To answer your question in a roundabout way, the subject came up after we left a lecture by Dr. Paul Hanscomb on “Tales from the Floating ‘Hood: Arguing Japaneseness in Anime and Popular Culture.”

My rough synopsis of the lecture isn’t to be entirely trusted, since the festival we heard him at was months ago and my memory is shaky, but it went something like this: The Boomers in Japan defined themselves by their extreme work ethic and productivity, but now that their economy has suffered a lengthy recession and cannot support that kind of lifestyle, the Japanese have been going through a lengthy identity crisis. “What does it mean to be Japanese?,” they ask, and Dr. Hanscomb selected four different anime that gave different views on who the Japanese are, and what they can do to find the vigor they used to have before the Lost Decade.

I came away from the lecture invigorated and excited. Dr. Hanscomb made a convincing case for his theory, drawing on history, recent events, and the writings of Japanese social critics to support his ideas, and then threw new light on shows I had already seen. I felt like I had a better understanding of the Japanese after the lecture.

Dr. Hanscomb also asked a question after the Q&A. “Why,” he asked, “does Japanese anime not have its equivalent of Batman?” In other words, why do heroes in anime seem to always come from the public sector? Where are the heroes like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne who use their own money and resources to save Japan from destruction? The sticking point, of course, is whether or not there are no “Batmans” in anime. We suggested MITHRIL (Full Metal Panic), but he rejected that since MITHRIL saves the world and not necessarily Japan. We brought up other heroes and organizations, but they were all shot down for one reason or another.

When we left the festival and got to the after party, one of my friends complained that the “Batman” theory was too specific, I said that maybe, but just that there was a trend gave some credence to the question, and he said this, and I said that, and then came up the straw man thing, and so on and so forth. Like I said, I can’t remember it all very well. I blame the sake tasting, several bottles of Japanese beer, and a Debutante Detective Corps and Sakura Diaries marathon.

But I said all that to say this. Carl and OGT wrote some excellent posts about the nature of academia, and the points about how journalism and academia differ are all insightful. But speaking as someone who simply has a hunger to LEARN, it’s very frustrating to read an academic article that’s so inbred in other theories, and so eager to impress other academia by using convoluted theories that it’s impossible to tell whether or not it’s prima facie bullshit. I told you about Dr. Hanscomb’s lecture to give you an example of the kind of things I’d love to see more of in academia, even though I know that what I want doesn’t amount to a fart on a windy day. I suppose, in the end, I’m writing to vent some frustrations more than anything else.

Alex Leavitt:

What kind of theories could lead to an idea like that?! I wonder if they’re as imaginative as Napier’s conclusion.

Daryl:

I’m also curious what you don’t like about Roland Kelt’s Japanamerica, since I thought it was a well written, well researched book.

So yes, the bullshit factor is a serious consideration when it comes to academic articles on Japanese popular culture. We desperately want the texts we’re discussing to be taken seriously outside of our field, however, and the use of theory is the best possible means to attain this goal. If I can take a film like Akira and connect it to the formation of postmodern national identity and the trauma of the technologically fractured self (for example), then I can reach a much broader audience within academia than I could by explaining that the film is absolutely badass and needs to be seen by everyone with eyes and a DVD player (no matter how eloquent that explanation may be).

Each academic essay on a particular work contributes to the process of academic canonization, which means that more anime and manga is going to be taught in classrooms, which means that many more people are going to join in the non-academic conversation about the media. As an added bonus, this whole process of cultural legitimization more than likely brings in more money to a struggling industry.

In other words, academic theory is the magical second step following interest in Japanese popular culture that results in profit. For everyone. (^_^)

OGT, I took the risk and looked at your site, and I agree with you about Diebuster. I actually wasn’t into it at first, but then, I wasn’t into the original Gunbuster at first, either ^_^

Theoretically you take in a anime or manga and then use your related knowledge and research to extract meaning from the work and/or tie it to greater trends. Theoretically you are also open to other people’s interpretation. You don’t have to back down from your own theories but you give equal credence to other people’s theories, interpretation, and criticisms. That is the ideal anyway.

In realty some academics go in with a theory and cut away anything and everything that does not fit the theory that they set out to prove before they even started. Other times people go in with odd academic fetishes or conceptions and it influences their conclusions. Some people wield their theories like weapons and do not take at all to criticism. Academia can be a petty petty place.

All that being said people go to the hospital to be healed and sometimes they die anyway. But that does not mean we close down the hospitals. Despite all the flaws in the western academic study of anime the only way it will improve is for scholarly fans to see what is good and what is bad and then create their own papers that takes those lesson into account. So I will continue to read such works and hope that those who find legitimate fault this the field do their best to correct said faults.

- Hisui

Carl:

That is also what happens: journalism is concerned with criticism, whereas academia is concerned with Criticism. The former is marked by judgment, the latter by analysis. The problem with academic Criticism is that it’s highly inaccessible to the casual fan–not only due to the jargon and the background knowledge needed for the proper processing and registering of the Criticism, but also there’s a question of relevance. I find reading a good academic treatise can be a rewarding experience–but not always a relevant experience. I find literary theory to be interesting stuff, for instance (this is probably the result of talking to the Super Fanicom guys about Northrup Frye), but I don’t feel it has any direct relevance and bearing on what I do when I read a book (or, for that matter, watch an anime).

What I want to see is writing that takes an academic approach to anime–or anything, really–but does so in a “journalistic” manner, with an eye towards making the academics relevant to the fanbase at large. To use a long-bandied about example, I can hypothetically do a Marxist reading of, say, GaoGaiGar, and do it well, but–really now–how many fans of GaoGaiGar are going to care about how that series interacts with Marx’s theory?

But I think there are academic or intellectual approaches to GaoGaiGar that I think could be very relevant and interesting to someone who likes that particular franchise, mecha series in general, or even just anime in general. My natural inclination is to tend towards sociocultural and/or anthropological approaches, and I think that a piece placing the themes of GaoGaiGar into a cultural context would certainly be an interesting read, right or wrong.

So, in other words, I think more people should steer a fine course between the Scylla of frivolous academia and the Charybdis of frivolous journalism.

Thanks for some great discussion.

I’ve read a lot of academic papers on films and literature and often find myself thinking “Really? Seriously…really?” However, I’m not in the academic field and would say I’m more on the journalistic side of things; so more often than not I am looking for a journalistic view on whatever I am researching. I’m not the academic’s target audience.

That isn’t to say that academic studies on the subject matter I’ve read haven’t provoked some thoughts of deeper analysis or at least made me think about something I hadn’t before in regards to the topic.

I would almost liken it to comparing a piece which was made for an interested general audience, such as Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, to a symposium on the same subject presented to fellow experts in the field. The language and presentation are going to be very different, despite them dealing with the same general subject matter. The subjects an interested general audience will find important often won’t be the same subjects that the literati found to be important.

They don’t ask or really even concern themselves with “was this anime/manga good, and why?” They’re more interested on how it has impacted a micro-society, or whether or not it challenges some specific theory, or whether some new theory might be gleaned from the work. When presenting their thoughts. I believe it’s kind of an understood rule that they for the sake of brevity omitted the passage: “Now, for the sake of argument, assume what I just said was actually all true,” preceding their conclusions.

Not only its subjective qualities as a work, but its original context and methods–the matters that might concern the journalist–are less important to the academic than seeking to demonstrate that the work is relevant or can be understood through particular theoretical approaches that were, of course, developed by people other than anime and manga artists.

The journalist is discussing the work in of itself, or in relation to other works, or, perhaps, its relation to broader issues or events, but the academic is in a position similar to someone who’s sponsoring a pledge into a private club or society. That pledge has to show itself to be acceptable by that particular society’s rules, customs, and beliefs; when queried, it is expected to dress in a certain way and respond in a certain way. That doesn’t mean it loses its individuality–the anime or manga still is whatever it originally was–but the academic’s goal is to have it newly accepted within the working context of their professional peer group, and it is presented accordingly.

Having said that, I think academic writing on Japanese pop culture can have value to the non-academic fan. The jargon and references aren’t deliberately meant to irritate the non-academic; it’s just de rigueur in that type of specialist writing, like kaomoji are on 2ch. If one perseveres, academic writing on anime can sometimes offer insights the non-academic fan can also accept as interesting or valid; but the intended audience of such a work are academics, and moreover, academics who are not necessarily anime fans per se.

If I watch or read something – anything – if I don’t find myself mulling over themes or ideas in the work I’m always hugely dissapointed. But at the same time I do find a lot of academic writing on anime to be intelectualising to the point of near-nonsense. I guess there’s a middle ground that me and some other writers are trying to fill? I’d like to think there’s an audience out there for accessable but mature commentary.

In other words, I think it’s perfectly okay to raise any objections you have as long as they are thought out. But you need to raise them. I am sure the likes of Napier would love to consider any constructive criticism you may have on their ideas. Criticism is a part of academics.

The problem, as far as I can tell, is indeed that the academics don’t really grasp the actual subtext of manga and anime. The defense for this is, generally, “one reading does not invalidate another reading” which is very very true–according to reader-response theory, two different people will construct two different readings from the same material–but at the same time it can be the academic equivalent of bullet-time for dodging criticisms of their criticism.

I haven’t picked up Mechademia 2 yet, but I’m willing to bet that the giant robot article is a perfectly fine reading and thematic analysis of RahXephon. The problem appears to be that it presents itself as something much bigger than a reading and thematic analysis of RahXephon. Which is exactly the problem: making overbroad, hasty generalizations.

My experience with anime clubs leads me to believe that a lot of the people who attend anime clubs tend to either shy away from artistic/literary/fictional theory, or will denounce it entirely as an exercise in futility and outright making-things-up. Is that the case with yours, you feel?

http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/2009/09/11/j-p-meyer-on-studies-of-visual-arts/

(That said, I own a copy of Japanamerica and I never saw that kind of writing in there. It was like, actual research!)

We also had major issues with Susan Napier’s essay in the first Mechademia.

-Narutaki

And in response to Daryl’s question: not to flatter you or myself, but I think that asking this question honestly is very intellectual. “Anti-intellectualism” would be never bothering to find out if we’re wrong.

There’s a number of things you might be feeling or registering when reading those articles.

Perhaps it’s the doubt you get when a jump in logic seems too large for the point presented to seem relevant. You ask, “how did they go from that evidence to THAT conclusion? What am I missing?” And while sometimes it’s just a matter of knowing where the writer is coming from, other times you realize it’s because they want to have a powerful thesis, and so will make extraordinary leaps just to keep in line with it. This is all wrapped in a cloak of defense which tries to legitimize anime and manga for fellow academics, and the result is that points aren’t made as a result of evidence or even things which come from the shows themselves, but from how they line up with certain prevalent philosophies in academics and literary theory etc.

I’ve read some of Mechademia 2, and the articles that jump out at me as having similar issues are the one about Ranma fanfics, and the one about giant robots. The Ranma one may have made some good points, but the way it introduces itself, about 3 or 4 pages without a single mention of Ranma or fanfiction outside of the title, you start to wonder what in the world the author’s talking about. I’m here to read about your thesis on Ranma fanfiction, not the ways in which mass media have transformed thinking.

The giant robot one’s problem is that towards the beginning of the essay, it says that when the pilot is male, the story is about pilot-in-isolation, whereas when the pilot is female, the story is about pilot-in-communication. Hey, that’s a great hypothesis. Now back it up with some examples. There’s plenty of shows with female pilots, and even more with male ones. But the author doesn’t, and we’re to simply assume that this is how it is. And then the essay turns into a reading of RahXephon, which is hardly indicative of giant robot anime as a whole, and the essay doesn’t even talk about in what ways RahXephon is or is not similar to its predecessors.

While I won’t say that all the Japanese articles are golden, one thing I have noticed from more Japanese scholars on anime and manga than English-speaking Western ones is the ability to understand that anime and manga have their own sort of language and grammar when it comes to how a story is told or why the art or the panels or the timing are the way they are, and so approach the topic from inside manga outwards, instead of many western scholars who approach it from the outside inwards. This might attribute to a lot of the differences in how believable their writings are.

I don’t know what prompts this mental note. But every single time I read or hear something from Susan Napier, Roland Kelts, Ian Condry, and the like my instant reaction is “my God, you are so full of it” even though I myself have certainly NOT done a lick of research into the matter in question. Have I been infected by rampant anti-intellectualism? Or are there others besides myself who mostly read Mechademia for the translated essays by Japanese writers, and can take or leave the remainder?