The Moé Manifesto
Page 4
ung
person in a uniform resonates
es
with us for the rest of our lives.
es.
KOTANI MARI
MOE_2_30-37.indd 36
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37
Idols, like kaiju
and anime char-
acters, are also
cataloged
MEMORIES OF YOUTH
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38
Interview with
Otsuka Eiji
Otsuka Eiji, born in 1958, is
a critic, manga writer, and
editor. He was introduced
to ethnography as a university
student and went on to write
many insightful books on Japan,
including Shojo minzokugaku (Na-
tive ethnology of girls), published
in 1989, in which he details the
rise of consumerism and its in-
tersections with the girls’ culture
that many consider key to the
emergence of what we now call
otaku culture. As a young man,
Otsuka himself was a reader of
shojo manga (manga for girls)
and editor of the subcultural
magazine Manga Burikko (1982 –
1985), which provided a space for
men to produce bishojo manga
(manga featuring cute girl char-
acters). In 1983, Manga Burikko
hosted a debate about otaku, a
term they used to refer to men
who produced fanzines and were
NNA
attracted to fi ctional girl char-
CHUM S
acters. In this interview, Otsuka
ZT
FRI
refl ects on the meaning of otaku
Y B
PH
and moé, and cautions against
RAGO
approaches that imagine Japan
TO
PH
to be unique or special.
MOE MANIFESTO
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39
From
Shojo Manga
to
Bishojo Magazines
“Moé is not cool”
Patrick W. Galbraith (PG): How should
we defi ne otaku?
Otsuka Eiji (OE): To tell the truth, I don’t really know. The word otaku was fi rst
used by writer Nakamori Akio in Manga
Burikko back in 1983 when I was in my
twenties and working as the magazine’s
editor. It was the fi rst time the term
was publicly used to refer to enthusi-
astic manga and anime fans. But I still
don’t think there is any social signifi -
cance to otaku or issue worth arguing
EIJI
about. In other words, in every country
y
SUKAT
there are fans, for example of Star Trek,
k
OY
EST
and long ago there were fans of Sherlock
ck
UROC
Holmes. Fan cultures and subcultures
transcend borders; in Japan otaku is
simply a word that refers to fans.
PG: Why do you think Nakamori chose
e
this particular word to refer to Japa-
nese fans?
OE: The term otaku is a second-person pronoun, equivalent to you. It was
used among sci-fi fans in the 1970s.
By the 1980s, the market for manga
Manga Burikk
and anime had expanded, and it
o
FROM SHOJO MANGA TO BISHOJO MAGAZINES
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40
EIJI
SUKAT OY
EST
UROC
Bishojo illustrations in Manga Burikko
supported a wide variety of specialty magazines, which provided space for new artists to work in niches. Also, with the success of the Comic Market, Tokyo’s twice-yearly gathering for fanzine producers, more events appeared where people could bring along fanzines they had made that expressed their interests, however niche they might be, and fi nd an audience. These fans realized that they were minorities at school or work, but could talk about anime, manga, and games—the topics of subculture that interested them—when together. The problem is that in Japan, there isn’t a proper word to express “you” in a situation where you want to speak passionately and personally about something to someone who isn’t a friend or a member of your family or company, someone whose name you don’t know, and to whom you haven’t been introduced formally. Calling the person by the second-person pronoun anata would sound strange as this is a OTSUKA EIJI
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41
word used between married couples. There is another second-person pronoun, kimi, but the relationship suggested by the term is too intimate. As a result, fans used the term otaku, which is a sort of honorifi c, somewhat ambiguous second-person pronoun.
Nakamori saw young people referring to one another using the term otaku, which sounds a little eccentric, especially when used by men, and used the term to ridicule them.
PG: You published Nakamori’s article criticizing otaku in Manga Burikko, which might seem like an odd decision. After all, the magazine was catering to the niche interests of manga fans.
OE: The magazine I edited, Manga Burikko, targeted a subculture of manga fans. It not only carried bishojo manga, but also manga by female artists such as Okazaki Kyoko and Sakurazawa Erika.
Things weren’t as subdivided back then, and manga otaku were interested in all sorts of things. Though he was into idols and such, Nakamori saw himself as
above otaku. There was a distinc-
EIJI
tion being made at the time be-
SUKAT
tween otaku and the “new breed”
OY
ES
( shinjinrui), who were fashion
T
URO
leaders, trendsetters, and basi-
C
cally the cool kids of consumer
culture. They knew about the
right things—the popular and
trendy things. Nakamori believed
he was a representative of the
“new breed,” and so he made fun
of otaku.
PG: When did the term otaku come
to the attention of the public?
OE: It came later. In 1989, a guy
named Miyazaki Tsutomu killed
four little girls. Because he had
A page of manga from Manga Burikko
FROM SHOJO MANGA TO BISHOJO MAGAZINES
MOE_3_38-45.indd 41
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42
several thousand videotapes in his room, attended the Comic Market, and produced fanzines, a connection was made with otaku. News reports on Miyazaki described him not just as a serial killer, but also as an otaku, and this was what really brought the term to the public and shaped perceptions of it. The media implied that Miyazaki committed the crime because he couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fi ction. I argued that it was too simplistic to just connect the crime to media fandom.
Most of his videotapes were recordings of news, sports, and movies. He did record TV animation, but almost totally random-ly, which suggests that he was not attached to a particular genre as otaku tend to be.
PG: Why do you think the media’s panicked reporting about Miyazaki Tsutomu brought about such a negative reaction to otaku subculture?
OE: First of all, the crimes he committed against the
se four girls EIJI
SUKA
T OY
EST
UROC
Manga Burikk
Mang
o
OTSUKA EIJI
EIJI
I
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43
EIJI
SUKAT OY
EST
UROC
Manga Burikko
were gruesome and shocking. They
needed to be explained in a way
that made sense to the Japanese, who are
are
proud of the relatively low instance of vio--
lent crime in their country. The 1980s was
s
a time when new media was emerging,
and society was perplexed. There was no
Internet yet, but there were computers,
VCRs, videogames, and so on. At the
same time, manga and anime fans were
becoming more active. People feared
the emergence of monstrous youth who
couldn’t distinguish between fi ction and real-
real-
ity. Miyazaki seemed to be the incarnation of all the fear and anxiety in Japanese society at the time.
PG: You have been critical of attempts by the Japanese government to promote manga and anime as part of a “cool Japan” image. Can you elaborate on your position?
OE: It’s foolish to say that manga is art or part of high culture.
It’s only manga, and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m not putting manga down, I’m saying let’s just accept it for what it is. Going back to your previous question about how we should defi ne otaku, one thing we can say is that otaku are people who FROM SHOJO MANGA TO BISHOJO MAGAZINES
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44
make their own value judgments. They know what they like and support it. If what they want doesn’t exist, they make it. That was the premise of Manga Burikko, where people could produce the manga that they wanted to read but no one else was producing. Animation company Gainax did the same thing with anime—they produced what they as fans wanted to see. Garage-kit maker Kaiyodo did it with fi gurines. They weren’t doing these things because they wanted to be positively evaluated by outsiders. In contrast to the “new breed” who liked things because they were trendy or cool, otaku liked manga and anime just because they liked them, no matter how uncool they appeared. The “new breed” wanted to be cool, but otaku did not. The “new breed”
found mainstream support, but otaku did not. Otaku are a subculture, which is fi ne. But now the government and academics claim manga is high culture, and it is praised as such in America and Europe. I fi nd that utterly ridiculous.
PG: You mentioned earlier that Manga Burikko was really targeting the subculture of manga fans. Can you say a little more about the magazine?
OE: There was a manga artist, Azuma
Hideo, who featured bishojo characters
Manga Burikko
EIJI
SUKAT OY
EST
UROC
OTSUKA EIJI
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in his works. Like most otaku, Azuma was not after recognition—
he simply drew what he wanted to see. Azuma spent his career publishing in niche magazines before he and some friends published a fanzine called Cybele, which sparked widespread interest in bishojo. After Cybele, people talked about a “lolicon boom.”
When people recall this moment, they often talk about Manga Burikko, along with its rival magazine Lemon People. What Azuma started and we carried on with these magazines evolved into what we now call moé.
PG: How would you defi ne moé?
OE: Moé is something you feel when looking at a character. It existed in the novels of the Meiji period (1868–1912), which was a time of modernization in Japan. To regard moé as something postmodern [see Azuma Hiroki, page 170] is mistaken. Those who do so simply want to present their feelings toward fi ctional girls as unique and special. And popular and academic media encourage this. We have a situation now where educated anime fans are styling themselves as cultural theorists, and then you have Americans and Europeans responding to all of this, thinking that Japan possesses something special in its moé culture.
This Orientalist fantasy feeds right into the nationalistic strategies of government offi cials in Japan, who seek to appeal to the world for recognition as cool. First of all, moé is not cool, and neither is otaku culture. These so-called phenomena are taken out of context and blown out of proportion. It seems strange to me to fi xate only on moé, and to ignore bestselling manga such as Vagabond, 20th Century Boys, One Piece, or even my own Multiple Personality Detective Psycho, none of which feature cute characters or relationships with them. I think it’s true to say that the majority of mainstream manga and anime have nothing at all to do with moé. Instead of looking at things rationally, everyone is buying into a fantasy created by the media, intellectuals, and government offi cials.
FROM SHOJO MANGA TO BISHOJO MAGAZINES
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Interview with
Sa
S t
a o Toshihiko
OUL
ODOUT
Sato Toshihiko, born in 1945, is the founder and president of the animation studio Production Reed. He was involved in planning Magical Princess Minky Momo (1982–1983), an anime I CHRIS
series targeting young girls and featuring a transforming magical NIKOR
girl heroine. Minky Momo also found a dedicated audience among ND AY
male otaku, which came as a surprise to Sato. In this interview, B
PH
Sato explains the genesis of Minky Momo and his intentions for RAGO
the original work, which is a classic of Japanese animation and TO
PH
exemplar of the “magical girl” ( maho shojo) genre.
MOE MANIFESTO
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On Magical Girls
and
Male Fans (Part One)
A Different Sort of Heroine
Patrick W. Galbraith (PG): How did
did Mink
Mi
y Momo
nky Mom
o
come to be?
Sato Toshihiko (ST): It is perhaps not w
p
ell
s not w
known outside of Japan, but anime in
me in
199 1
the 1970s and 1980s were coproduced
duced
REED
with sponsors, especially toy makers.
a
kers.
TION
So you have an anime about robots
bots
sponsored by a company that makes
makes
RODUC P©
robot toys. The anime serves as a kind
a kind
of advertisement for the toys. In our
n our
case, the sponsor was the toy maker
maker
Bandai, and they said that they wanted
wanted
us to do a show for girls that would be
ould be
about transformation. The toy that
hat
they would sell would be a magic
ic
wand. Bandai didn’t touch the
animation series itself. We were
allowed to create original work
within the frame set up by the
sponsor. First we built the character
a
,
cter
,
Minky Momo, and then we discussed
; ussed
how she should transform. The little
little
girl would wave a magic wand and
and
transform into an adult woman, but
, but
what else? At the time in Japan,
there still weren’t many places out-
out-
Minky Momo
side the home where women could
ould
waves her wand
ON MAGICAL GIRLS AND MALE FANS (PART ONE)
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48
work. So we thought that Minky Momo should transform into an independent working woman. We would have her use her wand to transform and take on many different careers.
PG: How did you settle on these careers?
2
ST: We collected data from kindergarten kids. We passed out a 89 1
questionnaire about what they wanted to be when they grew REED
up. There was a lot of variation in the answers, but girls tended TION
to choose something familiar, such as school teacher, doctor, RODUC
fl ight attendant, and so on. We had Minky
P©
Momo transform into other things as well,
including a police offi cer and a horse
race jockey. So we expanded from
the familiar to the exotic. The
idea was that girls can become
whatever they want to be when
they grow up. My daughter was in
kindergarten at the time, and I want-
ed her to have a lot of dreams. In the
story, Minky Momo is the princess of
the land of dreams, which really reso-
nated with me personally.
PG: Why do you think that
transformation is so impor-
tant as a theme?
ST: It is common
for little girls
to dream of
transform-
ing into
adults.
Minky Momo as police offi cer
SATO TOSHIHIKO
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Minky Momo uses magic to transform immediately, condensing and accelerating the process of growing up. But the transformation is temporary; she isn’t stuck as an adult. She can transform many times and become many different adults. This is not a theme unique to Minky Momo or to Japan, of course. You see transformation in Alice in Wonderland and in Disney animation.
The Harry Potter series is all about transformation too.