Bücher in diese Richtung.)
KM: Don't you think Gundam got a similar reception? The main character was a computer geek.
TO: In Gundam, one thrust of the story was the main character's desire to be recognized by others. so Gundam and Eva are completely different.
KM: As I said before, the 1980s-era fascination with the apocaliptic was shattered by Aum. I think moe emerged as an alternative, to fill that void.
TO: I see. To me, Eva was all about "Since I can't do anything about changing the world, I will do soemthing about myself." Don't you think robot anime is all about "trying to change the world"?
Morikawa-san, you talked about the apocalyptic. One step before that is "social reform" (yo-naoshi). One of the key concepts for understanding otaku is "a child#s sense of justice". The reason grown-ups are enthuasiastic about Kamen rider and the "warrior team" genre (sentai mono) is because thas basic sense of justice, which was abandoned in society long ago, is still meaningful in the world of these TV shows.
Of course, there's also the terrific monster design and panchira, but that's not enough to keep the boys interested. That basic sense of justice worked until Eva. But with Eva, it became clear that no one could save the world. And Eva complicated the whole thing, raising issues such as "Maybe I should at least ave myself" and "What's wrong with me, thinking only about saving myself?" Eva marked the turning point. Whatever we duscuss today, we cannot avoid Eva.
KM: After Eva, a genre called Sekai-kei [literally, "world type"] emerged, and it's very popular now. In this genre, private feelings and emotions are directly linked to the fate of the world.
TO: She, the Ultimate Weapon is the definitive sekai-kei.
KM: And Eva.
TO: Reading just a couple of volumen of Saikao will give you a sense of the sekai-kei sensibility.
In the tylica logic of sekai-kei, the same weight is assigned to one's private emotions and the end of the world. In She, the world comes to an end, The main character witnesses the annihilation of the world, which happens to be caused by his girlfirend. His love for her and his despair over the destroyed planet are expressed through the same emotion.
But making a sekai-kei einds artist's careers.
KM: You mean, like Hideaki Anno, who created Eva?
TO: That's right. Anno-san had been in rehabilitation ever since [by getting away from anime and working on live-action films.]
