Otaku: Japan's Database Animals (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jonathan E. Abel (Translator), Shion Kono (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

In Japan, obsessive adult fans and collectors of manga and anime are known as otaku. When the underground otaku subculture first emerged in the 1970s, participants were looked down on within mainstream Japanese society as strange, antisocial loners. Today otaku have had a huge impact on popular culture not only in Japan but also throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Hiroki Azuma’s Otaku offers a critical, philosophical, and historical inquiry into the characteristics and consequences of this consumer subculture. For Azuma, one of Japan’s leading public intellectuals, otaku culture mirrors the transformations of postwar Japanese society and the nature of human behavior in the postmodern era. He traces otaku’s ascendancy to the distorted conditions created in Japan by the country’s phenomenal postwar modernization, its inability to come to terms with its defeat in the Second World War, and America’s subsequent cultural invasion. More broadly, Azuma argues that the consumption behavior of otaku is representative of the postmodern consumption of culture in general, which sacrifices the search for greater significance to almost animalistic instant gratification. In this context, culture becomes simply a database of plots and characters and its consumers mere “database animals.”

A vital non-Western intervention in postmodern culture and theory, Otaku is also an appealing and perceptive account of Japanese popular culture.

About the Author

Hiroki Azuma is codirector of the Academy of Humanities in the Center for the Study of World Civilizations at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. A leading cultural critic in Japan, he is the author of seven books, including Ontological, Postal, which won the 2000 Suntory Literary Prize.

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Product Details Paperback: 200 pages Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (March 25, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0816653526 ISBN-13: 978-0816653522 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #244,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in this category: (What's this?) #59 in  Books > Nonfiction > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Japanese

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	83% buy the item featured on this page: Otaku: Japan's Database Animals 4.0 out of 5 stars (1) $12.21
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1 Review 5 star:    (0) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Beastial America and Snobbish Japan, September 28, 2009 By  Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)       Amazon Verified Purchase In the West, the Japanese term "otaku," or fan, generally pertains to those who have a major, almost obsessive, interest in Japanese anime and manga, but in Japan this is not the case. Those with interests in various hobbies such as fishing and wine collecting can also be labelled as otaku. In Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, Hiroki Azuma primarily deals with animation, comics, and games to analyse otaku through the critical lens of postmodern theory. While some cultural critics attempt to label otaku as a Japanese cultural institution that developed from the Edo Period 1603-1867, Azuma states that the creation of otaku results directly from Japan's defeat by America in World War II and the rapid, liberal capitalist society forced upon Japan during the early post-war years. As Azuma explains, Japanese of the 1940s had the war and all that it encapsulated to act as their "modernist grand narrative"--that is, the overriding force that helped guide the Japanese through their day-to-day lives with a collective goal in mind. Similarly, those who came to maturation during the 1950s had the rebuilding of Japan to act as their modernist grand narrative. However, those who grew up during the 1960s, and especially those who grew up during the 1970s and 1980s, lacked these narratives and only had consumerism--especially after the fall of the student movement--and the worlds they could create from capitalism to fulfill their day-to-day desires. One of the most thought provoking sections of the book concerning the postmodernist consumption of the otaku concerns the recently coined term "moe." Although the precise origins of the term are unknown, moe literally means "to bud" and represents the fetishized attributes of anime, manga, and video game characters. Think of girls wearing glasses, cat ears, French maid or schoolgirl uniforms, and other such paraphernalia. These fetishized attributes eventually become more important to the otaku than the character herself or even the story behind the anime, manga, or game in which she appeared, which results in the character becoming nothing more than her attributes, thereby making her easy to "dismember." Thus, she becomes synonymous with a number of other characters who are likewise "dismembered" and readily consumed by otaku. Azuma states that these moe traits were then embraced even more by production companies, and later works were composed of a moe database that was readily consumed by otaku. However, no matter how many moe items are consumed, only an overall sense of vacuity remains, which could lead to an overall sense of emptiness. Otaku: Japan's Database Animals is a dense work that is heavily peppered with the philosophical and psychological ideas of Alexandre Kojeve (how 1950s America had become animalistic because all of its needs could be satiated without struggle), and Jacques Lacan (postwar cynicism and its effects on the viewpoint of European-created modernity). However, Azuma's journalistic rather than academic style makes these ideas easier to digest than they may sound. By doing so and by showing how the ideas can apply to day-to-day life, Azuma's writing might be considered to have a more practical edge to it than some of the older critics safely ensconced within their ivory towers. Azuma arrived on the Japanese literary and critical scene with a detailed study of French philopher Jacques Derrida, and his first three books seemed focused on a highbrow culture that was not mired in the banality of mass consumption. Therefore, it came as quite a surprise when Azuma released Otaku. Azuma received much criticism for this book, and his readiness to counter these critics led to his being ostracized by a couple of high level critical journals. However, his book helped to revitalize criticism in Japan and showed how postmodern methodologies could be used to explain the mass consumption and the struggle for self creation undertaken by otaku. One of the main drawbacks of Otaku--and Azuma readily admits this, as well--is that female otaku, especially those who consume and create yaoi (male homosexual) manga are completely absent from the book. Therefore, while the male otaku community is covered in detail, the female one--which plays a major role in consuming character goods and producing a large portion of their own fan-created goods--is left without a voice in this work. Azuma's Otaku marks one of the first works of new Japanese criticism to be released in English. With the popularity of Japanese anime, manga, and video games growing across the world and the large number of communities consuming and producing fan-related materials, Azuma's book could act as a useful tool in understanding the growth of fandom in today's postmodern world. Hopefully the translation of this book will act as a catalyst for other works by younger Japanese cultural critics to be available for the English reading audience.		Ad feedback   Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (March 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816653526
• ISBN-13: 978-0816653522
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #244,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #59 in

  Books > Nonfiction > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Japanese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beastial America and Snobbish Japan, September 28, 2009

By	Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

In the West, the Japanese term "otaku," or fan, generally pertains to those who have a major, almost obsessive, interest in Japanese anime and manga, but in Japan this is not the case. Those with interests in various hobbies such as fishing and wine collecting can also be labelled as otaku. In Otaku: Japan's Database Animals, Hiroki Azuma primarily deals with animation, comics, and games to analyse otaku through the critical lens of postmodern theory.

While some cultural critics attempt to label otaku as a Japanese cultural institution that developed from the Edo Period 1603-1867, Azuma states that the creation of otaku results directly from Japan's defeat by America in World War II and the rapid, liberal capitalist society forced upon Japan during the early post-war years. As Azuma explains, Japanese of the 1940s had the war and all that it encapsulated to act as their "modernist grand narrative"--that is, the overriding force that helped guide the Japanese through their day-to-day lives with a collective goal in mind. Similarly, those who came to maturation during the 1950s had the rebuilding of Japan to act as their modernist grand narrative. However, those who grew up during the 1960s, and especially those who grew up during the 1970s and 1980s, lacked these narratives and only had consumerism--especially after the fall of the student movement--and the worlds they could create from capitalism to fulfill their day-to-day desires.

One of the most thought provoking sections of the book concerning the postmodernist consumption of the otaku concerns the recently coined term "moe." Although the precise origins of the term are unknown, moe literally means "to bud" and represents the fetishized attributes of anime, manga, and video game characters. Think of girls wearing glasses, cat ears, French maid or schoolgirl uniforms, and other such paraphernalia. These fetishized attributes eventually become more important to the otaku than the character herself or even the story behind the anime, manga, or game in which she appeared, which results in the character becoming nothing more than her attributes, thereby making her easy to "dismember." Thus, she becomes synonymous with a number of other characters who are likewise "dismembered" and readily consumed by otaku. Azuma states that these moe traits were then embraced even more by production companies, and later works were composed of a moe database that was readily consumed by otaku. However, no matter how many moe items are consumed, only an overall sense of vacuity remains, which could lead to an overall sense of emptiness.

Otaku: Japan's Database Animals is a dense work that is heavily peppered with the philosophical and psychological ideas of Alexandre Kojeve (how 1950s America had become animalistic because all of its needs could be satiated without struggle), and Jacques Lacan (postwar cynicism and its effects on the viewpoint of European-created modernity). However, Azuma's journalistic rather than academic style makes these ideas easier to digest than they may sound. By doing so and by showing how the ideas can apply to day-to-day life, Azuma's writing might be considered to have a more practical edge to it than some of the older critics safely ensconced within their ivory towers.

Azuma arrived on the Japanese literary and critical scene with a detailed study of French philopher Jacques Derrida, and his first three books seemed focused on a highbrow culture that was not mired in the banality of mass consumption. Therefore, it came as quite a surprise when Azuma released Otaku. Azuma received much criticism for this book, and his readiness to counter these critics led to his being ostracized by a couple of high level critical journals. However, his book helped to revitalize criticism in Japan and showed how postmodern methodologies could be used to explain the mass consumption and the struggle for self creation undertaken by otaku.

One of the main drawbacks of Otaku--and Azuma readily admits this, as well--is that female otaku, especially those who consume and create yaoi (male homosexual) manga are completely absent from the book. Therefore, while the male otaku community is covered in detail, the female one--which plays a major role in consuming character goods and producing a large portion of their own fan-created goods--is left without a voice in this work.

Azuma's Otaku marks one of the first works of new Japanese criticism to be released in English. With the popularity of Japanese anime, manga, and video games growing across the world and the large number of communities consuming and producing fan-related materials, Azuma's book could act as a useful tool in understanding the growth of fandom in today's postmodern world. Hopefully the translation of this book will act as a catalyst for other works by younger Japanese cultural critics to be available for the English reading audience.