Manga Library
Imagining Japan Symposium (Day 2)
Event Report by James Rampant
If you haven’t read Nic’s coverage of day one then you can get it here.
We started the Saturday component of the symposium frozen and drenched in rain but it was worth it to listen to the extremely interesting papers that were being presented today. I don’t know if Nic talked about the strange 3x3 meter sheet of paper spread out at the back of the auditorium or not. But it was there all Friday leaving us to wonder how it got there and what its function was. Well today we found out.
The Osaka University Japanese Culture map display
The first session was presented by 5 of the visiting researchers from Osaka University. During their presentation each of them would stand on the white sheet of paper and draw lines between the aspects of Japanese culture written on the paper that they were talking about. So Dr Omote Tomoyuki who was presenting on the way otaku culture has been exported to foreign countries through Anime, Manga, bootlegs and expos, would draw a line between Manga and Akihabara and write the word expo on the line. Dr Yamanaka Chie presented on what the acceptance of Japanese pop culture in Korea tells us. Next Mr Ito Yu reported on Japans cultural policy on exporting and copyright of anime and manga. Finally Ms Jessica Bauwens presented on Girl’s popular culture such Hello Kitty and Yaoi and Mr Renato Rivero Rusca posed that Anime may not become as mainstream as we think. Their Imaginging Japan Symposium website can be found here
At the beginning of this session, each audience member was given an A4 version of the map of Japanese culture the Osaka University team had laid out and were also give 5 transparencies which, when placed on your A4 map, imposed the lines the presenters were drawing over the top of the map.
In session 6 (which was merged with session 7 to create a really long panel) we heard from Dr Eiichi Tosaki, one of the researchers at the Japanese Studies Centre, about gi-yofu kenchiku, the mergence of western and Japanese architecture in meji Japan and other hybrid art that has occurred since. Dr Alison Tokita then presented a paper about a Korean drama series called fuyu no sonata (the sonata of winter) which seems to have developed mainstream appeal in Japan to the point where Japanese viewers are booking tours around Korea to see locations where the drama was filmed. Dr Tokita also discussed themes and ideas in the show and how they may have attributed to its success. Next Dr Ross Mouer and Dr Craig Norris presented their take on the Peter Cary book Wrong About Japan, then Dr Norris warped our imaginations by projecting an image featuring the rear end of a Japanese Otaku on the wall. And finally before lunch Dr Peter Eckersall presented a paper about an avant garde theater style in Japan called Angura and the effect Japanese cultural policy has had on it.
Sadly Katy Stevens couldn’t make it today and we missed out, on what I’m sure would have been a great paper, on the technaural violence in chakushinari (one missed call) the recent horror film by Japanese director Miike Takeshi.
After a lunch of sushi, sushi, some little skewered chicken and more sushi we were ready for the final panel of the symposium. First up, Dr Mark McLelland presented an interesting paper titled “A short history of hentai”. The most interesting aspect of this paper, apart from the array of porn, homoerotic and sadomasochistic imagery (both manga and real) displayed in Dr Lelland’s presentation, was that Dr Lelland’s explanation that using the word hentai to describe dodgy publications is a western invented classification and most Japanese apply the word to products of a much worse nature. You can find out more about Dr Lelland's research on the UQ Website The next paper presented was by Dr Dean Chan who discussed how Asians were portrayed in video games and how they were perceived by the fans, particularly in the final fantasy series. The final presentation was by a local artist Kirsty Boyle on robot culture in Japan, in particularly the Karakuri created in the edo-meiji periods in Japan which utilized no electronics what so ever, instead they operated on cogs taken from western clocks (which were useless to Japanese at the time since they operated on different time measurement at the time). Around the end of Ms Boyle’s presentation we were treated to some fascinating video clips of robot performances at the annual robot expo in Tokyo. To learn more about Karakuri robots, have a read through Ms Boyle’s website Karakuri
After a light afternoon tea all the participants took part in a roundtable discussion about issues for future research on Japanese culture. Issues of time and distance in relation to topic were discussed as well as exporting Japanese culture, television, internet and education.
Here are some photo's of Friday. Thanks to Peter for taking them!
Professor Yoshimura Kazuma and Ms Jessica Bauwens presenting
Japanese manga artist Sato Maki vs Kenny Chan in an experiment to see how different cultures are portrayed in Japanese and Australian manga.
Dr Craig Norris presenting on the imagined worlds of manga fans.