A Final Fantasy

The anime film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children is a demonstration of what computer-animated imagery is capable of today. The detail of the animation, movement and gestures (ok, not all gestures) is astonishing. In a sense, Advent Children expresses the superhumanity of its characters through its speed (assuming that the scenes are still fluent and coherent if played in slow motion), where the movie The Matrix chose the opposite approach by introducing “bullet-time” (slow motion). To be honest, the action scenes were beyond my sensual capacities, making the attempt to grasp the details a pretty exhausting experience.
To this extent, Advent Children shares some commonality with what Walter Benjamin (1936) called “shock effect of the film” in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. He used the term to describe the interruption of any associative process due to mere speed of changing images in movies. Benjamin considered this shock effect to be an equivalent to the peril of his time, and even argued that it helps people to get used to the permanent and growing danger that surrounds them.
Couldn’t it be that movies like Advent Children demand a new kind of literacy from their audience? While for Benjamin, the movies of his time prevented the viewers from contemplating their content, Advent Children seems to suggest to abandon any hope of sensually perceiving its content fully in the first place. Maybe the experience is more relaxing if we don’t try to decode the fast movement. Instead, we might have to encode the complex action, meaning to perceive a high speed battle as singular algorithmic event and concentrate on its result, 0 or 1, win or loose and its connection to the next event or unit. In this sense, it resembles the genre of role-playing games, in which its model, Final Fantasy VII, is located. Even the development of the protagonist of the movie is expressed in terms of the character development in video games, namely increased fighting skills.
Such literacy would not only target the content, but also the visual representation of the movie. In this respect, Advent Children reminded me of my own experience and observations of the first-person-shooter Quake III Arena. Here, the player can configure and adjust her graphics in order to change the information sent to her screen. Referring to Retaux and Rouchier (2002), Jesper Juul (2005: 139-140) for example illustrates how the player can reduce graphical detail (see figure 1).

Figure 1: High (top) and low (bottom) graphical detail in Quake II Arena. Source: Juul 2005, p.140.

If my memory of the modification Quake III Rocket Arena isn’t mistaken, the players can further manipulate their camera to depict a wider angle, thereby increasing the range of vision. This leads to a distorted view that has something of a fisheye-lens, in exchange for more information on the screen. According to Juul, this is not only done in order to improve performance, but also shows that “[e]xperienced players shift their focus from the fictional world of the game to the game as a set of rules. […] Skilled players know that the textures on the wall are not relevant to the playing of the game.”
In a similar way, Advent Children seems to demand from its viewers to develop “functional viewing strategies” – including a new kind of configured visualization. Maybe it shows one (distant but possible) future of movie experience. Parallel to the individual configurations allowed in Quake III, a new kind of individualized movie could allow the viewer to decide, how much information she would like to get. Although still very much related to varying internet connection speed, video streaming often facilitates a choice of high and low quality (resolution). In a sense, this already is a first step in the direction of individualized visualization. Does Advent Children point in the direction of such a final fantasy of computer-aided viewing? Would we want it to?

Streaming for Profit: Crunchyroll vs. GOMtv.net

In the age of streaming media, entertainment companies of all varieties are wracking themselves trying to figure out ways to monetize internet video, or at least to recoup the expenses required to run a stream. While the most common method is to utilize some sort of ad system, some sites come out with paid subscriptions. The content is free, up to a certain point, but if you want more you have to shell out some cash. Among these sites are the anime/j-drama/k-drama resource, Crunchyroll, and the center of the Korean Starcraft II scene, GOMtv.net. Both sites use ads, and both sites have subscription services which can remove those ads, as well as give access to higher-quality video, but Crunchyroll and Gomtv.net take two very different, almost opposing approaches to their subscription services.

When you pay for a Crunchyroll subscription, you're paying for speed. Crunchyroll's game is simulcasting. Shows that air in Japan are on Crunchyroll mere hours later. However, in order to see the shows as soon as possible, you have to pay for it. The content eventually becomes available for the non-paying viewers, but it requires a 7-day wait, and for those who thrive on discussing the latest, greatest(?) anime with their friends, that waiting period can become a death sentence for their social life among fellow fans by forcing them out of the loop. Crunchyroll provides a service for those who can't simply can't wait for even fansubs to appear online, drawing power from the "I want it right here, right now" attitude common to anime fandom.

But when it comes to GOMtv.net, you're paying for flexibility. Showing primarily competitive Starcraft II with both English and Korean casts, the stream during the live broadcasts of matches are free. Anyone can tune in around the world, provided they've also downloaded the proprietary "GOM Player," which could be much more of a hassle if it weren't for the fact that the Gom Player is designed much like VLC to be an all-in-one media player. However, once the matches for the day are over, they now become paid content, aside from a handful of previews. GOMtv's subscription gives you the ability to view recordings of the matches after they've happened, which allows you to watch them at your own leisure, rather than having to watch its tournaments during their designated times, which due to varying time zones can be as bad as 4am in the morning or at 10am in the middle of a busy work day.

 

One area that I think is worth analyzing is the value of an instance of the product put out over time, that is, given a single unit, either an episode of a show or a full set between two players, what happens when someone sees it the day it's out, then a week later, then a month or year later, and so on. By value I don't necessarily mean monetary value, but just more generally, how willing are people to watch older instances of a product as more and more time passes? What I am about to present is just my own conjecture, so feel free to correct me if any actual information has proven me wrong.
While Crunchyroll and GOMtv.net differ in that the former provides a wide variety of entertainment choices (dozens of shows are available) and the latter has essentially one long-running show in the form of Starcraft II tournaments (or two, if you want to count the Team League as a separate thing), but to make comparison easier I'm going to say that there's a Single Entertainment Product X, which has the primary trait of being designed to go on for years and is a serial product, so the results of older "episodes" directly affect newer ones (which also creates the possibility of spoilers). For the sake of convenience you can think of it as either Naruto (which is by far the most popular show on Crunchyroll) or the Global Starcraft II League (GSL). I'm also going to simplify the Crunchyroll and GOMtv models to just "starts off costing money, becomes free later" and vice versa, and not deal with the nuanced differences between the fact that "new" in Crunchyroll terms means watching it the first week and for GOM it means watching it live as well as ignore the difference in actual cost of subscriptions.

 

So let's say that the very first episode of Product X has hit Crunchyroll, and that there's already a fanbase for it, due to whatever reason such as anticipation or hype. Crunchyroll banks on the fact that people want to see it as soon as possible and charges them money for it. The people who pay to watch it are essentially saying that Product X, brand new and delivered as quickly as possible, is valuable. Once the episode is over, it becomes background knowledge for the next new episode, which also carries the same viewership value. In time, for those who have already seen these episodes, any value in them would come from how much they are worth rewatching. But while Crunchyroll decides that money is to be had in being first, this concept of "rewatch value" appears to have more cache with the GOMtv.net system. By asking you nothing for the initial viewing but putting a price tag on subsequent viewings, GOMtv.net prioritizes not just convenience and flexibility to watch it at your own leisure, but that returning to past instances of the product is also very important.

But not everyone is already a fan. For people completely new to the product, it doesn't necessarily matter that Crunchyroll gets it faster than anyone else, and over time it matters less and less when exactly a given episode was made. There is nothing necessarily stopping someone from paying for the Crunchyroll subscription, but they would probably need a reason to do so, and while it is certainly possible to ignore the previous content, the fact that Product X builds upon past events means that it engenders a potential feeling of "missing out" unless one watches the back catalog. For Crunchyroll, because the entirety of this back catalog is free (ignoring instances where streaming rights fade), it becomes easier for someone who is not interested in watching to start watching. GOMtv.net and its free initial stream can attract people, but for those unfamiliar with the product being put out, it requires the idea that, while what happened in the past is important, it's not vital to enjoying it. At the same time, it does not offer much reason outright to subscribe to someone who isn't already a fan, and the preview it provides is rather sparse. If they do become a fan however, those older episodes may rise in value, as they help explain how the product arrived at its current, presumably enjoyable point. Here, GOMtv.net would have the edge, provided that accessing that history is considered worthwhile. However, deciding to watch the new material despite having not seen what came prior does not necessarily guarantee that the older episodes will be visited in retrospect, especially if the viewer prioritizes "what happened" over "how it happened."

Of course, despite the fact that I actively ignored the subtleties in each model to give a rough idea of how a product is handled, the difference between solvency and net loss or moderate and high success is probably in the details. Going back to the difference between "new" as defined by Crunchyroll and GOMtv.net, I think that GOMtv.net's model could be better served by having the live broadcast re-streamed two or three times that day or perhaps even re-run for 24 hours to compensate for the enormous time zone differences that can exist between Korea and the rest of the world. I also think GOM's system might be more attractive to old-fashioned companies who may feel afraid to just give the viewer total control of their entertainment product. In time, I think things will shift closer to the Crunchyroll model, but that method also makes it difficult to make a profit off of older material. While perhaps it gains value in becoming a free resource to entice new customers, it does leave the impression that these products are not inherently valuable but rather have value applied to them through their consumers.

Otaku-culture on public display

Last week, subculture made news in Japan, when an exhibition of subculture art at the Seibu department store in Shibuya (Tokyo) was suddenly cancelled in reaction to claims from customers. According to NHK and JCAST, several visitors found the displayed artworks to be improper for a department store. Although the organizers have not made the claims public, it seems that they were not related to any particular works. Since the problem could not be identified, Seibu decided to cancel the exhibition, which was originally scheduled to be on display until the 6th of February, on February 1st.
This seems odd, as Japanese subculture, especially the so-called otaku-culture, which is associated with the works displayed in the exhibition, is more popular than ever before. During the past years, Japanese manga, anime, videogames, etc. have gained increasing attention around the world and especially in Japan itself, where today, their global popularity attracts the economy, politicians, and academics.
According to Nihon University professor and subculture expert Nakagawa Hideki, who is quoted in the JCAST article, the otaku-culture is not a subculture any more, but rather part of the mainstream. He argues that the claims are motivated by an understanding of subculture, that is shaped by the experience of "anti-social elements" in the 1960s. This seems to suggest that it was not the content of the exhibition itself, that caused the problem, but a general caution against everything that is associated with subculture.
While acknowledging the strong impact the aftermath of 1968 had in Japan, I would still suggest that this is only part of the problem, the other part of which is hidden by the terms mainstream and subculture. I do not want to get into discussions about the various definitions of these concepts, but I think that the example above shows that the acceptance of art forms and contents is not only a question of popularity or economic success within a society (as mainstream vs. subculture might easily suggest). Rather, it might be helpful to think about the situation in the old-fashioned terms of high culture and low culture and their hierarchical relation in specific spaces. While the case of the Seibu exhibition indicates that the otaku-culture moves towards public awareness and maybe even partial acceptance, it also suggests that figures, cosplay fashion, and the wide variety of illustrations, amateur manga and other elements of the otaku-culture are still the "uncanny" in the sense of the German word "das Unheimliche" introduced by Freud, literaly meaning something that is not homely. In other words, I would argue that the reaction to the exhibition can be read as an indicator of the anxiety such artworks trigger in some people (with a certain power or status that allows them to speak up in this environment) due to their difference from the familiar in a particular environment, in this case a prestigious department store that has a long history as host for cultural exhibitions.
While the otaku-culture may be one mainstream or part of a certain mainstream in Japan (I have doubts about the analytic viability of these concepts today), it seems striking that, given the volume of this culture today, it’s display is still strongly confined to certain areas (like Akihabara and Ikebukuro, the private spaces at home, rental video stores, pachinko and slot machines) and temporal events. One might argue that this is partly the source of its attractiveness (individuality, temporal, non-binding engagements). But it also means that such “mainstream” culture can go unnoticed if one chooses to stay away, or at least be received very selectively - until it "goes public". It might be interesting to look at these processes of private and public selection and their effects more closely and to understand the power relations and evaluations at work in the case of manga, anime, and the otaku-culture in general.

“Tiger Mask” donation and Superhero Illusion

written by Mari Nakamura

A number of children’s homes in Japan have been receiving anonymous donations of school bags and other gifts since Christmas Day, under the name of manga hero “Tiger Mask” or “Naoto Date.” Tiger Mask is the ring name of a professional wrestler in a popular Japanese manga and anime in 1960s and 1970s. In the plot, the hero of the manga, Naoto Date, who grows up in an orphanage becomes a professional wrestler, donates his winnings to the orphanage to his childhood orphanage. Inspired by “Tiger Mask” donors, such benefactions to the children’s homes have become a nationwide phenomenon – the number of donations has reached 290 so far, according to a report in the Nikkei Shinbun. Not surprisingly, the mass media in Japan have covered this phenomenon as a heartwarming story.

Indeed, it is supposed to be welcoming news since it brings peoples’ attentions to children’s homes, in which more than 30,000 youngsters age 1 to 18 are living. They are often neglected by the Japanese society. Nevertheless, this phenomenon, to me, is not merely “a heartwarming story.”

We, perhaps, can see this phenomenon as a reflection of peoples’ illusion in the Freudian sense. For Freud, ‘An ‘illusion’ is a belief which may or may not be false, but which is held by the agent because it satisfies a wish.’ (Geuss 1981: 39)*. Becoming a hero is a belief which may or may not be false and one’s chance is rather slim but the reason one still believes that one will become a hero is that this belief satisfies some wish one has. In other words, the agent can fulfill their wish of being a hero via the “Tiger Mask” donation. Donation is a convenient means of fulfilling their wishes in this case. Making an anonymous donation in the name of manga hero is a process of wish fulfillment of the agent. This may appeal to some people with the illusion since this is more real and successful than other attempts to become a hero, i.e. playing video-games or cosplay (costume-play). One’s goodwill action as a hero is also acknowledged by the recipients, and the acknowledgements will be reinforced in the widespread reports of the mass media.

Of course, I do not want to criticise those donors and claim that all donors hold such illusions behind their goodwill. However, in some cases anonymous donations have reportedly been made under the name of other cartoon characters, such as Yabuki Jo, Laputa, Ayanami Rei, etc. If these donors simply want to make a donation they do not need to do it under the names of hero. They, more likely, want to fulfill their wishes becoming a hero.

If anonymous donations are driven by aforementioned illusion, it may be very interesting to think about the following questions: to what extent people’s external behaviors are driven by their illusions; what is the relationship between the reality (i.e. reading manga or making donations) and the illusion (becoming a hero)?

At any rate, the “Tiger Mask” donation is certainly more than "a heartwarming story."

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*Geuss, Raymond (1981) The Idea of a Critical Theory Habermas and the Frankfurt School, London: Cambridge University Press.

What Is That Funny S-Shape?

In the history of comics, one of the great success stories has to be Thomas Nast, whose political cartoons were key in removing the corrupt New York politician William “Boss” Tweed from office and crippling his established power base. One of the reasons Nast’s cartoons worked where other avenues met with less results was that they could be understood by the illiterate; one only needed to see the fat man with a sack of money for a head to connect 2 and 2 together.

Nast is certainly not the first instance of using images to circumvent illiteracy, but as literacy rates have improved drastically in the 130 years or so since Tweed, you don’t really see comics having to deal with a population of specifically illiterate adults. Yes, there are works for children that do so, but because they are aimed at the young you don’t really get the same effect. And yes, you still have political cartoons that are easily understood on the visual level (name your favorite politician and put a Hitler mustache and/or devil horns on their head), but they’re again created in an environment where literacy is assumed.


When I look at that drawing of Boss Tweed, or pictorial depictions of Biblical stories from the Middle Ages, I don’t see that as specifically Tweed and that it’s a statement of corruption or that this painting is indeed the story of Job. I feel as if I do not have the right context, too far-removed from those times, and that in addition to that limitation I am also in a way restricted by my ability to read. I cannot capture that circumstance; while I could easily pick up a current comic or cartoon meant for adults in a language I do not understand and would most assuredly succeed in not reading it, I would still have a work that was created and meant for an environment where the average adult can read, no matter how minimal the text might be, and I might not have the proper cultural context.
I of course am not encouraging or promoting illiteracy, but as the world has moved away from it, I have to wonder if we’ll lose that method of creating comics for an adult audience, a style that arose out of a particularly great limitation. I also am curious about Japan, where literacy rates have been remarkably high for a number of decade and where comics culture has also developed greatly during that period.

Counter-asia-scape-goating?

The short serial “The Japanese Tradition” by the Japanese comedians RAHMENS includes various enjoyable parodies on different cultural aspects of Japan and can be found on youtube with English subtitles. I most enjoyed the one called “Sushi”, which claims to teach the viewer (foreigners?) how a sushi restaurant works and how one has to behave there. RAHMENS employ a great variety of exaggerations and “fake” information, but season it with what I conceived of as “true” statements about the Japanese culture and society (which, in the end, might say more about me than about the film). To me, the interesting question here is, what exactly RAHMENS are making fun of in “The Japanese Tradition”? Before explaining this any further, I would like to encourage you to watch the 8-minutes-movie [here] and decide for yourself before reading any further…
[hopefully 10 minutes pass by…]
My first impression was, that this is a parody on Japanese culture (sushi) and Japanese society. As such, it was fun to watch because I could tell where they are exaggerating or faking and where the information is “true” (but nevertheless provides a critical view). At least I thought I could… Thinking about this a little more, I realized that I am not at all able to completely distinguish between fake and “true” information in the film. This feeling might be even stronger with anybody who is not familiar with Japanese culture or its global entities, and who might for example have no reason to doubt that you have to dip your sushi into the soy sauce until the weight changes (which is very “dangerous”, since the sushi falls apart when soaked with soy sauce). Aren’t RAHMENS actually mocking me by confronting me with my perception of Japan, my personal asia-scape-goating. And doesn’t this parody then, work better, the more I think I know about Japan? From this prespective, the topics that come up in “Sushi” can be categorized in some general fields where (Western) stereotypes converge. Critique of whale-hunting and related topics might have been the source for the idea to show that, by asking the cook for his suggestion, you get access to a variety of dishes made from protected species.
It would be interesting to know, whether this is intended by RAHMENS or not, whether they had a foreign audience in mind and deliberately played with this audiences images of Japan as a place where they eat anything and don’t care about extinction of species at all, but this cannot be answered here (although I think their target audience is located in Japan). To me, the more interesting question is, whether this kind of parody created by deliberately blending “fake” and “true” self-criticism can be a strategy to engage with the asia-scape-goating of others in a thoughtful and productive way, a form of counter-asia-scape-goating? And, would I think of it in these terms if it was produced by a Western group?

Dream or Nightmare? Kon Satoshi’s Paprika

written by Mari Nakamura

“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”, Sigmund Freud says [1]. Psychologists have used dream analysis but they can only ask people about their dreams when people had woken up. So it would be wonderful if we could electronically record and interpret dream. Writing in the journal Nature, the US researcher Dr. Moran Cerf said his research team has developed a system for recording higher-level brain activity, “We would like to read people’s dreams” [2]. Dr. Cerf’s project aims to develop a system that would allow psychologists to corroborate people’s recollections of their dream with visualisation of their brain activity.

If we could record and interpret dreams and find clues to the unconscious mind, would it be possible for us to control the unconsciousness? Furthermore, once the unconscious mind is controlled, is this also affect to the consciousness? The Japanese science fiction animation film, Paprika (2006) [3] deals with these psychological/philosophical issues.

Paprika is based on the novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui (1993) [4], and is directed by the late Kon Satoshi. The film is about a device, the DC-Mini that permits psychologists to enter people’s dream. The DC-Mini is developed by a group of scientists and one of the members, Atsuko Chiba, is using the machine for psychiatric therapy secretly with her alter-ego Paprika. One day three DC-Mini are stolen and the inventor Tokita reveals that these devices were unfinished products and the user can enter peoples’ dreams and manipulate their unconscious minds. As the investigation continues, Chiba and her associates find that in fact, the DC-Mini also allow users to manipulate dreams and delusions when people are awake. The reality and the dream in this context are merged.

Dreams start invading realities and things become fluid. The distinction between the reality (the conscious) and the dream (the unconscious) is no longer clear. We are not sure which one, Chiba or Paprika, is herself or her alter-ego anymore. The film here raises a series of questions about the idea of control – what it mean today, how to take control, on what to do when we take it. In the film, Chiba thinks she controls over Paprika and Paprika should obey her. In this sense Paprika is subject to Chiba. Yet, Paprika raised a question to Chiba, “Have you ever thought that maybe you are a part of me to think that you can control yourself and others?” Paprika points out a possibility of her control over Chiba. The relation between subject and object is reversed in this aspect. Who does control whom? The distinction between subject and object is blurred. In this vein, the very meaning of what being in control is no longer clear.

The film Paprika provides us an interesting example to think about the concepts of reality/dream, consciousness/ unconsciousness, control and subject/object. Once the dream record device becomes ‘possible’, will it be a dream or a nightmare?

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[1] Sigmund Freud, cited in Quinodoz (2005:36). Jean-Michel Quinodoz, Reading Freud: a chronological exploration of Freud's writings Volume 1 of New library of psychoanalysis. New York:Taylor & Francis, 2005.

[2] Pallab Ghosh, ‘Dream Recording Device ‘Possible’ Researcher Claims’. BBC news on 27 October 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11635625

[3] Satoshi Kon, Paprika, 2006.

[4] Yasutaka Tsutsui, Paprika, Tokyo:Chuokoronsha, 1993.