Anime Anthropologist

Dear Board, 

Welcome to my Tumblr! 

This Graduation Project has been an extraordinary journey, and I have gained so much along the way. I'm so happy that I can share with you what I've learned through this blog. 

All of the illustration used in this blog are either taken by myself (photos) or directly screen-shotted from shows. 

If you wish you look at sources of my research, please head over to the bibliography section of my blog by clicking Bibliography on the top of the site. 

Also, Tumblr is not being very nice to me and is denying to play all of my directly uploaded videos on the main page of my blog, if you would like to see any of the videos (anime rave or Sho Asano's shamisen performance), please contact me and I will be glad to show you.

Lastly, I highly doubt that you'll have enough time to read the entirety of this blog word-by-word. But please enjoy your time here as I have enjoyed myself through the process!

They gave me a small panel room for this panel but the turn out was great, I had around 50 people crammed in a rather tight space. It was quite cozy. There were some very good questions from the audiences, including a few people majoring in related fields such as Asian studies, East Asian History and anthropology. I by no means knew more than they did, so it was quite a learning experience for me. 

Now you guys do not understand how hard it is to get this one snippet onto youtube. Only a 15 minute intro of my 2 hour long panel "Analyzing the Japanese Identity through Animated Films," it took me more than 6 hours to upload. That's crazy! I wish I could easily upload the whole thing to share with you but sadly, either I lack patience or my internet connection lacks speed. 

Bonus cosplay pictures from the convention:

A collective culture stresses peace and harmony, balance and mutual sustainability of different species. In Japanese mythology, there is no inherent good or evil, darkness or light, heaven or hell, everything depends on everything else, from the Gods in the sky to the frogs in the pond.

This is why the Japanese terminology "Yokai" can not be simply translated as "monster" in the western sense. These creatures date back to 700 A.D, when the first written Japanese mythology books detailing the creation of the earth were written. Yes, these are creatures different than human, some fearsome, some ugly, some ferocious, some mean no harm. They are simply put, a different life form that shares the same living space as humans. So even though some Yokai may easily bite off your head, hunting them to the brink of extinction is still frowned upon.

The Nyuurarihon (fourth from the right) and his happy harem.  

In Nyuurarihon no Mago, the protagonist is human during the day, Nyuurarihon at night. Nyuurarihon is supposedly the general of the Yokai, the leader of the Hundred Monster Night Parade that haunts the streets at night. This dual identity forces him to acts as the peace maker between Yokai and human, two worlds so different that unending war has been raging between the two races for millenniums.

A Yokai and a human girl, two worlds that could never cross.

In Hotarubi no Mori e, a tragic story is told between a girl and aYokai becoming friends, but they could never hold hands, for the Yokai would disappear if touched by human. This notion that the Yokai and Human worlds, though sharing the same living space on earth, are not meant to cross and interact, is the basis of many stories.

Summer Wars is a 2009 Japanese animated science fiction film directed by Mamoru Hosoda, animated by Madhouse. The film tells the story of Kenji Koiso, a timid eleventh-grade math genius who is taken to Ueda by twelfth-grade student Natsuki Shinohara to celebrate her great-grandmother's 90th birthday. However, he is falsely implicated in the hacking of a virtual world by a sadistic artificial intelligence named Love Machine. Kenji must repair the damage done to it and find a way to stop the rogue computer program from causing any further damage. 

Summer Wars is very family friendly, and TAMIC welcomes parents and teens to come enjoy the movie together. 

Where: Charlotte Mecklenburg Matthew's Library Community Room             310 N. Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28202

When: May 19th, 2014 4:30pm-6:00pm

There will be popcorn and beverages served. 

Please sign up at: http://www.cmlibrary.org/programs/programlisting.asp?form_Age=Teens

So the lesson went pretty well, except for the fact that it was more like me rambling on and on for 45 minutes, barely grabbing the attention of the students, using big words and fast pace with no student interaction whatsoever....oh well, I tried.

The presentation did however uncover many of my flaws in presenting. I spoke too fast, did make eye-contact but for some reason, only stared at the teacher, and also swayed my body like a willow quite a bit. I guess it's a good thing to notice these flaws before my actual graduation presentation, which is coming up in a week.

The rather entertained classroom

Me lookin' all sophisticated

I've also given the class a follow-along worksheet to work on, which consists of five questions related to my presentation. Despite me thinking I've lost all of them during the lesson, the quizzes proved that they were all paying attention after all (or they're just all hardcore anime whizzes under disguise).

In the mean time, why don't you also try to work out this quiz and see how many you can get right? ( For answers, please refer to the powerpoint in my last post)

The ESL teacher at school has invited me to teach a class on Wednesday this week. I wanted to talk about something as closely related to my topic (well, my topic is pretty broad to start with), but also fun and educational to students learning English as a second language. I settled on doing a mini-lesson on anime archetypes.

I was originally thinking about picking about anime characters that fit typical archetypes such as hero, villain, and such. But then I realized it would be really hard to explain the analysis without the audience knowing the character too well. So I decided to only introduce some archetypes that I felt belonged to the Japanese anime and manga media only, which when I though about it, a dozen or so just popped out of nowhere. Oh, what do I even have stored in my head these days.....

Here's the powerpoint presentation I prepared for the lesson:

It's been a while since I last posted about TAMIC (Teen Anime and Manga Interest Circle). I started this club at the local library half a year ago, never thought of how much of a success it would become and how many teens it would come to serve. 

Last meeting, I organized a cosplay day for the kids. Each came dressed up as a character, and were told to act in character for the duration of the meeting. Before they were given pre-designed scripts to act out, they filled out an information sheet about their character, detailing their characteristics, personality, archetype and such. Through this activity, the kids developed a better understanding of their chosen character. 

Nice portrayal of Monkey D. Luffy.

The skits were expectedly a mess. But who cares? We were having loads of fun, and it's not like we could use the community room every time to shout at the top of our lungs and not disturb the library on the other side of the wall.

More pictures: 

Something crazy going on with the skit

The Doctor photobombing

Lexi and her proud Soul Eater fan art

Family photo >.<

In Japanese there are two words to describe one's position relating to a group:

Uchi-insider, someone who is included and accepted as part of the group. Soto-outsider, someone who is subtly excluded from the group. 

When I was in Japan, I felt this kind of Uchi/Soto relationship quite often, no just kidding, actually it was...all the time.

Before I left for Japan, the orientation sessions touched on this topic quite a bit, But I never got a real sense of what being excluded meant until I got to Japan.

My family was treating me too nicely. I wasn't asked to do any housework, and when I asked to help, I was swiftly refused. I just need to sit at the table, and all kinds of fruits and sweets would appear before me. I was treated as a guest, not as a family member.

I could start a normal conversation at school, thanks to my Asian physical appearance. But once my identity as the American exchange student was revealed by my inability to speak fluent Japanese, I could suddenly feel a gigantic wall erecting before other people and me. I was labeled a foreigner, and this became the basis of further communication.

It takes time to break this kind of barrier. For school, it meant to spend a considerable amount of time with people, joining and dedicating time to a club, and creating mutual memories, memories that would bond us together. As for my family, my host sister's wedding introduced a swarm of guests to our house. Suddenly and miraculously, I was asked to help out in the house and serve the guests. Being spent more time in the house than the guests, I was "pushed in" from the Soto to the Uchi by outsiders more "outside" than I was- a lucky coincidence I suppose.

Host family, I, and our dog Nina

The rock-climbing/hiking club that I joined at school.

Ichibancon is coming up, I've finally got the chance to present my senior exit thesis at this convention. It's also just in Concord, so it makes my commute much easier. I've got one returning panel in Shogi, and another panel talking about my summer exchange experience in Japan. Unfortunately, the photo powerpoint that I made for the Japan trip was too big for any online presentation hosting websites to host (about 2GB).

Japan as an island nation fostered a culture of isolation as it closed its borders for nearly 300 years since the start of the Tokugawa Shogunate. As Matthew Perry's Black Ships forcefully opened up Japan to the West, the Japanese were forced to adopt western ways to survive and compete, but their xenophobia never cured. 

If you think about it, everything is about the bomb.

The devastation brought by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki unquestionably forever changed the landscape of Japan geologically, but also spiritually. 

Japan's post war years is flooded with anti-Nationalist sentiments, reflections on the war, and struggles to rebuild the nation while maintaining a unified identity. In some way, the bomb pushed the Japanese inwards- sharing of a common catastrophe strengthened the country. But even so, a damaged nation desperately yearned for reconciliation. 

Barefoot Gen showing a girl vaporizing in slow motion as the bomb landed

Japan reconciles through its virtual identity- the media. Barefoot Gen (1988), released right after the death of the late Emperor Hirohito, graphically depicts the inhumanity of the atomic crime, raising anti-war sentiments in the country as the civilians of Japan are presented as innocent victims suffering under the evil military dictated country. Gundam series and other robot shows, explores a technologically advanced Japan in which it can drive its own robots to fight back the intruders. 

Godzilla, the atomic-breathing dinosaur that every boy dreamed of having 

Depictions didn't always have to be literal. Godzilla was meant to be the ultimate metaphor for atomic weapons, with atomic-breath and radiation eye beams.To emphasise the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on Hiroshima's survivors. 

In its early years, Godzilla was portrayed as an evil monster determined to destroy humanity, but as the year progressed and younger generations born not out of the shadows of the atomic bomb, the creatures role gradually changed. Some plots portray it as a hero, some portray it as a destructive power dangerous to human, but when properly controlled and tamed, can be used to fight against aliens and other nasty villains.

Cosplay stands for "Costume Playing," a word from Japan that means dressing up as virtual characters. It's a common hobby among anime fans, though I've never really got into it due to the amount of time and effort it required. 

I remember last year when I tried to establish an anime club at the school, and was confronted with the question: "So do you guys dress up like those weird characters and go wonder on the street?" by the student council.

I didn't really know how to answer, partly because I'm not learned in the art of cosplaying, but also because I was shocked by the choice of words that the council choose to use. Degrading. One does not need to necessarily understand the hobby, but everyone deserves respect for the hard work they've put into something they love.

Here are a few cosplay photos I took for you to admire:

It's a family-friendly activity

Those gears are not something easy to make

I almost thought that was a real vending machine until I tried sticking a coin inside. 

It really requires courage to cosplay, especially when your character's naked.

Now Nekocon went pretty well for the most part. My shogi panel attracted just the right amount of people, not too much, but enough to play a dedicated match.The director told me I was welcomed to come back next year for the same program. 

The only downside of the weekend? I had to sleep in this: