Manga, video games and all the avatars of the “ culture otaku Have been presented as so many more or less abruptizing shelters for young badly in their skin. Based on the works of Lyotard and Baudrillard, a young Japanese philosopher says on the contrary that they are the emblem of this simulacrum “ postmodern »What has become of Japanese society.
Di-Gi Charat is a young girl, dressed in a soubrette costume, who has cats and cat ears on the head. It is an element of what is called in Japan “ culture otaku ». This Japanese word, which originally means “at home”, refers to an enthusiast, fanatic follower of this or that interior activity. By extension, he designates the amateur of Japanese cultural productions, which embrace manga, cartoon, science fiction, game consoles, computer hacking, films Tokusatsu (with special effects, of the Sankukai, X-Or or Bioman type), etc.
How to explain the success of Di-Gi Charat, a figure designed as a logo for a company, which has become a very popular manga character ? Above all, this character is not the only one in its kind. If we go to the Japanese site Tinami, devoted to culture otakua search engine allows, by checking different boxes, to find all the heroines in soubrette costumes, all those at cat ear, etc.
One could wonder about the meaning of the physical characteristics of heroines (antennas as symbols of an extra-sensitive communication ? Soubret costume as a symbol of a social condition ?) And, in general, one might wonder if all these plots of the female body would not be the sign of the alienation of women, subject to male consumers. We would then see in Japanese video games and manga only a case of species, illustrating what Studies movieafter John Ellis or Laura Mulvey, analyzed as pornographic fetishism and the analytical voyeurism of “ male gauze ».
Several criticisms have often underlined the very strong ties that exist between pornography and “ culture otaku ». L’otaku is often considered a young superficial, selfish, screwed to his computers, damaged in virtual imagery that cuts him off from any real communication and ordinary life interactions in society. If this prejudice is old, it was reactivated in Japan in the late 1980s by the case of Tsutomu Miyazaki. It was indeed discovered that this Japanese criminal, arrested in 1989, accused of having killed four little girls and of having devoured part of their bodies, was a great otakuthat he had thousands of video cassettes and erotic manga, which wiped into his apartment to the point of obstructing the windows. After this case had burst, culture otaku was definitely associated with the idea of sexual pathologies and men saturated with virtual worlds, full of violent and pornographic imaging. Wonder about culture otakuher video games and manga, it would once again be questioning the sexuality of young people, to declare that, of course, she is bad.
Consumption of stories
This very “ o Tempora, o Mores Is not the one held by Hiroki Azuma. This young Japanese philosopher has dive into culture otakuto explain the principles of its functioning, which he analyzes from Lyotard and Baudrillard. As the subtitle of the work indicates, “ The children of postmodernity », The conceptual framework is posed from The postmodern condition de Lyotard. This dimension “ postmodern »Of culture otaku stems from the fact that the practice of video games and reading manga is simply defined as a consumption of “ signs “Or” stories “, Without any framework coming to organize or stage them.
This postmodernity is marked by several characters: decline of “ big stories »» ; generalization of simulacra ; derivative creation playing with codes – all points thatzuma formalizes in what he calls “ collapse of the Arbre model “And to which he replaces a structure as a” database (P. 97-101).
Culture otaku abandoned the cult of great myths and great heroes (as was the case in Gundamwhich dates from 1979 and whose episodes, led by the same author, Yoshiyuki Tumino, follow the same fictitious frame) ; It now accommodates commercial characters (like Di-Gi Charat). Any work is now designed in advance with derivative products (this is the case with the universe of Evangelion), evenly blurring any difference between the work and its commercial consequences of all kinds.
The new generation otaku lost respect for the “ original work », Removing any consistency to notions like those of« influence “Or” quote ». Azuma underlines how video games make up with technical (memory capacity of personal computers) and economic (the possibility of reusing elements from one program to another) to produce its stories. These stories in turn are consumed and the characters they animate are not the subject of any identification: they are simply consumed, that is to say decomposed in their constituent elements. A digestion: such would be the ultimate meaning of deconstruction.
L’otaku is plunged into a universe of “ simulacres simulacra », Without the original/copy distinction being still relevant. These simulacres of simulacres are ingested most of the time without the consumer having the slightest awareness of the references or the references that exist between the works.
Japanese postmodernity and snobbery
Should we then consider that Azuma only applies to the Japanese video game field the concept of “ postmodernity “-A concept that may have been somewhat misguided by dint of knowing so many uses ? Azuma seems to deserve this reproach all the more since he has no effort to theorize the “ postmodern And to be in relation to the abundant literature that this model has aroused. Are these “ difference policies “, From” cultural logic of capitalism “Or a” Patchwork of overlapping alliances “, As many formulas by which we have been able to define the postmodernity and that Zeuma does not discuss ?
In fact, if the Japanese author refers to Lyotard, he also recalls that postmodernism is the subject of particularly lively debates in Japanese culture. In this way, the book of Azuma does not simply offer a simple application. On the contrary, it recalls the very strong relationship of the Japanese with the “ postmodern “: Because this country would never have been truly” modern “, He would have been able to define the spirit of postmodernity and to be propelled” at the forefront of history ». We were able to use in this regard certain analyzes of Kojève, famous in Japan: in a note to his Introduction to Hegel readingKojève had opposed the animalization of American culture to snobbery of the Japanese world. Declaring that Japan would have experienced the “ End of history For several centuries, this country would have constituted as a prefiguration of the future of global culture: what would explain the vogue of postmodern thought. All this restores ultimately (non-postmodern thesis if any !) The idea of a direction of history that would make Japan a prefiguration of the future of global culture after the end of history.
It is these theses that the book of Azuma exams: the links between postmodernity and Japan go in the direction of snobbery or, on the contrary, can they escape the animalization which characterizes the way of life of Americans as well as that of the Russians or the Chinese ? The case of culture otaku serves as a prism to Azuma to analyze Japan claims to exemplify this snobbery from the future.
The question for manga creators is whether to tell stories to seduce consumers and, above all, to know how to do it. The end of “ big stories “Which marks postmodernity does not mean that game consumers are not yet in demand for” small stories ». But in what form ? Azuma offers here the concept of “ Elements of attraction “(Moé): cat ears or di-gi charat antennas are such “ elements And all the characters now seem to be only assemblies of attractive elements, elements available on a market and as such infinitely decomposing and recomposed.
THE otaku would know, according to Azuma, a process of “ animalization In the mode of satisfaction of their desire. Without necessarily pouring into pornography, theotaku So has nothing of the elaborate snob, supposedly proper in Japan postmodernity ; And if it is, despite this, postmodern, he does not escape animalization. This also explains the Japanese title Dobutsuka Suru Posutomodanthat’s to say “ animal the postmodernity ». Far from being a snob attitude, the Otaku culture would simply be an almost animal way to easily satisfy needs. It may not be the cultural mode which makes it possible to escape what Kojève called animalization, but Azuma shows us that culture otaku is nonetheless a cultural form in its own right. This exciting book has the immense merit of partially lifting the veil on the complex debates it arouses in Japan.