Otaku Literacy

[TaranT]

Otaku Literacy

I believe otaku are a new breed born in the 20th century visual culture era. In other words, otaku are people with a viewpoint based on an extremely evolved sensitivity toward images. — Toshio Okada, Introduction to Otakuology

In the 1993 premier issue of Wired, a feature article introduced English-speaking geekdom to Japanese otaku, “the incredibly strange mutant creatures who rule the universe of alienated Japanese zombie computer nerds.” Since then, the term has taken on a life of its own in the United States, shedding many of the negative and antisocial associations attached to the term in Japan. Web sites such as otakuworld.com or theotaku.com use the term as a stand-in for anime fandom.

Overseas, anime otaku — fans of Japanese anime —practice an emergent form of media literacy that, though still marginal, is becoming increasingly pervasive among a rising generation. Anime otaku are media connoisseurs who seek out esoteric content and organize their social lives around viewing, interpreting, and remixing these media works. Otaku translate and subtitle all major anime works, create web sites with hundreds and thousands of members, stay in touch 24/7 on hundreds of IRC channels, and create fan fiction, fan art, and anime music videos that rework the original works into sometimes brilliantly creative and often subversive alternative frames of reference. Curious? Check out sites such as animemusicvideos.com, cosplay.com, or animesuki.com to get a sense of this burgeoning subculture.

Although fan cultural production is denigrated by media professionals as “merely” derivative and lacking in originality, it is worth considering what forms of knowledge, literacy, and social organization are being fed by these activities. To support their media obsessions otaku acquire challenging language skills and media production crafts of scripting, editing, animating, drawing, and writing. They mobilize socially to create their own communities of interest and working groups to engage in collaborative media production and distribution.

The activities of otaku may seem extreme and marginal, but otaku culture may represent one prototype for emergent forms of literacy. Much as the growing strength of digital technology was tied to the rise of geek chic, the growing visibility of otaku culture worldwide seems symbiotic with the ascendancy of visual culture and communication in the 21st century.

This is an extract from A Global Imperative - The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit (April, 2005) (pdf file).

[dokidoki]

Check out sites such as animemusicvideos.com, cosplay.com, or animesuki.com to get a sense of this burgeoning subculture.

Ouch. That site doesn't even load for me any more. Social mobilisation indeed.

I was wondering if she's related to Joi Ito. (a name I've come across in various articles) Apparently so. That article mentions the Annenberg Center for Communication, which recently hosted a talk on AMVs and other fanworks.

[SnhKnives]

very interesting

[BasharOfTheAges]

Subversive you say? Why thank you

[DJ_Izumi]

We speak moonlanguage?

[TaranT]

Check out sites such as animemusicvideos.com, cosplay.com, or animesuki.com to get a sense of this burgeoning subculture.

Ouch. That site doesn't even load for me any more. Social mobilisation indeed.

I was wondering if she's related to Joi Ito. (a name I've come across in various articles) Apparently so. That article mentions the Annenberg Center for Communication, which recently hosted a talk on AMVs and other fanworks.

Heh, I got that quote by following a different link from Annenberg, after hitting a link at Convergence Culture, which was linked from Reason's Hit & Run.

Another quote:

...Fansubs are not the only example of fan-level non-market production by anime groups....While fan fiction and fan art are forms of fan production that have a counterpart in Japan, anime music videos are a post-digital phenomenon that currently exist only in overseas anime fandoms that rely on digital distribution. Fans will take commercial anime footage, strip out the soundtrack, and re-edit it to conform to a song or another soundtrack of their choosing. Often these creations are parodies of the commercial narrative or illustrate latent themes or backstories. They also are cultural mash-ups that localize Japan-origin visual media for the sensibilities and cultural referents of overseas fans. Anime footage edited to Euro-American popular music is a new cultural form arising from the experiences of cross-cultural fandom. Although these are “derivative works” that don’t depend on the craftwork of drawing and animating, even a cursory review of these productions reveals often stunning new forms of visual literacy unique to the digitally networked age. Esoteric cultural referents to anime characters and narratives are embedded in visual cues edited to conform to the audio track through lipsynch, rapid-fire cuts, and often-sophisticated labor-intensive digital effects.

Although there are a handful of cases where anime music video creators have been asked to take their wares off the net by corporations, these moves have rarely been initiated by the Japanese anime companies. Rather, it has been the US licensors or record labels that own the soundtracks used in the mash-up videos that have been sending the cease and desist letters. It is difficult to know whether we are witnessing a momentary and fragile peace or the dawn of a golden era for overseas anime fandoms....

source (skip down to Transnational Anime Fandom)

[trythil]

Cool! More ways to get sued!

[Zero1]

We are weeaboos and they know it.

[Orwell]

What the hell does literacy have to do anything with it? Is literacy supposed to be a umbrella term for covering any sort of understanding? Or are they saying that these fan communities tend to be to speak like a respectable person instead of 31337!575 or some other nonsense.

Those companies should sue all makers of fan work, because profits can only be hurt by those dirty nasty pirates. Everyone knows that whatever a record company puts out will be swallowed up by the masses without a thought for quality.

[older_gohan]

What he's trying to get across is the idea that these fan based sites which support fan made items such as fictional stories, fan made music videos, and fan art are actually helping them. It's caused a greater education that teachers probably couldn't hope to achieve. The main reason is because while we love doing it, we are taking time to create these "Master pieces" which in turn is honing our writing skills, drawing skills, and video editing skills.

Really fanfiction is helping the youth of america and the world become more literate. Kind of an interesting spin.

He also duly noted that many of busts on copyright come from U.S. Licensers and not Japanese anime companies. Obviously Japan sees the good coming from this while many of U.S. companies are worried to much about their own pockets.