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OTAKU_DEFEATED

                                               May 7, 2012


                                              "Oatku Japan's
      "Art critic Sawaraki Noi,               Database Animals" (2001)
      for example, asserts that               by Hiroki Azuma
      contemporary art operated
      for a prolonged period                       OTAKU_BASE
      within a 'negative space'
      dictated by the war defeat,
      and that the artists
      themselves did not face up                    I actually wonder what
      to this situation until                       effect Japan's "lost
      after the 1990s." -- p. 15                    decade" had on the
                                                    rise of the Otaku.
    The 1990s is a long time for that               Economic malaise can
    realization to stay on hold...                  have odd, counter-
                                                    cyclical effects on
    Easier to grasp from afar?                      sub-cultures... when
                                                    the straight world
                                                    seems to offer nothing
                                                    much, people begin
                                                    looking side-ways...
    Much like this:

       "The obsession with Japan in otaku
       culture did not develop from Japanese
       tradition but rather emerged after
       this tradition had disappeared. To put
       it another way, the trauma of defeat--
       that is, the harsh reality that we had
       decisively lost any traditional
       identity lies beneath the existence of
       otaku culture."  p. 15

    Much as, say, Noam Chomsky's
    understanding of US politics is far
    easier to come to for a European.




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