Asiascape Vistas is a forum for discussion about the many and various dimensions of cyberculture found in or originating from East Asia. Its focus is on the interplay between these media and questions of politics & philosophy. Contributions are from the academic collective responsible for the core project, but other contributions will also be considered by that collective.
Professor Chris Goto-Jones, Director of Asiascape, is delighted to invite you to the Spotlight Taiwan Sampler on Monday 2 December from 19.00 until 21.00 in the Auditorium at LUC The Hague for a taste of Asiascape’s vision on Taiwan. All players in the Asiascape Spotlight Taiwan Project will be present (physically and virtually) to warm you up for the exciting events in 2014.
Program
19.00 Welcome & Introduction by Chris Goto-Jones 19.10 A few words by Taiwanese Representative Mr. James K.J. Lee 19.15 Florian Schneider – Conference: The Emancipatory Potential of Social Media in Asia 19.25 Jay Hwang – Film Festival: Some Thoughts on Taiwan 19.35 Cissie Fu – Artist-in-Residence: Exploring Taiwanese Female Masculinity 19.45 Closing by Chris Goto-Jones, followed by conversations over drinks
After some very busy months, I finally got round to writing about a fun game the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party officially released for smartphones this past summer: あべぴょん (Abepyon) is a casual jumping game in which the player has to swing the device left/right to jump from one platform to the next and climb the ladder of fame towards the top: the prime minister’s rank. And the best thing is, the character you control is no one else than Japanese Prime Minister AbeShinzō in various outfits. Before I say more, check out these links to get an idea of the game, or simply download it for your smartphone if you have one (careful, its addictive).
Abepyon is surprisingly fun and addictive, because its
mechanics are simple and rewarding. You climb, receive points for each meter
you elevate the character, with which you can unlock new outfits for the PM.
More importantly, your achievements are signaled by displaying known buildings
which match the current height of your climb, and a rank in the
party/government corresponding to the height you achieve before falling, from
“member of parliament” over “leader of a parliament committee” to “cabinet
minister” and, finally, “prime minister.”
If you are
not content with simply enjoying it, you might want to ask 1. what it
communicates, 2. what it wants to achieve, and 3. if it is effective to this
end. However, I’m not entirely sure about 1., so 2. and 3. are even more
difficult to evaluate. Let’s start with the obvious. The game creates sympathy:
it’s fun, addictive, and not lacking self-irony, featuring a cute and
modifyable character and a playful overall design. Maybe I should stop here.
This is enough and I think the LDP PR office has done a good job in this sense.
Everything else is pure speculation...
But let’s
speculate for a moment. In his book Persuasive
Games, Ian Bogost (2007) shows how rule based gameplay can be used to
represent or evaluate simple or intricate systems by making the player part of
the system and granting him or her the ability to influence it. In one of his
examples, Bogost discusses the U.S. Republican Party’s 2004 campaign game Tax Invaders, arguing that by replacing
the aliens in the original Space Invaders
with John Kerry’s taxes and by positioning the player as the defender against
this assault, the game successfully turns the player into an active part in the
campaign against Kerry and the Democrats, which are at the same time framed as
alien intruders (103-109).
Whereas TaxInvaders
charges the player with defending the country against a threat, Abepyon offers a quite different message . The gameprompts us to help Abe(chan), the game's character, climb the career ladder. Although one
could say that this contributes to the awareness that our individual actions
(votes) count, this message is weakened considerably by the fact that the
ascent leads no-where, at least in terms of political direction. (By the way, I’m
not sure where the comparison with all the buildings fits in, beyond its
feedback function. Maybe the LDP thinks of hierarchies in architectural terms?)
But maybe that is expecting too much. What do you think?
The results of Asiascape's 2012 Manga Competition 'First Contact' are now finally brought together in the Manga in/as Essay Magazine. This issue can be viewed and downloaded via our webpage or Issuu
In Asiascape Ops nr 7, Florian Schneider (Lecturer of Modern China at Leiden University and editor of Politics East Asia) argues that the 2010 Shanghai World Exposition "...was a large-scale attempt at political communication. This paper examines this communication process, which the Chinese government initiated as a core part of its public relations strategy for the 21st century. The paper analyses multi-media data collected at the Expo site in July 2010 to answer the questions: what futurist and utopian visions did the five themed pavilions present to visitors of the Expo, and what relevance might these visions have to our understanding of how media events like world fairs construct political discourse? The paper engages with recent research on the Expo and reviews theoretical concerns about the general power of media events to manipulate audiences. It then provides an analysis that shows how the themed exhibits provide diverse interpretations of modernity and utopian futures. These visions at times collide with the worldview that the Chinese government is trying to foster, and which is communicated throughout much of the event. Yet this is not to say that the institutional constraints and the general set-up of the Expo collapse the entire event into a monolithic discourse that re-enforce the political ideals of the Chinese authorities, or that the participants and visitors of the event are successfully co-opted into an overarching narrative of capitalist modernity. In fact, the Expo offers opportunities of utopian thought that demonstrably escape control"
The full text of the paper is downloadable from Asiascape.org's Publication page or can be read online on Issuu.
The Wereldmuseum (Rotterdam)'s exhibition 'the world of Manga' opens on 28 June 2013
The makers of Samurai are now bringing you face-to-face with the fear-inspiring guards of Buddhist philosophy, flanked by the savage heroes of Street Fighter. The mighty Machines of Shinkichi Tajiri paved the way for manga, an international community that blurs the boundaries of rational reality.
The versatility of manga art has never been portrayed as clearly. The Japanese Buddhas introduce the philosophy of manga in comics, anime and games. When, after the piercing images of Shinkichi Tajiri’s fighting machines, the beauty of manga art begins to unfold the viewer is elevated to a mystical experience. The digital photographic art with graphic effects by Anderson & Low evoke the following question: are these manga-inspired dreams of humans or human-inspired dreams of manga?
This is the first time in history that such renowned Japanese manga masters as Akatsuki Katoh, Shiho ENTA, Ching Nakamura and Fuzichoco are exhibiting their work outside of their own country. Hoki created a unique work featuring the Erasmus Bridge as a backdrop especially for this exhibition and an entire hall is dedicated to the artwork of director Hosoda Mamoru’s internationally acclaimed anime Wolf Children Ame and Yuki.
Project Kronos is a documentary film set in the not too distant future, following a mission to achieve interstellar space travel. As the mission unfolds with extraordinary results, the scientists find themselves dealing with a much bigger agenda.
On May 7, a workshop will be held at Leiden University on the search for new directions in anthropology regarding the study of futures.
Time: 13-17hrs Location: Bestuurskamer (Ground Floor), Pieter de la Court gebouw, Leiden University Followed by drinks in the Bamboo lounge (3rd floor), Pieter de la Court gebouw, Leiden University
About the workshop theme "Futurities" or forms of the future have distinct cultural histories and habitats. The division of labor that put "tradition" (or a normative addiction to past templates) in times and places other than modernity, and the future (usually in the shape of "development" or "modernization") in an imaginary Western civilization has itself lost its credibility, but that does not mean it has passed away. Moreover, new self-indulgent classifications of the West by the West have taken its place ("post-modernity"; "reflexive modernization"; "reduction to the present"; "acceleration"; "time-space compression"; and so on). Systematic research into the forms that the future takes after the rise of commodified, "empty" time in the Middle Ages, the "open" future of prognosis and progress in the early modern period, and the epochal consciousness of the period of revolution or Sattelzeit - as theorized by Barbara Adam, Reinhard Koselleck and Jacques LeGoff, among others - is rare. Yet, diagnoses of new forms of the future after modernity abound. This workshop reviews and presents recent research into forms of the future to find out what kind of research is needed to overcome that gap.
The workshop consists of four presentations from two, NWO funded, Leiden research projects: the "The Future is Elsewhere" project led by Peter Pels (presentations by Pels and by Kripe/Zandbergen), and the "Beyond Utopia" project led by Chris Goto-Jones (presentations by Roth and Schneider). These presentations will then be used by three discussants as a stepping stone to illustrate the directions into which such research should be going. The discussants are Diny van Est (see Persoon & van Est 2000), Jane Guyer (see Guyer 2007) and Chris Goto-Jones.
Presentations Peter Pels (Anthropology, Leiden): "Towards an Ethnography of Modern Times: Seven Theses on the Anthropology of the Future"
Florian Schneider (LIAS, Leiden): "The Futurities and Utopias of the Shanghai World Exposition - A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the Expo 2010 Theme Pavilions"
Martin Roth (LIAS, Leiden): "Another time? Narrative confusion and alternative temporality in videogames"
Zane Kripe & Dorien Zandbergen (Anthropology, Leiden): "Kick-starting the future in the new economy: Perspectives from San Francisco, Amsterdam and Singapore"
Discussants Diny van Est (Netherlands Court of Audit) Chris Goto-Jones (Leiden University) Jane Guyer (Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University)
Recommended reading People attending the workshop are advised to read the following articles (available online):
* Persoon, Gerard A. and Diny M. E. van Est. 2000. The study of the future in anthropology in relation to the sustainability debate. Focaal 35: 7-28
* Guyer, Jane I. 2007. Prophecy and the near future: Thoughts on macroeconomic, evangelical, and punctuated time. American Ethnologist 34 (3): 409-421
...something less Asiascape-esque but still fun. (taken from boingboing.net) by Cory Doctorow, 23 April
DC's "New 52" is a reboot of all its major superhero comics and several
of its less-regarded ones. In the latter category is a silly Silver Age
title called Dial H for Hero
about a lad from Littleville, CO who can turn into a variety of
randomly selected superheroes by dialing "H-E-R-O" on a weird telephone
dial he found in a mystic cave.
cover of China Miéville's comic 'Dial H'
The reboot of "Dial H for Hero" is called simply "Dial H," and is
written by none other than New Weird chieftain China Miéville, whose
prodigious imagination and wicked sense of humor are on fine display in
the first collection of Dial H: Dial H Vol. 1: Into You.
Miéville doesn't apologize for the fundamental absurdity of the
premise. Instead, he turns it up to 11. And then he turns it up to 12.
In Miéville's "Dial H," the hero is a morbidly obese ex-boxer in a
ruined crime-town who discovers his dial attached to the town's last
working payphone. By dialing it, he becomes a series of ever-weirder
heroes, from Boy Chimney (a Dickensian goblin with a top hat that
stretches to infinity who can strangle his opponents on thick, choking
smoke) to Control-Alt-Delete (a CRT-headed underwear pervert who can
reset reality to default) to Iron Snail (a roided out action hero who
drags along an enormous, slime-squirting shell). These various guises
are needed to fight the strange and eldritch horror that has put the rot
into Littleville, and here Miéville turns the metaphysics up to 13,
with worlds within worlds, each haunted by different species of
nothingness and such. It's glorious stuff, bathos at its best as the
humor of the various super-guises is juxtaposed on all the ponderous,
unapologetic Lovecrafting bibble-babble.
image taken from 'Dial H, vol 1'
After the initial rush, the story begins exploring a series of scenarios
for the dials and its many dialers through history, seeking answers to
the deep, metaphysical questions raised by the existence of a telephone
dial that can transform its dialer into a super-hero with a whole
back-story. There are great, inspired moments here, and hints that
Miéville has actually worked this all out with some seriousness, which
may be the scariest thing about the whole book.
Miéville is a very funny and absurd guy, and while spots of that have
shone through in his novels, they tend to be more serious. "Dial H"
feels like the Miéville freak flag has been unfurled to its full glory,
and is flying proudly.
In Asiascape's newest paper in the Occasional Paper Series (Asiascape Ops), Carl Li, Mari Nakamura and Martin Roth (all three are PhD students in the Goto-Jones' project Beyond Utopia), discuss the concept of alienation in Neon Genesis Evangelion:
Neon Genesis Evangelion protagonist Shinji Ikari
Excerpt:
Japanese popular culture, represented primarily by manga and anime,
has over the last couple of decades increasingly gained popularity both
within and beyond Japan. Based on the assumption that this is partly
due to their distinct qualities as media of political expression, this
article aims to identify and discuss some of these expressions. Focusing on the SF franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion (hereafter EVANGELION), often regarded as a landmark in the history of Japanese animation, it will trace the recurring concept of alienation through the extremely popular anime (1995), the manga (1995–2012), and the videogame Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 (2003), thus offering an insight into their commonalities as well as their differences. “Alienation” is a central concept in modern social and political theory, as well as in sociology and psychology, and refers to “the condition of separation or estrangement.” For Karl Marx, who developed the most influential accounts of alienation in modern social and political theory, alienation is a central critique to modern capitalism. Analyzing the situation of wageworkers in the historical context of modern society, Marx observes that alienation occurs for them in four interrelated senses in capitalist society: alienation from the very product they produce, from the act of production, from their fellow workers, and from their “species-being.” Marx sees “species-being” as the unique human attribute which distinguishes human life from that of the animals, where one’s alienation from their “species-being” in a modern capitalist society is focused through the class structure and the proletariat experience. Thus for Marx, overcoming alienation requires a change in material conditions for a historically specific class of the proletariat by way of their revolutionary activities.
The full article is available at Issuu or can be downloaded as pdf on Asiascape.org's Publication page.
written by Florian Schneider, editor of Asiascape: Digital Asia
In August and September 2012, the Internet was awash with Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese discussions over a set of islands in the East China Sea that the governments of all three nations lay claim to. The dispute has been a recurring issue in East Asian regional relations, but over the past decade more and more people have become "switched into" this seemingly classic-realist international relations topic through new information and communication technologies (ICTs).
As millions of bloggers and tweople followed the actions of activists and politicians, and as nationalist protests spilled into the streets in China and Japan, one post on the Chinese micro-blogging service Weibo inspired particularly heated discussions. Yet the post did not come from a politician or from an activist. It did not call for the burning of more flags, for boycotts of foreign goods, or for decisive military intervention. The post was a calligraphy that promoted the friendship between the people of China and Japan, and it had been sent by the Japanese porn star Sola Aoi.
With the speed that arguably only digital communication allows, the calligraphy travelled across the region, reaching over 13 million people. It received more than 140,000 comments - many derogatory, but many also critically discussing the conflict, as well as the meaning of national identity in 21st century East Asia.
This example is symptomatic of the challenges that established academic disciplines face as they explore developments in an increasingly interlinked region such as Asia. The ubiquity of digital ICT fuels processes that have always been complex and dynamic, but it has arguably never before facilitated and shaped politics, economics, culture, and society to such a degree as today.
Other examples from the region abound: In South Korea, online computer games have become so popular that individual matches are broadcasted on TV. In South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, election campaigns are accompanied by online activism in the form of twitter and blogging, which in turn has inspired Taiwanese and South-Korean politicians to integrate new media content into their campaigns. In India, the government is building a controversial digital biometric database that will include personal information on over a billion citizens, allowing for unprecedented experiments in e-governance.
Having traveled to other worlds in his game creations such as "Ultima," Richard Garriott de Cayeux (video game developer and entrepreneur) is now doing the real thing. He flew to the International Space Station in 2008 (on a reported $30 million ticket). And his company, Space Adventures, has organized flights on Soyuz craft for about a dozen other moguls.
At the South by Southwest conference in Austin this week, Garriott de Cayeux explained why he thinks that private companies can make spaceflight radically cheaper and more common. Ideas include having NASA contract with private rocket companies for human spaceflight instead of building all its own craft (which it already does to launch robots such as the Mars Rover Curiosity). Garriott de Cayeux also promotes reusable spacecraft, which he claims offer tenfold to hundredfold cost savings.
Elon Musk of SpaceX, the most successful extraterrestrial entrepreneur so far, is testing reusable technology called Grasshopper. And so is John Carmack, creator of blockbuster video game franchises "Doom" and "Quake." His company, Armadillo Aerospace, is focused on building reusable craft.
TechNewsDaily asked Garriott de Cayeux why game creators are attracted to spaceflight.
"If there was something specific to the games industry, it would have to be from exploring virtual worlds," he said. "It would have to be … creating experiences that let people go into the unknown. Noting his many adventures, including into space, to Antarctica and to the bottom of the ocean, he said, "I find my drive to go explore is identical and very closely linked with my personal drive to create things for people to explore."
But the images in many games may not be the best thing to motivate future generations of explorers, said astronaut Mae Jemison. In a panel session, she spoke about the 100 Year Starship Project she leads, which aims to kick-start the technologies to make interstellar spaceflight possible within a century.
Many of the most popular video games over the years, including "Doom" and "Quake," are also very violent. "I'm struck by the fact that we have all the slasher, blood-and-guts, shoot-'em-up movies and stuff like that," Jemison said. "It doesn't make you very hopeful for the future."
Jemison's fellow panelist Jill Tarter of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) said that games could be helpful, "to the extent that people can … build interactive experiences that aren't always shooting and competitive."
LeVar Burton of "Star Trek" fame, also on the panel, told TechNewsDaily that he was excited about the use of biofeedback in games. "I can certainly imagine games that are … first-person experience, where you really have to be in a calm and imaginative state in order to advance in the gameplay," he said. "And I think that's a lot more productive in terms of entrainment than … the first-person shooter." [See also: Video Games Improve Surgeons' Skills]
Jemison also sees games as a way to study how people interact, which is critical to creating livable conditions for a space mission that will span entire lifetimes. Games, she said, could help to, "ferret out some information about human behavior."
Burton agreed: "Using gameplay to problem-solve — fantastic use of the technology."
Director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) and video entertainment network Machinima have partnered up to produce 12 science fiction short films.
The shorts will not be directed by Scott himself; he and Machinima will choose directors from Ridley Scott's production company — RSA. The list of possible directors is starry and includes Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas), Sam Mendes (Skyfall), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Neill Blomkamp (District 9).
The idea is that at least some of these short films will lead to new sci-fi franchises, with both RSA and Machinima reaping the rewards.
“RSA has always been at the forefront of creating innovative work. With new media transforming the way audiences connect with films and filmmakers, Machinima is a great partner for us as we embark on this new model of delivering original content to fans. It’s a tremendous opportunity for pushing the creative boundaries for both our filmmakers and the audience,” said Scott in a statement.
Though 75 years old, Scott is not afraid to experiment with new formats and distribution channels. In 2010, he produced a YouTube project called "Life in a Day," which captured one day (July 24, 2010) through the cameras of people around the world.
Machinima, a video network aimed at gamers, owns the top entertainment channel on YouTube and reaches "210 million" unique viewers. Life in a Day by Ridley Scott
Taiwanese animation artist Tsai Shiu-cheng's "Time of Cherry Blossoms" won the Grand Prix prize in the Open Entries category of the Tokyo Anime Awards (TAA) competition. It is the second work from Taiwan to win the top prize, following "Adventures in the NPM" in 2008. The short film was previously showcased at the 2011 Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, as well as at other events in Japan.
Held for the 12th time as part of the Tokyo International Anime Fair, the competition honors excellence in works of animation submitted by amateur artists.
Danish artists Christen Bach and David Tart each won the Outstanding Work Award in the general division of the category. A Chinese short film won the special prize, with two French works receiving an honorable mention. Of the 11 award-winning works in the category, six came from outside Japan.
Meanwhile, Laputa Art Animation School student Yuka Aoki won the Outstanding Work Award for her "Nani to Natta" (Nani and Natta), with Ikuo Kato's "My Socks" taking honorable mention in the student division. Chinese student Hu Yuanyuan from the Graduate School of Film and New Media of the Tokyo University of the Arts won the outstanding award for her "Sunset Flower Blooming," while Keiko Shiraishi's "Hide-and-Seek" and Kaori Iwase's "A Grandma's Goldfish" got honorable mentions. Winners in the "Nomination Entries" category for commercial anime titles will be announced at the awards ceremony to be held at a special stage set up at the TAF 2013 on March 23. A special exhibition dedicated to recipients of the Award of Merit will also be offered.
There's little doubt that PC gaming is undergoing a renaissance at the moment. With the current generation consoles chugging interminably slowly toward retirement, frustrated gamers are switching to computers with quad-core processors and top-end graphics cards that produce visuals of breathtaking fluidity and detail.
But it's not all about graphics performance. While there are certainly detractors, Valve's digital download service Steam has revolutionalised the games buying experience, offering easy access to hundreds of titles, many at vastly reduced prices.
Meanwhile, increasingly popular online multiplayer titles like DotA, Guild Wars 2 and Tera are only playable on PC. Plus there's the explosive rise of the indie scene, with many small studios ignoring the console platforms altogether in favour of PC development. If you didn't have a PC last year, you had no chance of playing brilliant offbeat titles like FTL, Slender and Hotline Miami. You were out of the loop.
And while we're expecting huge announcements from Microsoft and Sony this year, we won't see a new console until October, with the PS4 more likely in Spring 2014. Even when these new machines arrive, current speculation suggests they're going to be built from the same sort of off-the-shelf components you could jam into a gaming PC – except with a gaming PC you can switch the key elements out a year later for something more up-to-date.
So if you're a new PC owner, or just want to upgrade your current machine, we've compiled a guide to building a decent gaming machine for 2013. I've asked several PC developers for their input, and we've tried to look at both high-end and budget options. Here goes...
At the end of November last year, my colleagues and I attended the the 3rd Mechademia Conference in Seoul, South Korea. Focusing on Japanese popular culture, especially anime and manga, but also the long-standing relationship that Japan's animation industry has with Korea, the conference brought to my attention many specific areas with which I was unfamiliar. It also happened to be my very first time visiting Korea, so it was a new experience in that regard as well.
The conference had a number of rare opportunities. One was a showing of the first Korean animated film, The Story of Hong Gil-dong, recently restored, and another was talks with people working within the industries. Probably the biggest name was Ohtsuka Eiji, but it also featured interviews with animators Ahn Jae-ho and Watanabe Hideo. Watanabe was especially intriguing because of his long history in the animation industry, particularly with shows meant to sell toys, and I was able to ask him how this affected the ways in which they produced animation. Watanabe went on to explain about his time working on the anime Toushi Gordian, and how an unfortunate situation where the series director had fallen ill left him as de-facto director, and the resulting product amidst the chaos was predictably subpar. However, Watanabe mentioned, the toys sold well enough that they could keep going, and in the end the show finished at over 70 episodes.
For those who don't know about Gordian, think of it as an anime from the "giant robot" genre, where the hero gets into increasingly larger robots stacked on top, much like a matryoshka doll.
Watanabe and Ahn both talked about the Korean involvement in Japanese animation, and probably anyone who's bothered to look at the ending credits of an anime is aware of the fact that Japan has been outsourcing its animation work to Korea for many years. At the conference, one of the topics that a number of presentations either spoke about, whether as its main focus or as a brief point, is the reputation of Korean animation in the world.
The "dilemma" that faces Korean animation is that, despite its notoriety within the overall industry, with work not just in anime but also popular cartoons such as The Simpsons, "Korean animation" as a concept lacks the clout of other cultures' animated works. One presenter argued that animation made in Korea is too culturally odorless, while another attributed the problem to an unfair characterization of the Korean animation industry as one which lacks the talent to generate interesting ideas, a headless body of sorts. Overall, addressing this topic seems borne from the idea that Korea's animators deserve recognition, and I can respect that motivation.
My colleagues and I from Leiden also had presentations of our own. Mari Nakamura presented on the anime Appleseed and its ideas about the post-human, Martin Roth presented on the video game Shadow of Memories and how it played with notions of "time," and I presented on the manga Zettai Karen Children and how it expressed a political science fiction world through a focus on character. The Q&A made for a lively discussion, and I took a lot away from it.
On the comics side of things, one of the panels I attended focused on a topic close to mine, which is the ways in which manga are used in a political sense. In particular, I enjoyed seeing Takeuchi Miho and Olga Antononoka from Kyoto Seika University present on how the conventions of manga could be used to subtly convey strong political ideas, either by having the artwork itself belie a seemingly more banal aesthetic, or using existing tropes as metaphors for heavier arguments.
Attending the conference, I became aware of a recurring mistake made in academic discussions about the concept of kyaramoe, or the visual features of a character which generate strong emotion in those who look at it, to put it somewhat succinctly. I want to actually elaborate on this in a future post, so I'll save my thoughts for now.
The last thing conference-related I'd like to mention is Yun Seongcheol's paper on an old Korean comic titled Rayphie (rhymes with "sci-fi"), which I found quite interesting. Unlike modern "manhwa" which can be roughly described as manga-esque, the older Rayphie (unfortunately I can't remember the exact dates, but it was somewhere between 1950 and 1970, I believe) is more of a hybridization between American superhero comics aesthetic and elements of Korean traditional art. According to Yun, the series enjoyed its own fair share of success, but a period of censorship killed it prematurely. While I don't think that current manhwa is simply trying to mimic the popularity of manga, I do wonder what the Korean comics landscape would have been like if comics like Rayphie had been allowed to persist.
As for the rest of my brief stay in Korea, my experience can probably be summed up as "food and comics." Whenever I travel I look forward to eating a variety of things, and this was certainly no exception, especially given the strong reputation Korean food has, and of that experience my favorite part must have been going to a night market and trying a variety of things. While I generally enjoy tteokbokki, chewy rice cakes in a spicy sauce, I was especially impressed by the liver I had there. Tasting more like actual meat than internal organ, it was probably the best liver I've ever had. I also took the opportunity to compare bulgogi burgers from McDonald's, Burger King, and Lotteria. My verdict is that Lotteria has the best-tasting meat, while McDonald's has the best sauce.
As for comics, I was sadly unable to visit the Manhwa museum in Seoul, but was able to make my way to a nice comic store in Hongdae called Booksaetong. There, I found it interesting that, unlike the US or countries in Europe, that the manhwa and the manga were all mixed together instead of given their own separate spaces.
So overall, visiting Korea and attending the Mechademia Conference was a learning experience, in more ways than one.
The production of popular anime 'Ghost in the Shell' series’ new project 'Ghost in the Shell Arise'has been announced.
This 'Ghost in the shell' series is a cyberpunk based on Shirow Masamune’s popular manga which was released in Young Magazine Kaizokuban in 1989. Setting in the near future in Japan where technology has been advanced drastically, it tells a story about the members of 'Public Security Section 9', which was organized to oppose an epidemic of computer crime and cyber terrorism.
In 1995, its anime film adaptation 'Ghost in the Shell' directed by Oshii Mamoru was released, and Oshii also directed the sequel titled 'Innocence' in 2004.
Apart from Oshii Mamoru’s anime film adaptation, there has also been TV anime series 'Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex' (in 2002), 'Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2nd GIG' (in 2004), and 'Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. Solid State Society' (in 2006) directed by Kamiyama Kenji.
'Arise' will be animated by Production I.G, and Kise Kazuchika has been chosen as the general director. It was also announced that Ubukata Tow who is known for his novel 'Tenchi Meisatsu', will be in charge of the script and composition, and Cornelius will be in charge of its music. Moreover, the author of the original manga, Shirow Masamune will also participate in the new project.
No other details on 'Arise' have been revealed at this moment, but a press conference will be held at the Nicofarre in Roppongi on February 12th starting at 6:00 pm. At the press conference, more details including the format of the anime and a teaser will be revealed. There will also be a talk show by its staff members and guests. Reportedly, the press conference will be live broadcast on the official site (here).
