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Takashi Murakami: Okada-san, Morikawa-san, thank you for coming. Our Topic today is the culture of Otaku. After Japan experienced defeat in World War II, it gave birth to a distinct phenomenon, which has gradually degenerated into a uniquely Japanese culture. Both of you are at the very center of this otaku culture. Let us begin with a big topic, the definition of otaku. Okada-san, please start off.
Toshio Okada: Well, a few years ago, I declared, "I quit otaku studies," because i thought there were no longer any otaku to speak of.
Back then [during the 1980s and eraly 1990s], there were a hundred thousand or even a million people who were pure otaku-100-proof otaku, if you will. Now, we have close to ten million otaku, but they are no more than 10- or 20-proof otaku. Of course, some otaku are still very otaku, perhaps 80 or 90 proof. Still we can't call tnhe rest of them faux otaku. The otaku mentality and otaku taste are so wiedespread and diverse thoday that otaku no longer form what you might call a "tribe".
Kaichiro Morikawa: Okada-san's definition of otaku sounds positiv, as if they're quiet respectable.
In my opinion, otaku are people with a certain dispositin towards being dame ["no good" or "hopeless"]. Mind you, I don't use the word negatively here.
To some extend, people born in the 1960s are saddled with the baggage of an "anti-establishment vision". In contrast, otaku, especially the first generation, have increasingly shed this anti-establishment sensibility.
It's important to understand, that although otaku flaunt their dame-orientation - an orientation toward things that are no good - it's not an anti-establishment strategy. This is where otaku culture differs from counterculture and subculture.
TM: Indeed, otaku are somewhat different from the mainstream. They have an unique otaku perspective, even on natural disasters. For exapmle, the reaction of Kaiyoudou's executive, Miyawako Shouichi, to witness the destruction of the great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 was "I know it's insensitive to say this [after such a terrible desaster], but I think Gamera got it wrong." You know, the aftermath of a real earthquake was used as a criterion in otaku criticism.
TO: At the time of the earthquake, I raced to Kobe from Osaka, hopping on whatever trains were still running, taking lots of pictures. I agree, Gamera got it wrong. to create a realistic effect of destruction, you need to drape thin, grey noodles over a miniature set of rubble. Otherwise you can't even approach the reality of twisted, buckled steel frames. It was like, "If you call yourself a monster filmmaker, get here now!"
When Mt. Mihara erupted in 1986, the production team of the 1984 Godzilla film went there to see it. They were true filmmakers.
Wabi-Sabi-Moe
TM: Moriwaka-san will present an exhibition about otaku and moe [literally, "bursting into bud"] at the architekture biennale in Venice in 2004. your association of otaku with architekture is unique. Please tell us about it.
TO: I was most impressed by your phrase, wabi-sabi-moe, in the exhibition thesis.
Moe is not an easy concept to comprehend, but when you linked the three ideas lingustically, it made a lot more sense.
Those who are unfamilliar with the concept of wabi and sabi [meaning "the beauty and elegance of modest simplicity"] must s••••ly wonder what's appealing about feigning poverty.
Likewise, about moe, until you get the concept, I'm s•••• people question the origins of this seeming obsession with beautiful little girls, bishoujo. But once you get it, you start to feel moe might become a megaconcept, exportable like wabi and sabi.
KM: The truth is, I made up that phraseto pitch the show. Bud suddenly it was a headline in the Yomiuri newspaper.
TO: that's so awesome. The fact that it became a headline means everybody can understand it.
KM: It's a play on something the arhitect Arata Isozaki did in his exhibition, Ma, in Paris in 1978. He provided logical English explanations for such traditional concepts as wabi and suki [meaning "sophisticated tastes"] on exhibition panels.
[...]
i decided to do the same with moe.
There is a hughe gap between people who know about moe and those who don't. Every otaku person knows moe. for them, it's so basic. Buth it's not like all young people know the term. While at graduate school, I asked my colleagues about moe but amost none of them knew it.
It dawned on me that most mainstream people just din't know it.
TM: That disparity is really intruging.
KM: It clearly corresponds with another gap between those who know that Akihabara os now an otaku town and those who don't.
Those who do know couldn't care less that others are finally catching up, while those woh don't know still think of Akihabara the way it's been portrayed in commercials for household-appicane stores. this gap reflects the state of Japanese culture and society today.
Those who are unfamilliar with moe, I only half-jokingly explained: "In the past, we introduced foreigners to such indigenous Japanese aestethic concepts as wabi and suki. These days, people abroad want to know about moe." A lot of people respond, "Oh, is that so..."
KM: Otaku are self-consciouse about being condenscended to, when they go to fashionable places like Shibuya.
but they feel safe in Akihabara, because they know they'll be surrounded by people who share their quirks and tastes.
Over time, the focus of otaku taste shifted from science fiction to anime to eroge, as young boys who once embraced the bright future promised by science gradually erode by the increasingly grim reality around them. I think they needed an alternative.
TO: I think kawaii si the concept Murakami-san exported throughout the world.
Granted, Murakami-san's kawaii is alarming enough. But I wonder why i was further alarmed by Morikawa-san's formulation of wabi-sabi-moe. In a previous converastion we had for a magazine article, you said "Otaku is about the vector towards dame".
As a way of expanding on that, when otaku choose this orientation, they head into the direction of becoming more and more pathetic. At the time, they enjoy watching themselves becoming increasingly unacceptable. If you think about it, in a very, very loose sense, this is wabi and sabi.
i suspect this orientation is inherent in Japanese aestethics. If you look for a western equivalent, it would be Deadence, or the Baroque, though theirs is a tendencey towards decorativeness. I imagine such people think of themselves not in terms of "See what we've doned. We're amazing," but more like, "See what we've done! How pathetic we are!"
TM: I have said this many times, but i am a "derailed" otaku.
Neither of your situations apply to me.
When I am talking to Okada-san, I remember feeling like I could never keep up with the distinct climate of the otaku world.
So, I now want to explore the reasons why I escaped being an otaku.
TO: Probably because otaku standards were so high when you tried to join them. Besides, i bet you wanted to go right to the heart of otaku, didn't you?
The closer you tried to get to the heart of the otaku world, the farther you had to go.
TM: That's not just true with otaku, though. The world of contmporary art is exactly the same. If you can't discuss its history, you won't be taken seriously and you won't be accepted on their turf. I kept being reminded of this while listening to you two talk.
TO: In other words, just as you once had to know the history of contemporary art, now you have to understand moe, right?
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