Subculture as social knowledge: a hopeful reading of otaku culture

Abstract

This essay analyzes Japan's otaku subculture using Hirokazu Miyazaki's (2006) definition of hope as a "reorientation of knowledge." Erosion of postwar social systems has tended to instill a sense of hopelessness among many Japanese youth. Hopelessness manifests as two analogous kinds of refusal: individual social withdrawal and recourse to solipsistic neonationalist ideology. Previous analyses of otaku have demonstrated its connections with these two reactions. Here, I interrogate otaku culture's relationship to neonationalism by investigating its interaction with the xenophobic online subculture known as the netto uyoku. Characterizing both subcultures as discursive practices, I argue that the similarity between netto uyoku and otaku is not one of identity but one of method. Netto uyoku discourse serves to perform an imagined nationalist persona. While otaku elements can be incorporated into netto uyoku performance, other net users invoke the otaku faculty of parody to highlight the constructed nature of netto uyoku identity through ironic recontextualization. This application of otaku principles enables a description of otaku culture as a form of social knowledge, reoriented here to defuse the climate of hopelessness purveyed by the netto uyoku. In the final section, I offer examples of subcultural knowledge being applied to national and international issues in order to indicate its further potential as a source of enabling hope for Japanese youth.

'Isekai' (異世界): el confinamiento autoimpuesto en Japón y Latinoamérica

“…Los protagonistas de las series isekai suelen englobarse entre los denominados otaku. Este término surgió en la década de los 80 del siglo XX, coincidiendo con un notable crecimiento de la industria del anime, para referirse a los fanáticos del manga, anime y todo lo relacionado con dichas industrias culturales (Kam, 2013;Gushiken e Hirata, 2014;Álvarez-Gandolfi, 2015;Hack, 2016;McToy-Torres, 2019;Tung, Lee y Hudson, 2019). Ha perdido el carácter peyorativo con el que se empleaba en un principio, aunque en Japón aún permanece este matiz.…”

Haunted Psychologies

“…40 Like Araragi, who surrounds himself with a harem of different type of moe-kyara, otaku have given themselves the ability to tightly mediate their relationships with others and have created their own idiosyncratic Symbolic Order-a series of motifs and tropes that allow them to decipher texts according to a series of shared rules. 41 This consumption pattern is merely an expansion of Lyotard's word-games writ large upon an entire mode of media consumption. That Araragi and those around him approach the world with cynicism is also an outgrowth of the otaku mentality-passion must be viewed through a lens of ironic detachment and zealotry is a source of derision and mistrust.…”

“…This is particularly strong in Japan, where the Lost Decade stagnated wages for Japanese youth and ended the lifetime employment system that offered prosperity and comfort even into one's old age. 70 And what are moe-kyara if not objects transformed in the minds of their consumers into the simulacra of a subject? Furthermore, society itself has become increasingly commodified; even socialization and relationships have become commodified as economic production becomes paramount.…”

“…100 This creation of commentary and the allowance for multifaceted meaning is what draws the otaku to anime; this dimensional excess allows for the easy construction of a database into which they can retreat. 101 In Bakemonogatari, the bodies that exist are nothing but excessive and fluid, but characters warp into a particular shape, be it a crab or snake. Bodies are transformed or torn apart-dimensional excesses that create tears that allow otaku viewers a glimpse into the database that promises meaning and depth, only to reveal another flat layer.…”

Genealogía de las prácticas comunicativas de los "otaku": evolución de la tecnología audiovisual y de la cultura fan en el consumo del "anime"

“…A diferencia de los años precedentes, en los que los movimientos estudiantiles protagonizaron numerosas acciones de protesta contra el imparable establecimiento del capitalismo social en Japón (Saitō y Angles, 2013, p. 171), la segunda mitad de la década de 1970 se caracteriza por la creciente alienación y conservadurismo ideológico entre los jóvenes japoneses (Hack, 2016), algo constatable en el hecho de que los mecanismos de definición de las identidades juveniles son mercantilizados por la cultura del consumo de entonces. Como expone con claridad Michal Daliot-Bul: en las sociedades tardocapitalistas, aquellos que quieren distinguirse de los efectos homogeneizadores de la sociedad de masas (como los jóvenes rebeldes) lo hacen casi exclusivamente consumiendo productos o prácticas que les parecen inconformistas, aunque estén promocionadas por los mismos canales de producción y distribución que producen la sociedad de masas 17 .…”