[PREV - OTAKU_AHISTORICAL]    [TOP]

OTAKU_HISTORICAL

                                               May 7, 2012

There's a line of thought popular
among the otaku that Japan is
currently recovering from a thin
veneer of Christian puritanism
imposed by the West, and quickly        In an episode of "Samurai
returning to the relaxed hedonism       Champloo", from 2001 (the same
of the Edo period.                      year that Azuma's book came
                                        out) Watanabe inserted a brief
Azuma's take is not quite               polemic to this effect.
as culturally self-
congratulatory (p.11):                                 He also tacked on
                                                       an (even more)
  "Therefore, if at this time we                       irrelevant aside
  percieve a Japanese esthetic in                      about homosexuality
  the composition of anime and                         as an Edo ideal.
  special effects, it is also
  necessary to recall that neither                     (There's always a queer
  anime or special effects existed                     conspiracy at work, I'm
  in Japan prior to a few decades                      telling you.)
  ago and that their process of
  becoming 'Japanese' is rather
  convoluted. Otaku may very well
  be heirs to the Edo culture, but
  the two are by no means
  connected in a continuous line.
  Between the otaku and Japan lies
  the United States."
                                               (The US lies
                                               anywhere it can.)

                DISTORTING_MIRROR



                                      He has some interesting
                                      things to say about the
                                      transition between Gundam
                                      and Evangelion.

                                          EVANGELION

                                                         In "Lucky Star" the
                                                         main character's dad
                                                         was a Gundam fan,
                                                         representing an
                                                         earlier generation
                                                         of otaku.


                           Apparently, Postmodernism in
                           japan was something of a popular
                           fad in the 80s, not confined to
                           an academic subculture.

                                The work at hand, for example,
                                became a bestseller.



--------
[NEXT - OTAKU_KEY]