If you follow a number of anime/manga people on Twitter, you may have already read this piece by Lisa Katayama that will run in Sunday’s NY Times Magazine called “Love in 2-D”. If not, I think it’s worth at least taking a look at because it flows well (I have an admiration for good feature writing) and offers an interesting look at “a subset of otaku culture” in Japan and at the psychologies of those involved in it.
I agree with some of my colleagues that the presence of prepubescent characters as targets of affection was disconcerting, particularly if one tries to consider possible misconceptions this could spawn among those not familiar with the scene. One of the people in the piece, Momo, said he never looks at child porn and that he’s “not doing anything to harm anybody”, that the characters “are works of art”, “cute girls that live in [his] imagination”. He makes a clear distinction between fictional characters and reality, unlike the reasoning behind recent obscenity cases in America involving manga.
However, what concerned me more was the mention of a government survey where 50 percent of men and women said they do not have friends of the opposite sex. (The other part that was included was the finding that more than 25% of men and women ages 30-34 are virgins but I’m more interested by the one I chose to bring up.) To me, this points to a larger societal problem of nervousness and insulation. I don’t claim to understand casual Japanese relationships – I’m using “relationships” in a broader sense to mean people you keep in touch with on a regular basis – so I don’t know if people you know from work would be considered as friends. Are there fewer social activities available or something? According to one of Lisa’s tweets, the survey comes from the government agency that monitors population and social security so there’s a hint for those who want to look for it.
Also: for those interested about how the term moé was mentioned, Lisa describes it in a way that seems a bit too escapist for me but it serves its purpose for those unfamiliar with it:
In Japan the fetishistic love for two-dimensional characters is enough of a phenomenon to have earned its own slang word, moe, homonymous with the Japanese words for “burning” or “budding.” In an ideal moe relationship, a man frees himself from the expectations of an ordinary human relationship and expresses his passion for a chosen character, without fear of being judged or rejected.
I don’t feel like writing a lengthy post about the societal views of love and relationships and frankly I think other writers can elucidate on that subject much better than I can, but I did want to write something about the article to get it off my mind for a while.
UPDATE 7/27: Adamu of Mutantfrog Travelogue has written a well-constructed response to the NYT piece where he debunks the two key statistics cited by Katayama and explains why making Nisan, the balding 30-something man, the focus skewed the piece unfairly (he thinks it would have been more fair to begin with Ken Okayama).
I saw the above book on Akibablog and instantly wanted to buy it. Published by Daiwa Shobo and retailing for 1400 yen (tax excluded), it contains profiles and illustrations of 54 philosophers paired with diagrams explaining their particular theories and Tetsu-chan (哲ちゃん) chiming in.
Profile on Socrates
It’s split into five chapters that cover ancient philosophers including Thales, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Marcus Antonius; medieval philosophers such as Jesus (really?), Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and Machiavelli; early modern philosophers like Luther, Michel de Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, and Kant; “present-day” philosophers such as Sartre and Foucault; and Eastern philosophers like Confucius and Kitaro Nishida.
On Thursday, the Chiba Lotte Marines beat the Hiroshima Carp 23-2, bolstered by a Japan-record 15-run sixth inning and a grand slam by third baseman Toshiaki Imae as part of a five-run third. (Mainichi Daily News – NPB boxscore – Marines boxscore w/ innings) The previous Japanese record for runs in a single inning was reportedly 14, but I cannot seem to find out who or when that was set. I was able to find multiple instances of 13 runs in a single frame including Hanshin in the 6th vs. Sankei (now Yakult) [May 27, 1969], Yomiuri in the 6th vs. Hanshin [June 23, 1972], and Yakult in the 1st vs. Chunichi [April 22, 1998]
Former NY Mets manager Bobby Valentine is helming the Marines and was told before the season that his contract would not renewed for 2010 and beyond. A group seeking to keep on Valentine has collected 100,000 signatures on a petition that they will send to the front office on Monday. After Saturday’s set of games, Chiba Lotte is currently 5th in the Pacific League (24-29-3) and 8 games behind the Nippon Ham Fighters. Last season, they finished 4th place in their league with a 73-70-1 record, just missing the playoffs by a half-game.
On April 18 in US baseball, the Cleveland Indians scored 14 runs in the second inning of a 22-4 win over the NY Yankees. It was the Yankees’ third home game at the new Yankee Stadium. The major league record for most runs scored in a single inning by one team is 18, set by the Boston Red Sox in the 7th frame of a June 18, 1953 game against the Detroit Tigers – the final score of that one: 23-3. (Retrosheet)
Kadokawa uploaded the above CM to its YouTube channel Friday to advertise Vol. 1 of Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san will come out on DVD May 29th for 5040 yen (about US$50). According to Animate, volume 2 and volume 3 have dates of June 25th and July 30th, respectively.
CDJapan lists the runtime for each of the three volumes (vol. 1 page) as 40 minutes, meaning one volume should contain about eight episodes of each series, assuming an average time of 3-3:30 minutes per Haruhi-chan episode and 1:30-2 min. for Churuya-san episodes. The CM also mentions first pressing extras of a soundtrack CD for volume 1 and four commentary cards & one of five bromide character cards for each subsequent volume.
When I heard on Monday that Wednesday’s Anime Almanac post would involve what Scott thought about Crunchyroll, I began thinking about writing a post that both responded to his essay and the two-part interview ICv2 posted with Crunchyroll Ken Gao. But then I got distracted and didn’t read either until Thursday, which happened to be when the post-publicationfeedback focused on credit and a rehashed discussion of the usefulness/lack thereof of comments. Read the rest of this entry »
Profile on Socrates
Short Comment on NYT Magazine 2-D Lovers Piece (Update)
July 23, 2009 in Commentary, Japan by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 1 comment
If you follow a number of anime/manga people on Twitter, you may have already read this piece by Lisa Katayama that will run in Sunday’s NY Times Magazine called “Love in 2-D”. If not, I think it’s worth at least taking a look at because it flows well (I have an admiration for good feature writing) and offers an interesting look at “a subset of otaku culture” in Japan and at the psychologies of those involved in it.
I agree with some of my colleagues that the presence of prepubescent characters as targets of affection was disconcerting, particularly if one tries to consider possible misconceptions this could spawn among those not familiar with the scene. One of the people in the piece, Momo, said he never looks at child porn and that he’s “not doing anything to harm anybody”, that the characters “are works of art”, “cute girls that live in [his] imagination”. He makes a clear distinction between fictional characters and reality, unlike the reasoning behind recent obscenity cases in America involving manga.
However, what concerned me more was the mention of a government survey where 50 percent of men and women said they do not have friends of the opposite sex. (The other part that was included was the finding that more than 25% of men and women ages 30-34 are virgins but I’m more interested by the one I chose to bring up.) To me, this points to a larger societal problem of nervousness and insulation. I don’t claim to understand casual Japanese relationships – I’m using “relationships” in a broader sense to mean people you keep in touch with on a regular basis – so I don’t know if people you know from work would be considered as friends. Are there fewer social activities available or something? According to one of Lisa’s tweets, the survey comes from the government agency that monitors population and social security so there’s a hint for those who want to look for it.
Also: for those interested about how the term moé was mentioned, Lisa describes it in a way that seems a bit too escapist for me but it serves its purpose for those unfamiliar with it:
I don’t feel like writing a lengthy post about the societal views of love and relationships and frankly I think other writers can elucidate on that subject much better than I can, but I did want to write something about the article to get it off my mind for a while.
UPDATE 7/27: Adamu of Mutantfrog Travelogue has written a well-constructed response to the NYT piece where he debunks the two key statistics cited by Katayama and explains why making Nisan, the balding 30-something man, the focus skewed the piece unfairly (he thinks it would have been more fair to begin with Ken Okayama).
Tags: Commentary, Japan, lisa katayama, ny times, otaku, society