So I’m while looking up my bibliography sources, I came across cyberculture and started thinking of two media based sources I want to explore in regards to that, one of them the webcomic “Fisheye Placebo” by Yuumei, as it was on Deviantart that it started on.
“Rise” from the webcomic “Fisheye Placebo” by Yuumei Yuumei Art – Fisheye Placebo
“Yuumei (幽冥 or 幽明) means light and darkness, strange and deep, hades, and semidarkness. Not to be confused with yuumei (有名) which ironically means famous. The 12 year old me who picked this name did not foresee this.” – Yuumei.
And the anime “Psycho-Pass” as it covers both the cyberculture crosscurrent in otaku culture and the larger themes of mental and emotional health and its role in society.
“The story takes place in an authoritarian future dystopia, where omnipresent public sensors continuously scan the mental states of every passing citizen. Collected data on both present mentality and aggregated personality data is used to gauge the probability of that citizen committing a crime, the rating referred to as that citizen’s Psycho-Pass. Authorities are alerted whenever excessive ratings are detected, and officers of the Public Safety Bureau are dispatched with weapons called ‘Dominators’, energy pistols that modulate their power in response to the target’s Psycho Pass. The story follows Shinya Kogami and Akane Tsunemori among other members of Unit One of the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division.” – quick synopsis from Wikipedia
The main investigation team in “Psycho-Pass”, heavily influenced by “Blade Runner”.
It also ties in police corruption in Japan and is reflective of what I’ve been looking into with the stigma’s basis in otaku culture stemming from the Miyazaki case.
Mental health is a large and not surprisingly less talked about issue in the otaku community, given it is and has been a steady fuel source of stigma. Another reason why I want to include “Psycho-Pass”.
With a lot of these heavier themes now in some way addressed, I want to begin bringing in the specific anime and manga that shows the opposite of what the stigmas say about otaku culture and the ones that have had the greatest positive impact, whether critically, culturally and/or within the community.
I still need to go into the subculture itself and issues specific to it, such as NEETS and weeaboos and other subcultures that are often confused with the otaku subculture and the crossovers with them, and compare and contrast American otaku culture from Japanese otaku culture, where they overlap. Influences in other cultures possibly, such as with Korean webtoons.
At this point, trying to explain all of this fells like the way Charlie in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” tries to prove that “Pepe Silvia” doesn’t exist, used in a lot of the more complicated fandom based reaction meme looks. And while posting this I realized this is also another reference to things in fandom based cultures, like otaku culture, and how many geek/nerd based cultures overlap and have similar issues:
Original Image
The original image character Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” trying to explain how the person Pepe Silvia doesn’t exist and is used often in reaction memes.
Modified for “Game of Thrones”
Explaining “Game of Thrones” meme using the Pete Silvia image.
Then the cross over memes, such as the anime “Attack on Titan” and “Supernatural”:
A GIF from the series “Supernatural” used to explain the plot of the anime, not manga, “Attack on Titan” or “Shingeki no Kyojin”, as simply as possible, which is also an inside joke.
Or this one every student can related to:
A homework meme featuring the anime character “Naruto”.
And there is still the issues being generated by films such as the live action “Ghost in the Shell” and Hollywood in general, and those in Hollywood who could or do have influence specific to anime.
I also want to demonstrate through all of this research, most of it prior to coming to my coming to Evergreen, in regards to my “home”, how it could not have been done completely alone. That otaku culture is not sitting in front of a screen, watching videos, playing games, spending money on merchandise while eating Pocky and yelling random Japanese phrases and words all day without a life.
I also may use more meme and social media related items in light of showing what being part of the otaku subculture is about.
And then there is also the anime fandom vs. the sports fandom and it’s crossover:
A sample of various sports anime that crossover the typical understanding of what it means to watch sports.
An image comparing an anime fan’s room and a sports fan’s room, both similarly covered in merchandise from their respective cultural interests.